Posted by Penny on June 26, 2003, at 20:15:49
In reply to Therapists - Past and Future, posted by fallsfall on June 26, 2003, at 16:32:42
How long had you been seeing the old therapist?
I can certainly see how dependency in some cases might be detrimental, but isn't it necessary for a strong therapeutic relationship? I certainly am dependent on my therapist, and my pdoc, and I was dependent on my last therapist as well, so much so that when she left for maternity leave, I thought I was going to die. Obviously I didn't, but it was one of the most painful things I've ever had to live through.
Neither of my therapists discouraged dependency. I suppose if I went to extremes (though I nearly was obsessed with the last one), it might be different, but I can't imagine not being dependent on them. In fact, the whole point, IMO is for them to get into your head. Not to drown you out, mind you, but to be (at least in my case) your voice of reason and stability in an otherwise unstable, unreasonable (sometimes) mind. I dunno...
Just my thoughts. I would recommend that you discuss with your new therapist the whole closure with the old thing and wouldn't be surprised if he recommends you see her at least one more time, though it's not as though anyone can force you or anything. It might be good, though, to go through what you want to say to her with him beforehand. Might make it more beneficial. Try to take away from the old therapist all the lessons you can, happy and painful. The pain can teach us a lot, don't you think? Even though it sucks!!!
Best of luck with your new therapist! Keep us posted...
take care.
Penny> I have chosen my new therapist. I interviewed 4, and knew a 5th from before. Two of them ended up tied at then end, but my friend who is a therapist and my old therapist broke the tie for me. I'm really comfortable with the new one. I think he is very competent, and caring. He is also efficient and motivated. And he has a really cool English accent (which is really nice here in the USA).
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> Past. I started looking for a new therapist because my old one was doing things that were inconceivable to me (One week she said something that I repeated to myself throughout the week, and it made me feel better. The next week she refused to say anything. It seemed almost cruel.)
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> This week my old therapist and I were wrapping up talking about my therapist search when it became apparent that she thought I was leaving for a different reason than I thought I was leaving. She thought that she had taught me what she knew and that I was leaving to try a different kind of therapy. I thought I was leaving because I had been in pain for 4 months thinking that she was angry at me and I couldn't take it any more. Turns out that she didn't know that I was in pain at all for those 4 months. How could she not know? I can't vouch for exactly how specifically I told her, but I am very open and wouldn't have hidden it from her. Even if I didn't tell her exactly how I was feeling, isn't it her job to find these things out? Now the previous incident makes more sense: she didn't understand why what she said to me the week before was important. How long has she been not understanding (probably 4 months to 1 1/2 years)? She said that we should talk about the anger (my thinking that she was angry at me) - probably 3 sessions. I agreed but said that she would have to see me more often. I couldn't live in the pain I'm in for another 3 weeks. She said that she thought that seeing me more often would be bad for my dependency issues, so she would only see me once a week. I then asked which of the final two therapists she liked, and she cast her vote. As I was leaving, I pointed out that I was only looking for one extra session - so we could get through the anger stuff in 1 1/2 weeks. She said no, and I left. Again, she's not understanding the pain that I am in. She has to stick to her rigid rules.
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> She believes strongly that the way to reduce dependency is to reduce sessions. She was planning to reduce to every other week with me in September. I agree that this will reduce the dependency - you have to find other places to get your needs met. But I find this plan barbaric. I could (and am) reducing the dependency really fast by not seeing her any more at all. I have to believe that there are ways to understand WHY the dependency exists - and then work on that. In fact we did that 3 months ago (when she was going to reduce my sessions). We (I) decided that I was giving her power over my self esteem. So I was then making progress on figuring out how to determine my self esteem by myself. The process was working, I was learning and changes were starting to be made. Is this an unreasonable way to work on dependency? Reducing sessions just leaves the patient with 100% of the responsibility for resolving the problem.
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> I don't want to see her again. We have certainly not finished our "termination", but she let me down so badly by not understanding the most important stuff for the last 4 months. I know that I saw her as too perfect, but this is professional performance that I find unacceptable.
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> I see my new therapist tomorrow (thank goodness!), and I'm hoping that he doesn't tell me I need to go back to see her. I'm ready to move on.
poster:Penny
thread:237299
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030626/msgs/237348.html