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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
[email protected]Shown: posts 1 to 9 of 9. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dinah on February 18, 2007, at 10:37:14
My therapist said that in the early years of therapy, he was often frustrated by the fact that every week seemed like a new start. He said that usually if a client has connected in therapy, they build on the blocks built the week before and the sessions are connected and progressive. But he never felt that there was any foundation to build on.
I asked him why he thought that was, and he said that some clients had a hard time forming relating to others, and that he assumed that I was one of those clients. That I just couldn't connect. I asked what he thought *now*, but he never really said he'd changed his mind. He did a mighty fine dance move, and left my question largely unanswered. Which left me wondering if he still thinks that, and if the relationship I thought we'd built up is all in my mind. I guess I need to talk to him about that.
I told him that I was probably doing a pretty good job of conveying my inner life to him. I always feel a disconnection or choppiness to my life from one day to the next. I don't feel like the same person from day to day, leaving me with a poor sense of who I am. Experiences feel like they happened to someone else. I can recount them but they rarely have emotional resonance after a day or two. I think the various dissociative coping mechanisms I've relied on lead me to feel not terribly real, and certainly not terribly *continuous* if that makes any sense.
I told him that I didn't think I was conveying information about my relational style as much as I was conveying information about who I was and how I experienced myself. I was creating in him the same frustrating experience I daily create in myself.
He agreed with a *lot* of what I said, but I'm still left wondering if he thinks I have impaired abilities to form normal attachments to others. That makes me feel a bit defensive and hurt, given how I feel about our relationship. It reminds me of the time that the pdoc from h*ll told me that I'd never be able to bond with my son, or feel the things that normal mothers feel, because I just didn't have the capacity to do that. And how I inferred that given the short amount of time I'd seen said pdoc, this information must have come from my therapist. And how hurt I was at the time at this assessment.
I'd hoped he had changed his mind about me...
Posted by DisTraught on February 18, 2007, at 12:03:13
In reply to At the beginning, posted by Dinah on February 18, 2007, at 10:37:14
That sounds harsh. BUT; you say how sad you were when your pdoc said you wouldn't be able to bond with your son. Your reaction, your sadness, sounds to me like proof of the opposite. Had you not been able to bond you would not mind! Paradox, isn't it?
Otherwise, I too try to figure out how my T is thinking. Mind-reading isn't productive, caus we can't do it.
Take care, Dinah. You deserve a good life.Penny
Posted by Dinah on February 18, 2007, at 12:13:24
In reply to Re: At the beginning, posted by DisTraught on February 18, 2007, at 12:03:13
Thanks Penny. I appreciate that.
If I had actually noticed at the time that he had adroitly avoided answering me, I'd have asked him about it then. It was one of those situations where I was home for hours before I said "Hey! Wait a minute here...". I probably will ask when I next see him, but his horrid memory often provides him with a great excuse for not answering the hard stuff.
Come to think of it, even fairly recently he's expressed amazement that I chose him to attach to, and asked me why I thought that was. And he's also expressed a bit too much skepticism about my ability to bond with others for my taste. Like when we thought about moving, he said he didn't think I'd seek out another therapist if we moved, and that if I did, he didn't think it would be helpful because he didn't think I'd bond. At the time I thought it was a bit arrogant on his part, but now I think I see that it was a comment about me, not him.
The funny thing is that he's aware of Babble and has occasionally expressed what appears to be genuine appreciation of the friends I've made here.
Maybe he exempted internet from his assessment.
But even so, wouldn't that indicate more social anxiety than difficulty bonding?
Posted by Dinah on February 18, 2007, at 12:17:24
In reply to Re: At the beginning, posted by DisTraught on February 18, 2007, at 12:03:13
(And yes, what the pdoc said made no sense to me even at that time. I *did* have experience bonding, and I was suffering from severe postpartum depression and wasn't feeling much of anything positive. It seemed like quite a leap, and an unfair one at that. And the fact that I was soooo upset that my therapist had conveyed the information, that I suppose that I was attached with my therapist at the time even if he couldn't feel it.)
Posted by DisTraught on February 18, 2007, at 13:25:19
In reply to Re: At the beginning » DisTraught, posted by Dinah on February 18, 2007, at 12:13:24
Yes, to me it does sound more like social anxiety. Who knows, a different therapist might view things differently.
I find it disturbing that your T would express anything about your future abilities to bond w another therapist. He simply cannot predict anything about the future.
