Posted by All Done on March 12, 2004, at 17:18:45
In reply to Therapy and the feelings conundrum, posted by 64Bowtie on March 12, 2004, at 12:29:34
Rod,
I’m not big on metaphors. My T once had us going in circles with this bubble metaphor. I about screamed before I told him I just couldn’t do it anymore :), but I’ll give this my best shot. Hopefully, I’m not just confusing everything you’ve said.
I prefer to think of a river instead of a swamp. For example, each year, the river near my office gets to a pretty low point. In order to get the river back to a reasonable level where families can enjoy the beach and boating, there has to be some rain. Most of the time, I don’t enjoy the weather when it’s raining, but in any event, it’s necessary. I, for one, want to enjoy the river when I can. But somewhere along the line, I may have forgotten about my raincoat, lost my umbrella, and perhaps I never learned to use windshield wipers. My T is reminding about the coat, helping me find the umbrella, and teaching me about the wipers. Or maybe, he’s even teaching me to sometimes just go out with no umbrella and enjoy the feel of every single drop of rain on my skin. And since I want to enjoy the beach and boating, I must endure some rain. The rain isn’t going to stop and there’s no way either of us can stop it. (Not that I haven't begged him to on occasion :).) I just want every option open for me in deciding how to deal with it.
You said, “We say that we want the bad feelings to stop.” I’ve never told my T that I want the bad feelings to stop. In fact, the most productive few weeks I’ve felt I’ve had with him, I experienced great sadness and anger as well as happiness and elation. I want my T to teach me how to deal with my feelings and emotions as they occur because I don’t think anyone can stop them (or build a levee) and I wouldn’t even want that. Sometimes, my feelings seem to be few and far between, other times they happen all at once. Perhaps the later situation is what you’re referring to as the flash-flood.
Well, I see I’ve tangled a terrible metaphoric weave and now I’m just rambling. I’m not sure whether I’m agreeing or disagreeing with what you wrote, Rod. Sorry, I guess this is just me thinking out loud...
All Done
poster:All Done
thread:323619
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040308/msgs/323696.html