Posted by ElaineM on January 20, 2007, at 15:59:02
In reply to Re: He said he's finally gonna try to do it! » MidnightBlue, posted by Llurpsie_Noodle on January 20, 2007, at 0:12:34
Sorry, I was kinda disappointed yesterday. Not a complete failure but also, not what I had built myself up hoping for.
First, he spoke to both a friend/collegue, AND his T (the next day). They both had similar reactions...
He talked to his friend over dinner. He spoke his whole session with his T about me, but didn't mention either time that he loved me. He did say that he's been "more preoccupied with me than any other patient he's had before", that I make him "frustrated" and "sad". He spoke more about needing me to continue seeing him, and the silence in our sessions now, and more "technical/clinical" things, than he did about the love and attachment. Then both the guy and his T focused more on how to faciliate meetings better, and get me to speak more, and open up more, and how for him to deal with his uncomfortableness when I don't speak to him, and deal with the uncertainty of our "future" together. They focused on advice *that* way.He told me that he was upset with how his T meeting went cause he said he felt ignored cause his T talked about me more than about him. So I asked if he really revealed as much as he thought he did. Did he reveal enough of his personal feelings to garner personal attention from his T, rather than professional advice. That was when (in a roundabout long discussion) he revealed that he mentioned all the other feelings, but hadn't mentioned any of the romantic ones. Said he wants to keep those for himself for awhile cause he's afraid he'll be told to give them up. And he's afraid of the reaction he'd get.
When he told his friend (the same non-love content) the guy revealed to him that he had a similar predicament with one of his patients. [I felt my jaw hit the floor. I must've looked shocked cause he looked away then] I asked him how his collegue dealt with it (spoke with a T, or something), and that's when it came out that the guy only meant that he had tense/difficult/emotion-provoking sessions with a patient he found particularily sad.
But he said that his friend joined a "supervision" group of about six other therapists. I asked if anything like that existed where we are, or if that guy thought it up himself. He sounded sad and said, "I'd assume so. If you went looking for it. it's not a unique idea on his part." He said he ending up resenting his friend a little, and felt isolated from him cause this other guy has a functioning, loving marriage to help him feel better, and he only has Ex's now. When he said this the first thing I thought was that it was (again) obvious that he's trying to replace "latest Ex" with me -- put me in that role. But I didn't want to push him too much by saying it then (and saying it again).THe only thing he did tell his T was that he is often frustrated and saddened that I am always gonna be unavailable to him. I thought that could be seen as a good first step (if the T didn't pick up on the undertones already). But the more than I think about it, the more I could see the T interpreting "unavailable" as "clinically distant" or "psychologically unavailable", and not sexually, or socially unavailable. He also revealed my age.
He said that he was encouraged by the meeting cause he feared the worst type of reaction (probably why he self-protected by censoring). But he thought it was a good start. I think so too. Others aren't expected to jump right into their hardest issues in one shot, and I don't expect that of him either. I did at first, but I think i was just over-excited, or relieved or something. So I made him promise that now that he's tested the waters [the expression he used explaining it] he'll try and get into more of the personal aspect next meeting. He said he'd try. That's really all I can hope for. [I may have forgotten stuff, but I think I hit on everything here]
And then he spent like five minutes thanking me for listening to him, and offering such kinds words, and supporting him. He said he thought it was good that he started speaking to T, and he thanked me again cause he said that he only started going to one cause I pushed him. I told him I was proud of him.
So it wasn't the huge event that I had built it up to be inside, but it wasn't terrible. I'm not as deflated today as I was last night :( Sorry I didn't update sooner. THanks for all your good wishes guys. (((((((LL, Muff, Caraher, MidBlue, Philyra))))))
blove, EL
poster:ElaineM
thread:721410
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070119/msgs/724527.html