It's funny you should bring this up. I can't keep my T's face in my mind, either. I know that when I am with her I do look at her, and I am always shocked at how stunning she is. BUT, when we are away I have trouble recalling her face. It will be interesting to hear others experiences with this, or if anyone else has had similar issues. I am wondering if it is disassociation?

--Brokes

Well, my T has a photo of him on both of the websites for his practices and I also have one of him on his Skype profile for our long-distance sessions...so, I can consult any time I want. But, yes, especially in the beginning, I had trouble holding onto the image of him. Now, I still struggle to hold onto his voice, even after a year together. I am always surprised about how warm and kind it sounds, because I forget that so quickly. If any attachment stuff is being stirred up, I can barely look at him at all, so it is really hard for the parts that need him desperately to really feel connected, which is unfortunate.

Hi Forgetmenot,
It took me a long time to learn to hold onto my T's appearance. And I think it's a combo of disassociation and lack of object constancy.

When we are first learning to stay and not disassociate, we are often highly activated. When you are really scared, the limbic system actually floods your brains with hormones that effectively take the frontal lobe "offline" so that when you're amygdala (whose job is make sure you survive at all costs) screams to do something like "run" or "fight" your frontal lobe won't interfere. It's kind of like a life guard trying to rescue someone who is so panicked that they're fighting the lifeguard. The lifeguard knocks them out so they can get them to safety and sorts it out later.

So you're ability to think is literally compromised. So between activation and actual disassociation you are literally not inputting the stimuli that would allow you to form a memory.

The second factor is something called object constancy, which is basically a fancy term for how well can you hang unto someone when they're not right in front of you. Object constancy is something all human beings need to learn in relationship. When babies are born, they do not recognize a self and other, they believe that they are one with the mother. As they grow and develop, they start to differentiate and understand that they are a different person. But that can get scary because they need the "other" to survive. So when the "other" leaves it can be quite terrifying. It's the reason babies cry when left alone or when a parent leaves. So we slowly teach a child that going away is not permanent by starting with very short intervals and increasing them as they get older. Which is why a 10 year old is usually a lot calmer when a parent leaves, then a three year old is. A really good way to understand this is the game of peek-a-boo. That is often the first lesson a child learns of object constancy. We hide our face, in effect go away, but for the briefest of intervals and then we come back. Which is why a child is often so delighted when playing because it's a warm secure feeling to have the person "appear" again. Eventually we learn that a person continues to exist when they are away from us and that we still exist for them.

For people with insecure attachment, who could not trust that their caregiver would be available, this process can get short circuited. We never learn how to keep a sense of connection or an ability to believe someone is still there when away from us. This literally interferes with our ability to "hang unto" our sense of our therapist being there when we're away.

When I started with my present T it was not unusual for me to spend most of a session with my eyes closed and my face covered. and it was very hard to hang unto him between sessions and that included really remembering him. There was almost a "shock" of recognition each time I would walk in, like "oh yeah, that's what he looks like, of course, how could i forget?" As I healed and my ability to remain present increased, so did my memories of my therapist and my ability to hang unto the connection in between seeing him. It helped that my T has a relative who posts a lot of family pictures on the web, so I had pictures of my T to look at in between which was quite helpful. Now that I can really trust the connection and have a very strong sense of him being there at all times, I also have a very rich mental sense of him. I can recall expressions and gestures and the sound of his voice very clearly.

So what you are experiencing sounds normal to me, and I believe it will improve as you learn to both trust your therapist and trust that she will continue to be available.

AG

Hi FMN... I too struggled to retain the image of my T and his face. When I first started seeing him I was so traumatized that I could not focus on his face at all and of course could never remember him when I left him. He also had NO web presence so here was no picture of him out there to help me remember him. I would sit there and look at him but not SEE him. It was part dissociation and part fear of seeing someone else as my T and not my oldT. As I felt safer and safer I began to "see" him, to notice and remember his clothing and to see his face in my mind.

The funny thing is that my T would drive me crazy in reminding me to LOOK at him and to maintain eye contact. If my gaze drifted he would bring me back to his face by moving his hands in towards himself. It was irritating at first because I didn't WANT to see him. He told me it was important for me to see him and look at him because otherwise I would be missing non-verbals that are important to communicate. But I also think he did it so I could have a sense of object constancy with him and so I could internalize him better to comfort me and regulate me when I was struggling with the trauma.

Aside from that I think AG gave a wonderful explanation of object contancy and remembering T's face.

