Posted by mair on March 10, 2004, at 22:15:26
I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that therapy is starting to cause more distress than it's worth. It's not so much that we're talking about painful things as it is that there is an ever widening gulf between what I say and what I want to say. Sometimes I avoid things and sometimes I talk about things without even beginning to reveal my depth of feeling about them. So I feel my T and I are working at cross purposes. And really this resistance just makes me feel worse about myself - like I'm a failure at therapy.
I'm thinking i should quit before things get worse. My thought is that I do myself no favors by continually putting myself under my own personal microscope. I think self-criticism has become a way of life for me and I might fare far better if I find a way to stop thinking about myself - therapy is definitely not conducive to distancing you from yourself.
The problem is that my T is far more committed to my future than I am. I've told her too many times that I have this huge fear about terminating therapy prematurely because I'm afraid I'll rapidly go downhill and because I'll take it as evidence that I've given up on myself and that she's given up on me. She's told me repeatedly that she would go to great lengths to keep me in therapy. But I think I've exagerated the risks - quitting therapy doesn't have to be as much giving up on myself as it is recognizing that I'm just not capable of opening up enough to make the process work, at least any more than it already has. So although I think she knows that I'm not going to get anywhere (or at least has serious doubts), I don't think she'll see that a decision to quit doesn't have to be a negative.
I'm sure this makes little sense - I just needed to try to verbalize some of what I've been thinking.
poster:mair
thread:323114
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040308/msgs/323114.html