Oh yeah, that's my favorite question.

I think I'm working very hard now not to accept my therapist's care.

I think there must be some degree of personal emotional envolvement, there must be some healthy level to which they may/must go.

I asked my T why did he choose to do this job and he replied, because he likes people. I believe he is interested in people's stories.

If I believe that he cares about me? I really don't know. The whole realtionship is so confusing to me. I don't know how much can I expect, ask for. Maybe it doesn't match the pattern, that's what's making it so confusing?
Maybe the purpose of therapy is to learn to believe that we can be cared for?

Hey Monte that’s an amazing reply! It makes such a lot of sense. Thank you for taking the time to write such a long and clear reply, it’s really made me think.

And your comment made me laugh

quote:

So for me it comes down to, ok, how much does he care. Is his 'care' a graded, linear thing? Like where on his care-ometer scale am I?

It also brought home to me the nature of what I’m trying to find an answer to - basically yeah, how do you quantify care?

I guess I’m worried because I don’t seem to really care whether my T cares or not (and that itself is suspicious given that I’m pretty needy, ok unbearably needy J). At the moment, so long as he fits the role of ‘good therapist’ I’ve assigned him, that’s enough for me. But that’s also got me wondering whether I’m being defensive and protecting myself in some way by apparently not being bothered whether he cares, and maybe that’s getting in the way of therapy being as helpful as it could be. Dunno I’m all very confused about it right now. Trying to find out what I can do to make the therapy work better.

Deep down I think I’m plain terrified to even consider whether he could care about ME - and that’s a real can of worms. But your reply has made me feel a whole lot better, because you’ve shown that it’s not easy and straightforward, to know one way or the other whether a T cares, so maybe I’m looking for certainty where there is none. :sigh: Story of my life there.

Thanks again.

Lamplighter

Hello there Amazon

Thanks so much for replying.

Lots of questions! I have no idea. I think I just assumed from reading the posts on forum generally that a lot of people seem pretty clear that their therapist does care, and it struck me as something I have no idea about but it seems important.

You know you could be right in your last comment - maybe therapy IS all about experiencing someone who does care, in a ‘proper’ way, so we can take that experience and make it real. Don’t know, just guessing here. Maybe it’s not so straightforward as I imagined. Lol now I’m even more confused.

Have to admit I find it really curious your saying that you’re working really hard now not to accept your therapist’s care. (Or are you joking?) I’m guessing feeling cared about is also tied in with transference issues (something else about which I haven’t a clue) so maybe it’s not such a good thing to have a therapist who personally cares. Hm. My brain doesn’t like it when I don’t come up with certainties, it’s not too good with the unknown.

But thanks for your comments anyway - don’t mind me, I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Lamplighter