Posted by pegasus on December 30, 2003, at 13:00:56
In reply to Re: I'm lost, posted by Rigby on December 30, 2003, at 10:09:48
> I used to feel very, very dependent upon my therapist. The only thing that seemed to feel worse than the dependency was the anger towards her (and her whole profession) for encouraging it.
>
Boy can I relate. I think because of this dependency, therapy has a definite cruel streak to it. I tried explaining this to my therapist, and it always comes back to me having some issue with being close. Couldn't it just be that the dependency that therapy necessarily sets up is an unavoidable negative side effect. It sounds like most of you struggle with this also. How could it come down to our individual issues like my therapist tries to frame it?> To this day I still question if it's necessarily such a great thing for the client to become so dependent. I can't see any downside for the therapist: heck, they get a steady paying client who they can justify is getting better by "opening up" but we, if we don't feel better get *nothing* but a dependency upon someone who will not and can not be anything to us outside of this room that we rent for X number of dollars an hour. >
Oh, man, I *know*. You said it just right. That's how I feel a lot of the time. I'm going to print this post and show it to my new therapist, and maybe we'll be able to deal with it in a more up front way than I did with my last T.
Also, I am so encouraged by hearing that you eventually got to a place that felt less dependent. I sometimes think that's my main goal in therapy. I was always hoping that eventually the dependency would abate, and then I'd be willing to think about termination on my own (that word is another pet peeve of mine - it's what you say when you fire someone). Too bad my stupid T decided to move away right in the middle of everything.
- p
poster:pegasus
thread:294529
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031221/msgs/294690.html