Posted by happyflower on October 1, 2007, at 11:45:05
First I want to thank Witty and everyone who kept me grounded in my thoughts last night and kept me from doing something too rash about my new T situation.
I was so nervous confronting him today, I even almost started to cry before I could say anything. But I finally said I was still wondering if we were a good fit and I had to ask him some difficult questions about our therapy so far. Well he was more than willing to listen to me. He said something about each client is a learning experience for him, and teaches him how to better help others too.
Okay, so I took a deep breath and told him about the resistance I felt from him on discussing my old T and I was wondering why. Was he too uncomfortable with me disclosing about what happened to me or was he trying to protect his colleage. I did ask him this last week at the beginning of my session and he said that he knows all he needs to know to realize what happen. Well later in that session, when he got a more complete picture of what happened, and why I was taking it so rough, he realized that I probably did need to talk about this. So he admitted that yes intially when he thought this was just a sexual transference thing, he did feel a little reluctant to talk about it. I thanked him for being honest with me. Then he said, I am only a human to feel that way. LOL
Then I said it is humorous that he just said that, because that was my next point. I told him that being human is a given, I KNOW that. I asked him if he would say that to someone who was terrorized by Hitler, or a rape victim, that the perpetrater was only "human". I said you must not have had anything traumatic happen to you because I don't think you would say that.
Well he did say how he could see me applying that to everything and be worried about him saying that in response to the abused I received, since he did say it a lot. But he said not in those cases. He discribed on how he thinks some people are just *ssh*l*s. lol So now I understand him more what he means and I don't expect to hear it concerning my mom. So I am really relieved. He even said he doesn't treat perpetrators of those kind of crimes because he can't keep objective. lol
So then we moved on to more about me and my old T's relationship. He said it did, go outside the boundries of the office quite a bit. He said it happens maybe once or twice in therapy where they meet a client who they really connect with. I told him the about the all the times my T thought about me and stuff, and when he couldn't get me off his mind. He said maybe that shouldn't have been disclosed to me. I talked about how I feel like a widow after her husband has died.
Everything around me reminds me of him, and it is so hard. Our lives got meshed together in a way that is special and in any other circumstance it would have been fine. The only thing bad about it was that he was my therapist. He said when this does happen, when a client does become "special" to them, many times they feel really guilty about it because they are not suppose to let it happen. But sometimes it does and depending on the T, it can be a good learning experiece for them, and they can use that to help the client, but sometimes it scared the T. My T tried to tighten the already too loose boundries when he realized I really did need a T, but it was too late. You can't really go back because he isn't being totally objective and the client has trouble discloseing becauase they are worried about the T's reaction to hear such stuff. This is what happened to me. I felt like I couldn't tell him the bad stuff, I was worried about him having to deal with it.
He called a soulmate thing even though that terms has pretty much been overused and botched up so much lately. But he said it was like 2 people who come together and everything seems to click. It just happen to have happened in a theraputic relastionship.
So my old T had trouble with his feelings about that and my feelings too, and he got scared. He told me that T's get training on how to deal with sexual or maternal transference, but this was something different and much less common. He said he understands my sadness about losing such an important person to me. He said he will help me with this in different way then he would do a transference thing.
So I feel better now. My T asked at the end of the session was there anything else that I am wondering about "our relastionship". I said that I felt a lot better about this. I told him I wasn't challenging him to be a pain, I just really needed to know if I can trust you . He said that is good that I am being careful. He also welcomed me to challege what he does anytime I feel I need to have some clarification or if I feels he is being resistant.
I am so glad I didn't just fire him. Thanks so much for helping me in this everyone! Now I have to meet with my professor in a 1/2 hour! I am just glad I don't have to redo my makeup due to the crying I usually have been doing in therapy. ;-) I wonder if there really is a point to wearing makeup for our T's when if you are like me now, I just cry it all off anyways. I bet there is makeup stains all over his office! lol
poster:happyflower
thread:786242
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070929/msgs/786242.html