((((HELD))))

quote:

I really admire the work you've done and your courage in
addressing everything with your T rather than just cutting and running. I think
that really demonstrates your growth and development!

Amazing that you confronted this head on. Just curious if she ever told you why that PTA meeting was so dang important?

(((TN))) (((Searching))) (((Liese)))

I just got back home from an evening out and am pretty sleepy, but read your comments and wanted to reply at least briefly.

TN, in a nutshell, I think you are right. Your words are confirming my own intuitions and reading them makes me feel more peaceful. I don't think badly of my T for any of this. . . I really do love her and she has helped me tremendously. My relationship with her, even with it's pitfalls, is probably the healthiest of my life. There is something to be said for contrast. But I don't want to muck things up by trying to take things in a direction that it doesn't seem meant to go and that she isn't even pushing. I don't think ending with her has to be bad or abrupt. I think once we get this rupture more fully repaired I will go back to coasting with just some emotional support and basic stuff, and gradually reduce the number of sessions after a little while. Not saying I won't ever talk about attachment stuff with her in the meantime, but I'm not going to try to make her into something she wasn't trained to be. Hopefully I will be able to get the balance right.

Searching,
Thanks so much for weighing in and for the informations, encouragement, and kind words. Wanted to briefly explain about this:

quote:

It sounds like you know the orientation and
way of working you want from a T, so I'd really encourage you to look for
someone who also has the same theoretical basis as you.

When I was first looking for a T awhile back, I had some sketchy knowledge about psychotherapy-- enough to make me have some preferences as far as orientation went. The problem is, I live in a small southern town and the pickings really are lean as far as therapists go. In a word, there are no psychodynamic therapists here. But I was such a mess-- SI'ing, SU ideation, practically terrified of leaving the house alone-- I just needed someone and so I interviewed some of the T's that were available. I was impressed with mine-- not the orientation I would have preferred, but she's intuitive, bright, caring, seemed to like me, made me feel safe and I felt we clicked. At first I was only intending to stick around for a few months to clear up my most dramatic issues (I hoped) but I was making a lot of progress, and the attachment set in, and I kept going back, and now it's been nearly two years. T practically brought me back from the dead and I can't say enough good things about her, but yeah. . . now that I'm more stable I'm feeling I'd like to plunge into deeper, more analytic work. It's a little sad to think that probably can't happen with her, but maybe better to accept that than to ruin what we have.

Perhaps, someday, I'll be in a position/location where that will be possible. In the meantime. . . living with some unresolved issues is not the end of the world. There is more to life than this.

I suppose I have become long winded again. It is really helping me, right now, to think about my therapy from different angles and write things out.

Liese,
Ah, the grand PTA meeting. Well, it turns out I may have been mildly mistaken about that. T originally just told me it was a meeting with other parents from her child's school that she had to be at, and I just equated that as PTA, but she told me yesterday that it was actually a meeting with a teacher for a special class her daughter is in, something that parents were required to be at. However that may be, it's seeming a little less important now. I'm starting to think that's not the main issue.

((((HIC))))

You are at peace now and that is a good thing. You have to do what is best for you and it seems like, right now, that you are more comfortable tapering things off with T. With that in mind, I wanted to share some thoughts.

quote:

I'm feeling I'd like to plunge into deeper, more analytic work. It's a little sad to think that probably can't happen with her, but maybe better to accept that than to ruin what we have.

I'm wondering if you've asked her about her comfort level in terms of plunging into deeper, more analytical work or if you are making an assumption here. There is a difference, IMO, between being up to date on the attachment research and being comfortable with doing deeper work.

My T is CBT trained but he realizes that CBT is not complex enough to grasp the psychodynamic aspect of the work. He might have balked at the psychodynamic language or Freud's emphasis on the sex drive or the focus on childhood but he now appreciates the psychodynamic aspect of the work, something he didn't appreciate back in graduate school.

There was an added benefit, for me anyway, of staying with my T and working through our troubles. My parents were dismissive and in their own loop and that was reenacted with my T. Through our struggles, it's not so much that I turned him into the therapist I needed him to be, but that he was able to see what I needed where he hadn't seen it before - or was blind to it before. It felt like he wasn't listening initially but it was incredibly validating and healing for me to have him acknowledge his role in our situation when he finally saw how his behavior was affecting me and how the enactment was playing out. Finally, it wasn't just me.

I had been on a life-long quest to get first my parents and then others to see my point of view and was constantly attracted to people who were very different from me and wouldn't be able to see my point of view. And, so, IMO, there was huge value in that aspect of my work with my T as much as doing the deeper work. It helped me to bring to consciousness and verbalize something I struggled with my entire life but didn't quite understand and couldn't name. The whole experience, actually, brought to the forefront my object relations.

