Posted by fallsfall on October 26, 2004, at 21:31:28
In reply to Do you plan your sessions?, posted by Speaker on October 26, 2004, at 15:26:40
I used to plan the whole session, every week. I even rehearsed how I would say things. I would bring a list, and go through each item.
My old therapist tried to get me to plan less, and my current therapist tried even harder to get me to plan less. Somehow, I was able to start doing that. I guess that I stopped "preparing" the topics, but still brought in a list of things to talk about. Somehow, even though I didn't know in advance what I wanted to say, useful things were discussed. I guess I sort of see it as practice in being spontaneous (which I am SOOO bad at...)
Recently I had a session where there were two things to talk about - one was my topic, the other was one that he wanted to talk about (which came out of my topic). We have had "issues" in the past about whether we should talk about "my" topic or "his" topic. So I started the next session saying that the previous session could have been one of those times when that was a real problem, but for some reason it wasn't. He then asked if I wanted to talk more about "my" topic or "his" topic. I said that I didn't really want to talk about either one - I wanted to avoid both. All he said was "Uh huh". We sat for a minute, and then I told him what I had been thinking in that minute. After about 5 minutes of that we ended up discussing something that was really important - it was a great session. And it was completely unplanned.
It still feels strange to not plan. Sometimes I really want to give him the highlights since my last session, but I try to do that in 5 minutes or less, and then we either talk about one of those things or wind up on something completely different. In the old days, I could spend 50 minutes giving "the highlights". This new way seems to be more productive.
poster:fallsfall
thread:407531
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041026/msgs/407705.html