Posted by mair on March 19, 2008, at 22:36:29
In reply to here's a thought » Dinah, posted by crushedout on March 19, 2008, at 14:37:36
Crushed
Excuse me for jumping in late here.
If you genuinely feel she has been of no use, maybe you are better just moving on. However, from some personal experience, I think there is a harm in leaving a T when you have alot of unprocessed anger.
Several years ago, I expressed some anger at the very end of what was supposed to be my last session, at least for awhile. My then-T got upset and urged me to come back to talk about it. I did, for one more session; I apologized; he never really encouraged me to explore why I was angry. After that, and for probably another year and a half, I continued to see him but only intermittently, when I was at my depressed worse. Seeing him, however, never again felt like real therapy, and I always felt that he acted differently towards me after the outbreak.
I've spent countless sessions processing with my current T, what happened with my last T. She has been very critical about what she perceived to be the failure of my last T to own up to his part in what happened. She feels that because of this experience, and probably earlier experiences as well, I have difficulty expressing my anger because on some level I think it's going to alter how others feel about me.
I've been going thrugh a stretch for awhile where I've been upset with my T and totally confused about our relationship and probably not coincidentally, feeling like therapy is a waste because most of the torment of therapy seems to be caused by my anxiety over our relationship. Several weeks ago, I had a particularly awful session where I was telling her how pointless I thought therapy had become and where I thought she was sort of agreeing with me. Driving back to work afterwards, it occurred to me that I was starting to feel like I was re-enacting what happened with my last T.
I went on vacation right after that session, and the time and distance allowed me at least to calm down enough to feel that I should let her know what might really being going on. In my first session after I returned, I managed with great difficulty to convey the thought that it was possible that my anger was a big contributer to my feelings that I should quit seeing her. What she told me (pretty emphatically) was that under no circumstances should I stop seeing her or cut back on seeing her until I was at least able to fully express and process my anger.
I'm almost ashamed to say how relieving her insistence was -It sort of conveyed the message that she cared enough to make sure that I didn't quit without having my own clear understanding of why I wanted to go. I don't know whether I was so relieved because I wasn't going to have to go through what I went through with my last T, or whether i was relieved that she was taking control of this aspect of my life. [probably a subject for my next session (< ; ]
This is a very longwinded way, I guess, of suggesting that you should talk some of this through with her. I wonder all the time how much the situation with my last T maybe set me back, and how things might have been different if he had really gone out of his way to help me process why I was so upset with him. I know the way things ended up with him had a huge impact on me because the topic of how I left him comes up from time to time in therapy sessions with my current T and I start feeling angry all over again - with him, but also with myself for not pushing the issue with him.
I don't think seeing someone else to process what's happening with your T is at all as valuable as trying to process it with her.
Good Luck
Mair
poster:mair
thread:818119
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080226/msgs/818937.html