It would seem to me that if she could acknowledge the role she played in your most recent upset and was able to be sensitive to your dependency needs, I'm just not sure why she wouldn't be able to do the deeper analytical work. Bringing to light our object relations and the integration of the traumatic memories seems to be where it's all at. Is it just because you don't think she thinks that way? In those terms?

Not having worked with an analytical therapist, I don't know what I'm talking about. LOl!

I have been mulling over this, and HIC, I am not entirely sure what I think you should do. I can understand why you'd want to try a different T and I don't see any problem with that. But I am not sure you should just assume your T isn't able to do the deeper work with you, without trying it and without discussing it further with her. I can see she has her weaknesses as a therapist, but it seems your relationship also has some strength to it. If developing your own assertiveness is a goal for you, why not try putting out there more what you need and what is hard for you about her? Complaining to my therapist about things she was doing has strangely been one of the most healing aspects of therapy for me.

Based on my experience on this forum, it isn't entirely clear to me that there is a correlation between a T's training and their ability to do "deeper" work. My own T has no psychodynamic training to speak of, in fact on her website she list only cognitive and somatic therapy as her methods of choice.

I don't know though. Just thinking out loud I guess.

Hey BLT and Liese,

Thanks for your gentle challenges of some of the assumptions I am making. Reading your posts reminded me of a few things: 1.) That T isn't really "just" a CBT practitioner, she's more eclectic and with me has taken, she says, a primarily Rogerian approach. I just know she does a lot of CBT with other clients, and I think that influences her work over all. 2.) I am no kind of expert on therapy and orientations and I don't really know who is or isn't capable of doing what and how. 3.) I have been talking in generalizations about "deep" work and T's presumed incapacity for helping me through such, without really articulating in my own words what I mean or am sensing/fearing. This makes for sloppy thinking and possibly poor choices!

So, I thought I would try to articulate more, partly for myself and also partly in response to the thoughts and issues you raise.

I wouldn't say that the work T and I have done up till now is superficial at all and I don't want to devalue it in any way. She's helped me through some pretty crucial stuff-- individuation and de-enmeshing from my mom, for one, (speaking of Tangled), as well as clearing away a lot of junk and symptoms. But I have a sense of pain near the core of me that we have not really delved into. Internally, I experience it as a feeling of woundedness and fragility that is just sort of there-- sometimes I imagine it as a huge, unseen bruise covering a large part of my brain. Can any therapy even"help" with this, or is it just the pain of existence? I feel it is connected to some relational traumas and perhaps attachment injuries, but I don't even know. I'm not even sure if I'm making sense right now.

However, I am pretty sure that the closer to the core that one moves, the more images reign supreme and the more sensitivity to the symbolic (which I doubt T has cultivated sufficiently) is required. In my intrapsychic realm, T herself is a powerful symbol that takes on different meanings at different times and can elicit strong emotions. If I have to explain this to her, and remind her not to take things too literally or personally, and do my own interpretating and translate it for her-- how could I ever feel undistracted enough, let alone safe enough, to really plunge into those waters? As TN said, it would be like trying to work both sides of the room, and with such vulnerable material that the possibility of being retraumatized or at least badly hurt even by someone as wonderful as T (she is wonderful) seems like a real possibility.

I dunno, does this make any sense? Thoughts?

(((HIC)))

quote:

symptoms. But I have a sense of pain near the core of me that we have not really delved into. Internally, I experience it as a feeling of woundedness and fragility that is just sort of there-- sometimes I imagine it as a huge, unseen bruise covering a large part of my brain. Can any therapy even"help" with this, or is it just the pain of existence? I feel it is connected to some relational traumas and perhaps attachment injuries, but I don't even know. I'm not even sure if I'm making sense right now.

Yes, you are making sense. I experience it as a sack of pain, about the size of what Santa carries. My T and I had a huge breakthrough when I told him that I felt as though he was ignoring my pain. We have focused on it ever since and little by little that sack has gotten smaller. I do think it can go away.


I'd love to hear from those here who do see analytical T's and what their thoughts are.

quote:

If I have to explain this to her, and remind her not to take things too literally or personally, and do my own interpretating and translate it for her--

You should tell her that and see what she says. I sometimes felt my T was being defensive and I told him that he didn't have to be defensive. I don't think he realized how he was coming across and, in his mind, was trying to offer another explanation for things.



