Posted by pegasus on September 4, 2007, at 11:02:06
In reply to Re: Is 'Dr. Sanity' an undiagnosed BPD? *Triggers* » Maria01, posted by Squiggles on September 3, 2007, at 14:01:16
I disagree that it's necessarily better to speak to someone who is intimately involved in your life in a mutual relationship. In my experience, a therapist is the only person who has been willing to skillfully spend the attention and time on *my* issues that I really needed to break through to a new way of looking at things.
I have many good friends, and close family members, and they are certainly helpful people in my life. But I would not be comfortable spending an hour every week talking about my deepest, most private thoughts (assumptions, fears, convictions, etc.) with them. Even if I did spend an hour every week talking deeply with them, I'd be so much more concerned about how they would react to what I was saying, and with giving equal attention and assistance to them, than I do with my therapist. They are not trained to handle just *anything* like therapists are. Most of them would certainly be freaked out by some of the things I've worked on with a therapist. And many of them would take very personally, in an unhelpful way for me, a lot of what I've needed to discuss in therapy.
It's just not the same kind of help. Sure it's great to have supportive people in your life, and to be able to confide in them. But in my real life, I want those relationships to be mutual, because that's how you maintain them and find them fulfilling. In therapy I find it incredibly helpful that the relationship doesn't have to be mutual, and that I can go places that mutuality would make difficult.
peg
poster:pegasus
thread:780497
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070904/msgs/780761.html