Posted by lucie lu on February 7, 2009, at 18:03:30
In reply to Developmental stages in therapy, posted by DAisym on February 6, 2009, at 23:31:42
Daisy, there has been so much pain in your posts of late. Im sorry you are having such a bad time of it right now. Seems like a number of us have been struggling lately. This is when Babble can be so good.
I really empathize with that soul-deep longing to be special to your T. It rears up in me too sometimes and then it is very painful. I look at it (when I have to at all) as a craving to have the experience we missed as children - to be the apple of a parent's eye. Children need to have that intense interest, love and pride to be able to develop a sense of self-esteem as they grow. They need those experiences where parents watch them with delight as they grow. I think that our T's actually can make up some of that in their relationships with us. And we grab hungrily at it, we are starving. But it is never quite satisfied because we are aware that our "parent" may have dozens of others hungry mouths to feed. And to our adult brains, that fact undercuts the pleasure and gratification that we really could be getting from our T's when its offered. So in a way, maybe our adult selves take away that elemental joy through logic and caution ("I shouldn't get too excited about this because it has little value or meaning").
It has been very obvious from all your posts that in reality, you do have an exceptionally close, very strong and loving bond with your T (who is himself exceptional). There is no doubt in my mind that you are very special to him. How could you not be? The loving feelings he has for you, the cherishment, is real. You have both invested so much, so deeply in your journey. I think you know that on one level, but its the deeper level you are having trouble with right now.
I have searched my own feelings and inner landscape, and have come up with the following conclusions. To be able to feel the loving feelings your T offers to you, you have to accept two cold hard facts. The first is that you didnt get that cherishment when you needed it and from the people you needed it from. The second is that the therapeutic relationship, which despite its loving and intimate qualities, is limited. I personally think that these fuse together into one giant aching sense of loss. Then it seems to be too high a price for attachment. It is a HUGE task in therapy to come to terms with these feelings and eventually move beyond them.
It is interesting that you raised the idea of developmental stages. I have long wondered how will I ever be able to accept those things about attachment. I wonder if there is something here in common with the experiencing and processing of grief in 5 stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I remember Kubler-Ross saying that not everyone goes through these things in the same order, nor does everyone go through all 5 stages. But she says everyone goes through at least two. Maybe this is something like what your T is referring to? Maybe you are in the anger stage right now. Maybe you are working through things you werent strong enough to work through before; if it werent intensely painful, you would have done it already. For most of us on this board, there is yet another developmental stage beyond these: acceptance of our true selves and development of belief in ourselves and hope in the future.
You know what helps me really understand how my T really cares about me and that I am special to him? Its something from The Little Prince, one of the wisest books I have ever read and one of my all-time favorites. Throughout the story, the prince is devoted to his rose, even though it looks like all the others. He waters it, hoes it, prunes it, and cares for it as a labor of love. His emotional investment in his rose - the devoted care and all that he has put of himself in the relationship - is what sets off his rose from all the others. So it is not just A rose, it is HIS rose. I think that an analogous thing happens in therapy. My T once asked me with some intensity, when I was accusing him of not caring, and do you think I am not giving my all? I have since realized the deep level of emotional investment he has in me and how much of himself hes given. And when I think about that, then I become his rose, and it is OK.
Lucie
poster:lucie lu
thread:878656
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090129/msgs/878799.html