Posted by lonelygirl on March 25, 2004, at 17:41:54
In reply to Most Embarrassing Therapy Moment, posted by Elle2021 on March 6, 2004, at 19:45:03
I can't believe I didn't see this thread earlier... (Good idea!)
I embarrass myself constantly, but I think my most embarrassing moment was during the initial consultation. On the intake form, there was a long list of things that I had to rate from 0 to 5 on how concerned I was about them. Of course I rated most of them 0 or 1, with the occasional 2 or 3, just 'cause I didn't want him to think I was crazy... Anyway, some of them pertained to eating and body image and stuff, and since one of my, uh, big problems is that I am very overweight, I marked some of those 2 or 3. When he went over the form with me in the intake session, I was so embarrassed because then I realized that they meant those questions for anorexics/bulimics, not for people who OVER-eat, or who have an accurate hatred of their bodies. I felt like he was looking at me funny for rating those.
I was also really embarrassed when he asked me a bunch of standard questions, straight from a list I'm sure, about how I'm sleeping, how's my appetite, etc. When he got to that one, I just glared at him, thinking, "You dumb@$$, can't you see for yourself that my appetite is just f*ing fine?!"
I think the runner up would be that I was kind of mean to him before I started liking him. I was very angry about being forced to go to counseling, so I was determined to make it clear that I was only there because I had to be. I was required to go to 6 sessions, and I did 2 before the month-long winter break. I was very busy the first week back, so I didn't make another appointment, and the second week of school, he called me to "touch base" with me (i.e., remind me that I was going to be in trouble if I didn't do the mandatory counseling). I wasn't there, so he left a message and I called back later. He said, "So, um, would you like to make another appointment?" and I said, in my most bored/exasperated voice, "Well, I GUESS so."
I am still horrified that I was ever anything less than the nicest I could possibly be to him... Except, in kind of a twisted way, I think it may make him like me a little more, because you know how people like to be "the one who got through" or something. So he knows that he totally turned me around from being angry and distrustful to coming in voluntarily and liking him.
One more thing that is related to this: at one point, I admitted that it's "not so bad," but I kind of felt like I was supposed to hate it since it was my punishment. He smiled and said, "This is something I do in couples counseling sometimes..." and he told me to hold up my hand. Then he held up his hand and pressed it against mine, and he stood up (still pressing on my hand), and then he told me to get up, but he was pushing too hard on my hand and I couldn't (which was the point of this exercise). He said, "You could have easily gotten up if you had just dropped your hand to your side, but when I was standing there pushing on your hand, the instinct was to push back." Ok, there wasn't much of a point to that except that HE TOUCHED MY HAND! I had one of those, "I'll never wash this hand again!" moments. Oh, and also that I feel stupid for falling for it, and if I could do it over, I would have shoved as hard as I could and gotten up (I bet it would have worked because he wouldn't have been expecting a sudden, hard shove). I bet he would have found that amusing.
Oh, I have one more embarrassing moment! He likes to make metaphors a lot. Most of them are really cheesy and I have to struggle not to laugh out loud (one time, he said, "I feel like I'm talking to a poker player." Yeah, I get it, ha ha, I keep a straight face. But then he continued, "I just want to see your cards." I could not make eye contact with him for the next 5 minutes. Then he added, "Oh, I didn't mean that in a dirty way or anything.").
One time, he said, "I feel like I'm doing guerilla counseling here." I almost got mad, because I thought he was calling me a GORILLA (because I didn't talk much and answered half of his questions by shrugging my shoulders). Fortunately, before I could show my annoyance, he went on to say, "I feel like I have to sneak up on you and do some counseling, and then go find another angle and sneak up on you again." All with really funny gestures.
Wait, just thought of one more! I got written up because I was mad about something, and I was in my dorm room throwing a fit about it. Some jerkwad reported this (even though it wasn't during "quiet hours" or anything) and I got in trouble. The school "authorities" called my psychologist about it so we talked about it at the next session. He asked me what I was yelling, and I said, "Use your imagination." He said, "Ok, I can imagine you just yelling, like 'AAAAHHHHHH,' or I can imagine you cursing like a sailor, like, 'SH**... F***!' or I can imagine..." At this point, I cut him off and said, "OKAY! I don't need to hear impressions of myself! Geez."
poster:lonelygirl
thread:321334
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040321/msgs/328373.html