I worried about having to do all the work for my T as well. I did bring him articles, etc., but I also know he's read a lot of stuff on his own at home on the weekend. He admitted he had things he had to learn. I trust his intelligence. I know he sees things on a symbolic level. He might be lacking in some areas. Sometimes I feel like he leans naturally towards his old ways of doing things. Sometimes I don't feel like he pushes me enough to talk. But, then again, we actually talked about that recently and he told me that it's like pulling a thread. Here I thought he was talking about stupid, useless things but the reality was they often led to more emotional things. I couldn't see the connection.

HIC, the important thing is that you have to believe in her, that she can help you. If you don't believe that, none of what we say is going to matter.

quote:

Yes, you are making sense. I experience it as a sack of pain, about the size of what Santa carries. My T and I had a huge breakthrough when I told him that I felt as though he was ignoring my pain. We have focused on it ever since and little by little that sack has gotten smaller. I do think it can go away.

This reminded me of some things my T has said. Splicing a few conversations here, but she has told me (or confirmed when I have suggested), that I repress emotions, intellectualize as a defense mechanism, and generally talk *about* a feeling (when I do) rather than *from* a feeling. I don't cry (at least not in session) but a couple times I've come close and worked really hard not to. Then once I have myself back under control, I'll start to analyze what I thought might have been going on-- why I felt like crying and why I didn't want to. She knows my discomfort with the whole idea. She's told me it's not something she would ever push me to do but that crying (even lots and lots of crying, wailing, sobbing) is something completely appropriate to do in a therapist's office and that it can be very healing/beneficial.

So. . . maybe she is more aware of this "bruise on the brain" then I was thinking? But whereas I might rather get at through. . . I dunno, dream analysis, or in depth discussion of object relations-- she thinks I need to just let go and have a good cry? Maybe she's right? How do I even do that?

I suppose you are right that I need to talk with her more. Maybe I am making a lot of assumptions.

quote:

I'd love to hear from those here who do see analytical T's and what their thoughts are.

Me too! *hint hint*

Hey there I see an analytic T and would love to help, just not sure what you're asking

Oh, hey Green Eyes! Thanks for showing up.

I suppose I was just wondering if based on this thread and especially my recent session report, if you think I might be running into difficulties because of my T's orientation? If perhaps she's not suited to the kind of work I need to do and things would go better (or differently) with an analyst/psychodynamically trained T. . . and if so, maybe what that might look like?

I guess those are pretty big questions (especially since you don't know me or my T, lol) so don't feel like you have to answer them all, but that is the sort of thing I am wondering. And just maybe curious about how this all strikes you, having worked with a different kind of T.

Hey HIC thanks for clarifying and excusing my foggy brain function!

Before seeing my current T I saw a number of eclectic T's who weren't analytic.
There is no way (IMHO) that I could've done anywhere near the depth of work with them that I've done with current T. Current T sees and understands things at multiple levels. He knows me better than anyone ever has, including my husband. There are times it's been hell but I'm at the point where I know he loves and cares about me in a profound and special way and that's something nobody can ever take from me. Even when I end T with him we will carry each other in our hearts and minds forever.

To me your T does not sound analytic. I can't ever imagine having to say things to my T about needing him as a positive figure or educating him about attachment, in fact the opposite has been my experience. I don't want to speak poorly of your T for a moment but based on what you've said, I don't think she's equipped to go deeper with you. She actually sounds a lot like my aunty who is a T; she has never been able to get the depths of my grief and depression because she's never known her own deepest feelings. She gets defensive and reactive with clients as well.

I hope this helps. Throw any Qs you have my way xxx

Hi HIC. I've been reading along and can feel the uncertainty you're struggling with. I don't really have much to add...but wanted to add my thoughts. I've never been to a strictly analytic T. Mine is eclectic also, but she has said that she prefers long-term, psychodynamic work. It sounds like your T has knowledge about deeper/dynamic things (like defense mechanisms, perhaps even some symbolic things like the internal pain you feel but are unable to express/not intellectualize). And yet, it seems like that may not be where she is most comfortable working. I can sense the fear or maybe the question of safety you have when you think about going to that really deep place with someone who may or may not be able to go there with you.

From what you've last said, it does sound like she knows there is more than you're expressing in T. She thinks that you repress and intellectualize and cannot cry. It sounds like she's aware of something internally that has a hold of you or is blocking or bruising you. What if you, slowly, started to talk about the images you see? You don't have to talk about what they mean, what you think about them, etc. But describe to her what you see and see how she responds? Is she curious about the images and asks for further elaboration, clarification? Maybe think about what you are looking for in a T. How would you want a T to respond?