TN

Wow! Thanks for all the info!

AG that was very interesting what you wrote about the game of peek-a-boo and also the science of how attachment develops Thankyou so much for that! I used to play the game with my younger sister. She would be in tears of laughter sometimes when I came back into view.

I find child development stages so interesting. It is so sad that a lot of parents do not understand or grasp how important it is. I almost feel like hospitals should create a leaflet on the importance of attachment in early months and years.

It makes me so sad to see a child crying in a pram and his/her parent ignoring them. I saw it the other week and it made me angry. The little girl was probably only about 2 years old and you could see she was in so much distress.

Oppositely I saw a Mom walking down the street. Her little toddler (must have been about 2 yrs) started crying and she stopped everything and bent down and gave him a long hug. It was so touching.

quote:

It's funny you should bring this up. I can't keep my T's face in my mind, either. I know that when I am with her I do look at her, and I am always shocked at how stunning she is

Brokes, ha, same here. My T is stunning too and she is so lovely, but the moment I leave, I cannot recall much at all. Not even her voice. I guess as AG says, within time we may remember our T's more.

TN, that must have felt really uncomfortable at first? How long until you got used to looking at him and being comfortable? When I talk I know I detach from T. Or I look away whilst I'm talking a lot. Crying is embarassing right now. Her looking at me whilst I cry makes me feel very timid and ashamed. I put my hand in front of my face for her not to see me if I am really crying and she still remains to watch. Gah.

Yaku: Ah it must have helped seeing his face there. My T isn't present on the net. I've checked FB and all that! I think she's written a few articles which stirred my interest a lot!

Great topic. Also is very relevant to me. What AG wrote makes a lot of sense to me and gave me some Aha moments. The object permanence thing is someting that is relevant.

Something I have been thinking about today before reading this is that my CHildT - whom I am attached to (but doesn't therapise me - is that a word?) - I can be with her for an hour(talking about family and kid stuff ) - but also my stuff - and I will be struggling to know a single word to say to her. Yet I can come home and write pages and pages of stuff - things I have thought about since but couldn't tell her in person. I realised today that I become frozen when I am with her - and it is because I am too scared to say something in person for fear that she will reject me or abandon me. I strongly suspect that I will be the same with T - if I become attached to her.

I always now write notes when I am with T's because without them I remember NOTHING. It stops me from dissociating as much.

When I am talkign to T - i rarely look at them - my T doesn't seem to bother about it. When they are talking I always look at them intently or I write notes. I have photos of youngT and child T and i have needed to look at ChildT this week as she has been away and I have thought I was going to die from teh abandonment!!! Looking at the photo - while I think it helped - made me feel like a total freak - that i needed to look at a photo to feel good.

SD

quote:

I realised today that I become frozen when I am with her - and it is because I am too scared to say something in person for fear that she will reject me or abandon me

Interesting you should say this, I am starting to become like this with my T. When I first started therapy, I 'threw' everything at her in detachment. The interpersonal relationship will prove to be much harder. The last session it became more interpersonal and I got very easily embarassed and timid.

I know how you feel about wanting to have a T 'present' somehow when you are feeling down. I feel a bit ashamed to admit that because of my intense thinking, I talk to myself a lot. Lately I've been imagining T in front of me whilst I go through my thoughts. It's calming but also very scary. I'm seeing T tomorrow and I'm a bit on edge incase she might not be there. I believe she will, but last minute cancellations do happen. *gulp*.

I fear my T will reject me too. I keep confirming with her that I'm not; 'too much for you, if I am, please let me know. I don't mean to be. I'm sorry. It's silly. I hate crying like this. You shouldn't have to deal with me. I'm going to be a difficult patient for you'.

I worry that I am eventually going to push her away with this needy habit for her to confirm that she will continue to see me. I feel that I am a problem patient that is too attached. What if she gets scared and can't handle it? I think.

I guess given time, we shall see..

Forgetmenot,

I figured I'd add my two cents in here. I'm just able to retain my T's face in my mind and I've been going to him for almost 4 years. But I like AG's explanation about the stress hormones interfering with memory.

Deepfriend & Liese, thanks for your inputs

I told T about this today. I often feel worried that I'm so forward with her. I tell her everything. I tell her when I feel she is 'judging' me. I get worried that something is not right because I've read so many stories of people not saying anything to they're T's about this sort of stuff until much later. I do yearn though. I yearn so much for an attachment figure. I'm thirsty without it! Maybe that's the reason.

