Posted by lonelygirl on May 4, 2004, at 13:13:09
In reply to Re: disturbing confession ****likely trigger » crushedout, posted by Ilene on May 4, 2004, at 10:04:25
Just to play devil's advocate for a minute...
Crushedout, I wonder if your therapist thinks she is helping you by acting like your SI is a personal affront to her. Since she knows that you have such an attachment to her, perhaps she thinks that bringing her personal feelings into it will make you stop cutting to "please" her. I can imagine that this approach might work for some people. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not saying this is an effective way of treating you (clearly, it hasn't been), but perhaps her underlying motivation for acting this way is to help you.
Do you think you could ask her what she hopes to accomplish by getting angry with you and threatening termination? If she thinks her response is going to help you?
> This is a quote from a self-injury website:
> "Therapists need to examine their own motives for wanting a client to cease or stabilize his/her self-injurious behavior. Too often, care providers focus on stopping the SI as quickly as possible because they themselves are not comfortable with it -- it repulses them, makes them feel ineffective, frightens them, etc. Situations like this can easily deteriorate into a power struggle in which the therapist insists that the behavior stop and the client chooses to self-injure covertly and becomes reticent and distrustful, thus reducing the chance that a useful therapeutic alliance will be formed."
poster:lonelygirl
thread:341578
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040503/msgs/343245.html