I think you are very right, you cannot work both sides of the room. However, sometimes it's not exactly what a T says, but the relationship that carries us through treatment. Of course, the content of the discussions are hugely important and I do not want to downplay that. You have to feel safe, accepted, secure to be able to engage in this deep work and what T says does matter. And, the relationship also really really matters. I'm wondering if part of you may question if you feel safe enough to go there with your T? Maybe in addition to questioning whether this T can go deep and symbolic and analytic? With her cancelling a lot and some of the ruptures you've had (I'm sorry if I'm overstating, but I think I remember reading about some ruptures), I would feel a little uneasy too. I would question her consistency and I would question my ability to feel safe with her, even if she was a really great T. Missing sessions would dysregulate me.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that in therapy, the relationship is SO important. I think in Liese's case, the relationship really carried her through and her T worked to take a different approach. In school, we learn that the approaches of therapy tend to look very similar the more years the T is out of school. That is, T's begin to become more and more eclectic over time, borrowing techniques and formulations from other theories. The most important factor in successful therapy is the relationship. So, I'm just wondering if there's a part of you that questions the relationship? I could be very very off, so I hope I'm not offending here. She sounds like a solid T who does understand you and maybe doesn't push as much. But maybe her inconsistency has stirred some of these feelings. I think it's a really hard decision to make. You need a T where you feel totally safe with to really go deep. Maybe she is right for you and maybe she isn't. I know I'm still struggling to feel safe enough with my T and I just wanted to say...you are not alone! I have been with my T for over 2 years and haven't been able to cry in front of her either. I too work really hard not to cry, and it's exhausting sometimes. Sorry you experience that too.

sorry, I also just wanted to add that I do think analysis is different than other therapies. And I know that no analyst would start looking like a strictly behaviorist after 20 years in the field. Sorry, didn't want to oversimplify.

(((HIC)))

I guess I just wanted to echo what Erica said about the relationship. Even if I had to tell my T that we need to focus on something, which actually happened yesterday, I trust him. I trust that he's not going to hurt me - intentionally. And when he does hurt me now, it feels so much less intense than it used to. I'm able to handle it in a much more mature way.

I do think he gets the symbolic stuff. And, like Erica said, he considers himself eclectic and has incorporated other approaches and ideas into his work. As we go along, the symbolic stuff comes easier to me and I don't need him to interpret it so much anymore. The problem was that he was initially limited by his own stuff - and that could be due to not having done his own analysis in the spirit of the psychoanalytic tradition. I'm not sure what therapy he's done. I guess it just seems to me, though, that even psychoanalytic T's must make their share of mistakes.

I am able to share my emotions with him and can go from one emotional state to another with more fluidity instead of having it all blocked off or only being able to be in one state at a time with no connection between the two.

But, HIC, it's going to really come down to you and your feelings about her. If you are not confident in her, then it doesn't seem like she'll be able to help you. I only wanted to post about my story because it had a good ending. At the end of the day, my T gives me the things I need in order to become more functional. The woman T I saw before him, who did post doctorate work in psychoanalysis, pushed me too fast. Between that and her flightiness, I started to have panic attacks.

(((green eyes))) (((erica))) (((Liese)))

Thank you all so much for the thoughts you shared and support. Erica-- I thought what you wrote was very perceptive, sensitive, and helpful-- especially the ideas re how to approach working with images with my T. I have lots of them and I may well try that and see how it goes.

I really wanted to reply to each of you more thoughtfully and in some detail, but I seem to have hit some (probably mild) depression and I can't make myself compose much of anything coherent, at least not right now, on this topic. I may go quiet for awhile, just wanted to let you all know I'm not dead or mad or anything.

Hope you feel better soon, HIC.

Me too HIC!

HIC

Session report.

My last session had been fairly intense, as you know, and I went in today in some trepidation, feeling my nerves tensed for just such another. It did not turn out that way, though. We had a very low key and amicable session. I left feeling more peaceful, connected, and safe on a very basic level. Not like one of those sessions where I end up redirecting a lot of angst into fretting over things abstractly, whether T's theoretical orientations are "good" enough, etc.

One thing about T is she knows how I intellectualize, critique, and occasionally doubt her, but she never seems threatened by it. She even laughed and agreed with me one time when I said I was snotty as a defense mechanism! She seemed annoyed this last time around, sure, and even defensive, but not what you would call flustered or rejecting, really. I don't know if it is just a clinical manner she's carefully cultivated, but I almost always have the sense that there is genuine affection and liking there, and a fair amount of tolerance. Sometimes I get the feeling that she's waiting for something from me and being very patient about it, just letting me talk myself out and do my own thing in the mean time. Occasionally I interpret that as her being apathetically neutral, but it may well be she's sharper than I think and has her own way of looking at things, ideas about the work she's doing with me. Those latter impressions were strengthened today.

