I have to say Liese, I'm with you. I can't understand why it is so wrong to show love to a person who needs it. The human part of me can't understand it.

Liese, I think it is just so uncomfortable for your T to admit anything. He is strict with his boundaries yet has shown that he is willing to change and to try different things but I think with this issue he just isn't going to be able to tell you what you want. He might be able to negotiate a bit and give a little - but I worry that i won't be 100% what you need to hear.

How about you go and see another T for a consult and just see how it feels. You are never going to know without trying it.

Hi Liese,
In answer to your question, yes it would be a roadblock for me, but I have only ever had one T, and he believes- we change each other- we effect each other in many ways, and the healing comes through a type of nurturing T love.- unconditional regard. Make sense?

Liese,

I am not sure if it would be a roadblock for me or how I would relate to a T like yours, because I never have had one. When I first started therapy, though, I didn't know much about attachment or that my T's warmth and kindness would come to mean so much. If I hadn't gotten it, would I have known to miss it? I'm not sure.

But I do know, based on my experience, that feeling cared for in therapy doesn't haveto be so hard. My T has her problems, but she will often spontaneously tell me that she cares about me, is concerned for me, likes me, enjoys talking to me, etc. Based on her words, her manner, and her actions I believe her and have been able to experience that sense of being nurtured without having to work or fight for it. Well, the only thing I have to fight with at times is my own paranoia which is difficult enough and can sometimes make me think she secretly hates me after all. This is something we've worked on, though, and it's been improving.

Anyway, I'm not saying this to brag on my T or make you feel bad about yours. . . just more to observe that it seems to me that want you want in therapy is neither unreasonable nor unattainable. It might end up seeming like the most natural thing in the world, with a different therapist.

Of course maybe in other ways your T is amazingly great and there are a lot of good reasons you should stay with him. . . I really wouldn't know and so hesitate to engage in ignorant pontification.

All the best,
heldincompassion

Liese,

What do you think about him saying that "maybe we mean the same thing" in his reading about transference? Is that him trying to say that he thinks the feelings you are asking about are what he has, but he just does not feel comfortable framing them in certain terms that personalize it more, as it feels like his own stuff coming into the room or something?

It would be a definite roadblock for me. If I came up against that roadblock, I guess I'd need to work through both why I felt the need for him to have and express those feelings and why he felt uncomfortable about it, whether it was about him not having positive feelings like the ones I'm describing or some sort of sense if impropriety in sharing them. That's where I would go next, but I'd probably get all those feelings out in a journal entry, because I used to freeze up trying to have those conversations verbally (not so much recently). If I found out that he just did not have feelings of connection for me at all, I doubt I could stay. If I found out he did, but was struggling with the appropriateness of expressing them explicitly (and just would never change), I guess I might be able to work through that, but I would probably not want to. Too much pain from the past being repeated without much changing, I guess.

(((Liese))) I'm sorry your T can't find a way reassure you the way you need.

Liese, I have struggled with this very thing, even though my T tells me that he cares for me and he respects and likes me. Of course, he has never said he loves me but he does show his caring and affection for me through his actions. And even though I get these things from him, which do feel good and warm and wonderful... it still seems like it's not enough which makes me understand that this is not about T but about what I didn't get as a child growing up. It's about the past. And that past has to be grieved and mourned and be raged against and then healed in the presence of a caring T. And it is evident by his actions that your T does care about you. Just because he does not say the words does not mean the care and the feelings are not there. Liese, in fact, words can be very empty but the actions speak much louder.

I do not believe that this longing and yearning for that kind of love to fill up the empty space inside us can come from a spouse or partner. It needs to be worked out with someone (preferrably at T) who is seen as your attachment figure. If you tried to do this with a spouse you would have to reveal your inner child to that spouse and in many cases you would act and react as a child and that would be inappropriate and even odd to do in a marriage. While spouse/partner love is very important in our lives and very special to have, it's not the same as working through the pain of the little child who suffered deprivation and/or abuse. There are times that I KNOW I'm 5 years old in my T's office and it's okay for me to be 5 years old. I need his protection and his care-taking, things I didn't experience at 5 years old. I don't think my dh for all his love and understanding would be able to deal with that, nor should he.

I also wanted to add here that my oldT never admitted any feelings for me. He told me nice things like I was very smart, brave, strong, poignant, delightful...but he never said what feelings HE had for me... until that last meeting last summer with my current T in his office. When we were parting oldT said he was always very fond of me and he never meant for all of this to happen. The point is... he never told me that when I was with him and it was not a road block at all. I loved him and really that was what mattered to me. That I was able to just love him. And although he acted hot and cold there were times that he was very warm towards me, the hugs, the pats, the high-fives, the way he looked at me and teased me in an affectionate way. All of that told me that he cared. And that was enough to keep me in therapy doing the hard work that was needed.

Lastly, your T does not say those words because they are not "him" and he feels uncomfortable. That is about him not you. My T feels uncomfortable hugging patients. That is HIS issue, and has nothing to do with how much he cares about me. I have come to see and understand just how much he does care about me. But maybe I'll never get a hug. Instead, I focus on all the other things he does give me that shows me how he feels.

I think rather than focusing on the one word that is missing from your therapy it would be a good idea to focus on the signs and actions of your T because that is what really tells you how he feels about you. You may not "hear" love but you will "feel" it from your T.

Hugs
TN

You can train him , Liese, sometimes you just need to take it slowly and explain more. He needs time and a little nudging.

We adapt to them and they adapt to us, and if you really need this, then he can try to meet you somewhere on this spectrum. You could always say to him " I am not the type to come to therapy and pay for someone to listen to me, but I have made concessions! Now it is your turn to adapt a bit!:

Remember I have just been through a year of training my t to be able to hug. We went from:
"I don't hug, I never have, I am not that type"
to:
"Do you want a hug?" but it took a whole blooming year. He was slow but he admits that I did infact train him and he had to change the way he thinks and what he does to accommodate my needs.

Patience and lots of explaining and then give the occasional article that backs up and supports your point.

born2write, somedays, mayo, held, Yaku, TN, Kansas and Sadly,

BB,

I know you had a reply in there somewhere. I read it before you deleted it???? BB, it was so good to hear from you. I'm sorry you felt like you had to delete.

Thanks for all your thoughts and hugs. It's very hard. I can't always feel his warmth. He doesn't always show it. Part of me thinks I'm just running and another part of me thinks I'm being rightfully protective and asking for what I need.

I've been reading Judith Hermann's book, trauma and recovery, and gosh, it's just so spot on. I relate to so much of what she talks about in the book. It's soothing to know I'm not alone.

She said that we idealize the therapist to guard against reliving the terror of the trauma. I think this is where I'm struggling now. I'm not quite ready to come out of this stage and deal with my grief. Maybe he's pushing me a little.

Sadly, You might be right about changing him in time. There's been a part of me that has been hanging on, hoping he will change, hoping he will come to love me. But I just gave up that hope. I realized that he never will love me and he told me as much.

I'm just so confused because everything seems to be always happen on two levels: the real person, the real me, the traumatized me who needs to know he cares. And then there's the part of me that's still looking for that love I never got. The two threads are connected to each other, intertwined.



Liese