Posted by Racer on September 11, 2008, at 8:57:08
In reply to Re: How do you 'depend' on your T? ????, posted by Dinah on September 9, 2008, at 18:16:05
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> My issue has always been that my therapist is not terribly dependable in some ways. It hurts less if I only depend on him in those ways he can reliably be depended upon.I had a long "discussion" -- id est: disagreement -- with a former T (remember Shining Bright?) about exactly that. I said that I did not think that unconditional trust in anyone was respectful to that individual. Admittedly, at the time I had damn near NO trust for ANYone at ALL -- just after the whole nightmare agency-from-hades experience -- so she may have been overstating her case for good and just reasons, but I was adamant: I know that I can't trust my mother for emotional support, so unconditional trust means that I'm asking her for something she's not capable of, and that is not respectful of her. I know that my current T has certain qualities which keep me from depending on her in certain areas -- recognizing that I can't rely on her in those areas, that I can't trust her in those areas, and that there are other areas where I can trust her absolutely, seems like the most respectful way to relate to her. Walking in every week, trusting that she'll remember the words I used to describe something -- no matter how important the exact words are to me -- would allow her to disappoint my expectations every single week. Not good for therapy, and a good pattern for making my life miserable both in and out of therapy.
So, I don't trust her to recognize the importance of the words I use, but I do trust her to try to understand what I'm saying, so if I don't know she's gotten the distinction from the words, I'll ask, "what did you hear? OK, that's not what I said -- I used these words, because..." And I trust that she will let me try to get us to the same meaning. (And y'all know I'm not always good at that, sometimes it takes me a LOT of words to say something which someone else could say very simply.) And I trust her to care about me, to care about and work to nurture our relationship, and I trust her to have off days -- and to hear me tell her when I think she's off the mark on something.
It took a very, very long time, though, to get to this. I'd been seeing her about three years before I had something come up that I recognized as transference -- major breakthrough. Until then, we'd talked about it, and I'd rejected it in a big way. We'd talked about the fact that I really did have that wall up against it -- sometimes I felt bad for her, because she'd offer something like, "If you need to hear this in my voice in your head..." and I'd say, "No. I won't hear it in your voice. If I hear it at all, it'll be my own voice. I never hear your voice between sessions, unless you leave me a voice mail..." You know, nolo me tangere. And when that tiny ch*nk appeared in the wall, I was so overwhelmingly freaked out you can't imagine! Took weeks to stop twitching about it...
Depending on my T is weird -- I still have very little comfort in it. I think it has helped therapy, though -- and it hasn't made me any less critical of her, which might have been part of my fear. I see a lot more areas where my boundary issues are at play because of it, though, which is good.
Oh, and I mean "critical" in the neutral sense -- like a film critic can love a movie, as well as panning it. Just looking critically, using critical thinking skills, you know? Not the negative sense.
poster:Racer
thread:851095
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080906/msgs/851462.html