Posted by tabitha on February 18, 2004, at 0:06:01
I'm really upset after my group session. I thought I had settled into the group, I thought I was accepted, I felt like it was finally a safe place to be. Tonight I learned a couple of people are still pretty bothered by something I told people like 10 weeks ago, that I thought my therapist had encouraged me to say, so I thought it was OK to say it. And my therapist decided to bring this up and explore it *after* I had shared some very personal stuff about my mom and my brother, so it felt really awful that after that vulnerability, the main feedback I get is that some people are still upset about something I shared 10 weeks ago. So I'm thinking that feeling accepted and safe was just my illusion.
It's sort of the same issue as in my individual therapy. My therapist keeps encouraging (pressuring actually) me to share my hurt or angry feelings with people. I don't find that this generally draws people closer. In fact it seems to create discomfort that never gets cleared up. OK I admit it's necessary to process with your significant other or your close family members, when you're committed to the relationship, but she pressures me to do this with friends that aren't really all that close. My experience of taking her advice and doing this has made relationships worse, or ended them.
Since joining the therapy group I've seen that sharing your 'bad' feelings can work, when everyone is trained to hear such sharing as a bid for intimacy rather than a complaint or criticism. But even in that setting it can backfire. All these weeks ago I shared that I was feeling some irritation with some of the group processing style. People were asking a lot of questions, and sort of leading the conversation with questions, and I don't like that. (I actually thought people would pipe up and say they'd noticed that too, and we'd all discuss other ways to interact.) Instead everyone said they hadn't noticed this at all, three people didn't have much negative reaction to what I said, but two of them were pretty offended.
So this is just more evidence to me that sharing your irritation/hurt/anger is risky. It might improve the relationship, and it might damage it. Even in group therapy, which is supposed to be relationshop utopia where everything gets talked about and worked out.
Besides feeling disillusioned and rejected, I'm so angry at my therapist over all this. It seems like she set me up to fail, then didn't support me. When this came up she encouraged the 2 people to share how they felt about me, then didn't go into my reaction at all. It's like she's trying to teach me a lesson that I did something wrong.. to see how what I said drove people away.. but I didn't even want to air my irritation in the first place-- she encouraged me to do it. It's just maddening.
I'm so sick of the whole cr*p therapy process. Sometimes you come out of the session feeling better, sometimes you come out feeling worse, meanwhile your bank account continues to drain, and it's all based on the dangling carrot of some supposed future benefit. I feel really awful.
poster:tabitha
thread:314971
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040211/msgs/314971.html