Posted by mair on February 6, 2005, at 16:29:33
In reply to how did the therp session go? (nm) » mair, posted by judy1 on February 5, 2005, at 19:25:53
My therapist raised it as soon as I got in the room, so I didn't need to worry about dodging this issue. She didn't raise it in the context of my son's argumentative nature, but more asking me if it was ok for her to have acknowledged me when she got up from the table. She insists she had no idea I was there until she got up to leave, and says she was unaware of any conversation going on at our table. She seemed to feel genuinely badly that my worry about all of this kind of ruined the night for me. So of course it wasn't all as bad as I imagined.
All of this led to a broader discussion about how much clients should know about their therapists and what gets triggered sometimes by people running into their therapists outside of therapy. I understand the theory of the blank slate, but I don't think it would work for me, and I don't think it works particularly well where I live. I know alot about my T but only some of it is stuff she's told me. I probably need to keep talking to her about some of this, because I have this gnawing sense that it's very relevant to how I respond to her, but it isn't anything I can put my finger on.
Boundaries are not a problem for me. The bigger problem I have is that I fight against feeling some connection to her; I have no sense of dependency although I'm pretty sure that not being able to meet with her anymore would create a real crisis for me. I tend to associate non-revealing with distance, aloofness, and coldness, so my knee jerk thought is that knowing a little about her, helps me develop a sense of connection and that I wouldn't fare well at all with a blank slate T. But I don't know if that's true. Knowing things about her hasn't made me wish for a different kind of relationship with her, and it hasn't made me long to know even more than I do. I get pretty confused trying to puzzle all of this out.
It's interesting. She knows I worry sometimes about not nurturing friendships and she wondered if me seeing her having dinner with a friend made me envious in some way. It really didn't. To the contrary, it made me happy that she was out doing stuff. I know she's going through a divorce - I have a much bigger concern about her not being socially active.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:452323
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050206/msgs/454018.html