She was very calming in her manner and presence today. I actually felt a little drowsy after the first five or ten minutes, perhaps because I found her voice so relaxing, but I also may be coming down with something. I have a sore throat and a head ache. We started with just chit chatting. She asked a question about a happening in my external life, and I found I had a few things to say about it, and one thing led to another and I ended up chattering rather contentedly for sometime about a friend's baby shower I had been to the day before.

At some point this transitioned into talking about conflict with H, and I admitted that sometimes after a conflict with him, instead of working through things, I will tend to draw back and think maybe I've made a mistake. I told her that I do that with her, too. That when little things go wrong I sometimes think to myself, "Well, I should probably really be in analysis. Then this stuff wouldn't be happening." I told her that I thought that was a little silly of me and a way of distancing, a defense mechanism. I told her that she was probably quite competent to help me with whatever issues I've got (here T nodded) and that if her outlook differed a little from what I would have preferred, we could either communicate about these things or I could adapt myself to her way of working. I mentioned how a friend on the forum had told me that my so-called "core issues" were not as mysterious and awful as I thought. That they seemed overwhelming to me because of the feelings connected with them, but that those were manageable and there were any number of interventions that could help.

I could tell T was listening closely to this stuff and she seemed appreciative. She explained that I was one of the most well informed (in the psychological-philosophical realm) people she's worked with, and that she was "very eclectic" and wanted to make space for me to direct things to the extent that I wanted. She said she was very open to hearing about whatever preferences I had as far as paradigms and ways of working together went, and to try to accommodate that into how we did things. She also mentioned that she could be directive, and that she was very directive with some clients, but that you had to think of the individual person, and that she's aware I've been pushed around by other people most of my life, and so she tries to be very sensitive and mindful of that when interacting with me. She said that she's also aware that I read and think about these things and that I might have some preferences.

She asked if I wanted to talk about that more then, or if there was something else I would rather talk about, and I admitted that while there was a lot I had planned on discussing today, I wasn't feeling very well and hence unmotivated. I also commented that there was no need to rush things. I asked if she would read to me (there was still about 20 minutes of the session left at this point), which she did very willingly until our time was up. Then I drove home. Now I'm resting, my kids are napping, I feel happy to have typed this up, and I think I may make some tea.

*hums lines from a Frank Sinatra song* "Who knows where the road will lead us? Only a fool would say. But if you let me love you, it's for sure I'm gonna love you all the way, all the way. . . "

/end sappiness

P.S. In case I've given the impression that I am always being nasty to T and criticizing her, wanted to clarify that I spend a lot more time complimenting her brilliance and praising her for how much she's helped me. But the undercurrent of suspicion shows up in a snarky way sometimes. It's complicated.

Anyway. . .

((((HELD))))

quote:

It's complicated.

You sound like my 5 year old. Every time I ask her to explain something she can't, she tells me, "it's complicated."

I thought the session sounded really great. I've never gotten the impression that you are always being nasty to T and criticizing her too much. It's always been clear to me that you really like her and have a genuine connection. Sometimes we get angry at people we love and, if we are not good at processing our anger, it can come out in snarky ways. Therapy is the place for you to work this stuff out. Awesome work. It sounds like you are feeling a little better about her. Just wondering, did you and she address the cancellations and does she understand that they are basically unacceptable?

Good words, Liese, thanks for understanding.

Lol, this stuff makes me feel like a five year old sometimes.

quote:

Just wondering, did you and she address the cancellations and does she understand that they are basically unacceptable?

Yes, and she said that people with evening appointments are liable to being rescheduled, because of stuff that comes up with her kids or their schools. But she wanted to know what she could do to make things easier for me, so I told her that sometimes I need a lot of reassurance, so saying stuff that might normally seem condescending like-- "But this is not about you, I still care about you, I look forward to seeing you next time" would actually be really appreciated.

That's if she has to reschedule me. But I have made the decision to switch to daytime appointments for now. They are less likely to be moved around, it seems. It's more inconvenient and expensive for me, but a form of self care worth investing in, I think.

quote:

It sounds like you are feeling a little better about her.

Ye-es. It was good to have a low key session and it felt reconnecting and stabilizing. I'm still not sure about all the other issues I've been raising in this thread. I think I will continue to slowly explore that stuff over time.

That's really great HIC! I've been following along your journey so it's nice to hear you had a good, reconnecting session.

And you may have given me a push (both in your advice to my post and your words to your own T) to ask my T for more reassurance. You're right, maybe they hold back a little to not come off as condescending. But I think I really need it too! So thanks! Keep us posted!