Posted by Dinah on December 18, 2011, at 11:16:19
In reply to Re: Maybe TMI from T?, posted by pegasus on December 15, 2011, at 13:48:20
It sounds as if your therapist had given some thought to the disclosure before making it. Do you know why he chose this particular disclosure?
I think the discussion after is the most important part. My therapist has had moments of overdisclosure. It's a hard line for him to draw because I sense when something's wrong, and he knows it makes me crazy to worry without knowing. We've talked about the fact that I don't generally react as a friend would react. I act as a dependent child would react. I'm afraid that he won't be the rock I need. I don't like to feel like I need to be a support to him. I choose to remember that therapy is about me, not about him, and choose to allow myself to react as a therapy client.
I do think disclosure can be good sometimes, outside of the strictest analytic settings. We can build such images in our mind on a foundation of the things we see but don't fully understand. It's helped me immensely with the degree of my attachment and (admittedly) obsession to recognize that fundamentally he's just a struggling human being who doesn't have all the answers. That the power of therapy doesn't really come from his enormous strength and wisdom. It comes from the fact that he able to be with me and experience with me, while maintaining the therapeutic objectivity that allows him to remain separate enough to help.
That can be compromised by too much sharing, though. My therapist and I have both maintained boundaries on that, and I'm as vigilant (if not moreso) than he is.
My gut feeling, based on my own experience, is that if you feel like you need to ask if it's TMI, it's not unlikely that it *is* TMI. What's important, though, is where you go from now. The conversations about this could be very helpful to you in your therapeutic growth and healing.
poster:Dinah
thread:1004940
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20111017/msgs/1005172.html