She was lovely today, I must admit. I might not trust her and think she judges me but I trust when she says that she is supportive of the attachment thing. When I said to her that I think of her when I'm feeling low, she said

'Well I'm glad that you can keep me with you when you feel low. We can work with this'

When I said, 'You don't think it's silly?'

She laughed. But a laughter that wasn't mocking at all. It was a sort of 'Oh bless you, of course not!'. It was so nice that she chuckled at that. Ha.

I have already forgotten what she looks like. Our session ended 50 minutes ago. I can just about catch onto how she sounded.

I do have a question about the object constancy.

What if your internal images of your objects are of abusive people? And your T is telling you that they are nice and trustowrthy. Well, actually the people in my life had very nice faces and kind of puppydog faces but they could be very mean and abusive. So the image I held in my head of this loving face was really at odds with who that person was.

My T, on the other hand, has a nice face (a very nice face) but the way he presents himself IRL is so very different than the way, say, my parents presented themselves. My parents thought certain things were caring acts when in reality they were neglectful and abusive.

On top of it, I had so much negative transference to work through and so when I did actually picture my T's face in the past, it wasn't always the face of some kind person who was trying to help me. When I tried to imagine what he looked like out of session his face was somewhat villianous-looking sometimes. And I would immediately close my eyes and try to erase that image from my mind as well as the feelings the image brought up for me.

It's only at the point we are now, where I think we've worked through the majority of the negative transference that I see his face as kindly and am able to internalize that type of an image of him.

And, so I'm not sure I had a problem per se of retaining an image of him, it's just that it took a really long time to replace the old images of past figures with a more realistic image of T that was actually positive and beneficial.

I don't know if any of that makes sense or how it relates to object constancy? Would love to hear any thoughts.

Liese: How interesting..I'm thinking about this myself now. My T has a tendancy to trigger me sometimes. Sometimes through the gestures she makes and the looks she gives.

I had been talking once and she interrupted quickly to verify I had said what she thought I said. But the way she interrupted and the look she gave me was exactly that of my Dad. She felt a little threatening, as if she was my Dad in a strange sort of way.

You've given something for me to think about. Thanks Liese.

I don't have many thoughts on it unfortunately. I have only just come across object constancy from reading AG's post. It's given me some things to think over though..

Hi there Forgetmenot! I forgot you not!!!

What you described is exactly what used to happen to me. T would say something that seemed dismissive. Not necessarily about me or my feelings but say, just about some neutral thing ... but it would totally trigger me. My mother was so dismissive. And yes, it felt threatening. So I was unable for a long time to hold that gentle image in my mind of T that I so desperately needed to hold. But I can and do now, thank goodness. It took a LOOOOONNNNGGGG time for me.

Good luck with sorting it out. I think it's great that you are thinking about this stuff already and you are really only in therapy for a short time, if I recall correctly???


Liese

Hi AG,

That's interesting. So when people say they have problems with object constancy, they are NOT saying that they can't retain T in our heads BUT that they are having trouble with distortions, which actually then interfere with being able to see, say T, accurately? I think I'm confusing myself. So it more of a problem with distortions?

quote:

Good luck with sorting it out. I think it's great that you are thinking about this stuff already and you are really only in therapy for a short time, if I recall correctly???

Hey Liese. Thanks! And for you too. I plan to stay in therapy for a long time in fact. But I'm unconfident in how long my T will be there for because she is the 'low cost' scheme. She is basically just starting out. I think I would need at least a year in therapy.

quote:

Part of how we do that is to recognize when our perceptions of our Ts is colored by our past and work to replace that with the truth about them. Our object constancy with our T is not just about remembering them, it's about being able to see them without the distortions of the past.

I wonder if my trust issues with my T has something to do with the whole past. I mean...in terms of object constancy, when she makes certain gestures or facial expressions, she immediately triggers me to think 'you don't care, you will never care about me'. Both parents were emotionally neglectful with me so I wonder if my trust issues isn't to do with not knowing her character, but my general distrust of people including her. I find it hard to learn to trust her if I don't know her though. How can I get over that? If the therapeautic relationship is boundaried. Does one get to to know the therapist and they're convictions as a real person over time? I guess it will just take time and patience..

Forgetmenot,

All of your questions are really good ones and take a lot of hammering out with your T. It took me a long time to get over my distrust. Hopefully it won't take you as long.

xoxo

Liese

P.S. Yes, time and patience .. you got it!