Posted by Dinah on May 29, 2008, at 11:02:30
In reply to impasse in therapy?, posted by Lucie Lu on May 28, 2008, at 19:43:12
I'm glad if my experiences have been helpful to you. My therapist and I have worked hard to get to where we are, and we were talking about the term "fighting to relationship" just last session.
He is aware of the multiple layers of meaning, which is nice. How fighting means more than arguing, though it includes arguing. But it also means struggling toward something, or for something, instead of tearing it down.
I'd say your dilemma is something I've been dealing with for a while, and some times I have more success than others. Sometimes I'm frankly bored and dissatisfied and think therapy may well be over. Other times I feel like I'm reaching levels that I never even dreamed of before, and learning so much about.... Hmmm... How to describe...
Problem solving still plays a role in therapy. Dealing with challenges that come up. But more than that, we seem to sometimes reach deeper and work on opening myself up to the possibilities of life. Which actually helps with the day to day stuff because it involves a change of perspective.
It *is* hard to keep therapy alive and fresh when you've done it for so long. When there's no crisis. It's not as if you can take off your shoes, curl up on the sofa, and watch some TV together in perfect harmony. Therapy isn't like that.
The only thing to do is to keep talking about it, keep fighting to deeper levels of relationship, try new things if necessary. I considered bringing in one of those therapy games for a while. I still have it - The Ungame.
Sometimes it's taking those risks, saying something that you're afraid might threaten the connection, that moves you past an impasse. A lot depends on how safe you feel with him, and what you intend to say of course. I spoke frankly with my therapist about feeling bored and wondering if therapy was over. He had me look at that possibility. But then something happened, a deepened mutuality. As you might have read from my posts, this doesn't mean that he discloses his private life. But it does mean that we have a reasonably mutual engagement in the moment. I allow myself to see him as a person and to take his needs into account rather than just seeing him as the allgiving therapist/mommy that I still see him as. Just not exclusively. And he let himself be seen.
One thing that I do occasionally, and that seems to break minor therapy jams, is to be playful and silly. To just have fun. Not for long periods of time, but for a session here and there. To break the patterns, to feel connected, to possibly break the routine of feeling stuck.
But mainly it's discussion. It's telling him how you feel, and letting him tell you how he feels. It was hard for my therapist to really do that. To trust me that I could handle it, and that it would actually be beneficial to me in modeling good relationship techniques.
I also find it helps a lot to work out in writing some of what I'm feeling. I usually do that here. I start out with one thought, and then by answering the responses of others I work to another thought, and often end up with a thought that bears little relation to the first but lies beneath the first and guides it. It doesn't have to be on Babble. It could be in a journal. I just find the ping pong of ideas on Babble helps a lot with it. Even if I think that a response doesn't precisely resonate for me, in figuring out why, I learn something new about what I am thinking or feeling.
poster:Dinah
thread:831752
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080524/msgs/831879.html