Have you read D Burns' Feeling Good? It helps me tremendously when I'm stuck in a thought pattern.
HugsPenny
Posted by Daisym on February 18, 2007, at 16:46:06
In reply to At the beginning, posted by Dinah on February 18, 2007, at 10:37:14
I don't know, Dinah. It seems like many of the things you've posted indicate that your therapist is bonded to you and knows you are bonded to him. He might have ideas about how well you will do with others, as far as forming relationships, but that sounds lik echos of what you, yourself, have said. I know in the past, your therapist has encouraged you to be more conventional, thinking it would help you find friends and fit in better. But he doesn't push too hard on this...
And I'm 100% sure he values your relationship. He acknowledges the hard work it took for you to trust him and he has grown more comfortable allowing you to need him. I know this is different than forming attachments to others. I'm guessing that your therapist is aware that forming attachments to others is hard for you, but doable. Clearly you love your husband and son and also, you were very attached to your dad.
I'm glad you are going to talk to him about this. I think you need to.
Posted by madeline on February 18, 2007, at 17:56:13
In reply to Re: At the beginning » Dinah, posted by Daisym on February 18, 2007, at 16:46:06
I agree with all the other posters that you are clearly capable of strong attachment to people. But I also want to point out the love you feel and the attachment you have to your dogs.
I guess that means a lot to me because I develop relationships with animals that are as strong as the ones I form with people.
They count for something too.
Maddie
Posted by Honore on February 18, 2007, at 22:25:32
In reply to Re: At the beginning » DisTraught, posted by Dinah on February 18, 2007, at 12:13:24
Hi, Dinah.
Maybe your T meant that he thought you had some trouble establishing relationships initially-- and he still thought you had some trouble with that. That doesn't mean that he thinks you don't do it after the initial time of testing or self-protection.
Since he was wrong about looking for another T, and I suspect wrong about whether you'd get anything out of it-- from everything here-- he may not fully appreciate how connected and involved you are, or even perhaps how much you felt that connection, even in the early time.
Sometimes Ts just don't know what's going on inside our heads; they make inferences, some of them based on their own partial ability to know intuitively what someone else really feels.
My T, for example, has for a long time, greatly underestimated my suppressed, or hard to express, optimitism-- he overreads signs of pessimism, which often are my fears of expressing the hopes I have-- of protecting them from possible injuries from the outside. Which I have found in the past.
He mistakes my resistance to embracing or announcing how "proud" I am of various things, or how much I "want" to continue to be able to do certain things-- for an actual lack of desire, or valuing the things I do accomplish. But it's often that I'm not comfortable admitting to some things I do feel, even if I feel that, at one level, so strongly.
Maybe there's something like this, if you T underestimates your ability or depth, or continuity of attachment.
I don't believe that you've been a bad or hurtful mother-- don't read books that prescribe "eye contact" or whatever. They're trying to translate a warmth and caring and nurturing into overt and concrete signs. Some of the signs are valid insofar as they go-- which is for some people, at some times. But look at your son and see if he seems happy, curious, engaged in his life-- if he loves you and knows you love him, and also knows that he can to out into the world in a good way. (Don't be self-denying or worried about being too hopeful-- or that you're deluded--if possible)
Please don't read some book and then apply its absurdly limited formulations to anything so complex or impossible to characterize esp completely, as your life and your love.
Honore
Posted by Dinah on February 19, 2007, at 11:31:31
In reply to Re: At the beginning » Dinah, posted by Honore on February 18, 2007, at 22:25:32
We talked about it today, and I'm glad we did. It's been one of those things that always underly our relationship, and was the subject of an argument that derailed therapy for a year or so, but in time I had learned to "forget" or "not notice".
But buoyed by your encouragement, I did bring it up and didn't let it slide away.
We reached a statement that we could both endorse without reservation or hidden additions. "I have specific social deficits and social anxiety and trust issues that make forming attachments and meaningful relationships difficult for me. But once I clear those hurdles, I'm capable of forming deep and lasting relationships, and in fact have done so."
I can live with that, and so can he. :)
It acknowledges all the relationships I do have, both canine and human. While acknowledging the areas where I do have trouble.
We talked a lot about attachment too. It's not something he has a lot of knowledge about, and I'm not sure he's all that interested in serious study of it since he mainly does short term work, but he does seem interested in hearing about it.
Honore, he said the same thing you did about my parenting. I'll try to incorporate them. :/
This is the end of the thread.
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