Posted by Daisym on June 15, 2008, at 20:55:38
In reply to Re: Not too happy with my therapist today, posted by backseatdriver on June 15, 2008, at 19:54:16
Please remember that I always want to be supportive to you. So if this feels too challenging, ignore it.
I think long-term therapy changes, the way all relationships must change. They change because the people in them change - due to circumstances, choices and familiarity. The more intimately we know someone, the more these changes can be apparent. But often the things that have changed in the other person aren't that apparent to them. When we are upset, depressed or stressed, we usually aren't very good at being self-reflective.
I'm getting a divorce. I've been working through it for two years - and still when someone who knows me casually finds out, they will say, "Really? I didn't know. You must be handling it well." The truth is, there were times when I didn't handle it well, and my close friends and my clients knew this. I was too quiet, or I was quick to anger at a dad. But especially with the families I serve, I didn't want to tell them all the personal horror, I tried really hard to keep my stuff at home. I'm sure I wasn't successful all the time. And I'm sure I was hiding myself a lot, even as I tried to be open and present in my work. I do know that when people would ask me "how are you? or How was your weekend?" I'd say, "Fine, thanks." Because truthfully, I didn't want to say, "crummy - I cried all weekend due to being alone." My clients don't need to hear that. It wouldn't be good for our work. And honestly, I don't want to think about it when I don't have to.
You've said that your therapist is going through something. You don't really know what it is. I would be anxious too - and clingy and regressed - and all those other things you said. But it is possible that your therapist hasn't consciously changed the rules, but rather he is trying to not talk about his own stuff in your sessions. He should know better than this - he should know that you would feel it, but perhaps the stress he is under isn't anything concrete he can verbalize to you, at least not yet. A few years back, my therapist suddenly stopped asking me about checking in on Fridays. He changed his whole demeanor at the end of our sessions - clearly he was avoiding this. After a few weeks of feeling really hurt and confused, I finally pointed it out. I told him that if I was supposed to have progressed to the point of not needing him by X-date, he should have warned me. And if he didn't want to check in between sessions anymore, he should straight out tell me. Turns out he had a friend with cancer he was helping on Fridays - and he wasn't available. But he didn't want to reveal he was dealing with this either. He said, "I should have known that you would pick up on it" and he reassured me that if I "really" needed him, I should still call, he would call back, etc. etc. This was a huge issue all summer - I felt bad for adding to his stress and guilty and I was mad as heck for not getting what I wanted still, even if we could both see I didn't still need it. And I was mad at him for not trusting me with the real reason and letting me imagine the very worst possible reasons for the change in him.
As people, our therapists do have the usual good and bad things going on in their lives. And I think when we've been with them a long time, we know it deeper than their other clients. We see the subtle changes and the things they do or don't do. But I just don't think that it is always that well thought out - they really don't know how these little differences add up very quickly for us. Or maybe they want to pretend that it doesn't bother us, because they can't help being like they are being.
Sometimes I wonder if my therapist has gone to a conference, read a new book or had supervision about me, because something(s) will be different suddenly. Usually I'm too polite to ask directly, but eventually I will let him know that I've noticed a difference and if I find it useful or not.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, as much as we would like to believe that most things done in therapy are deliberate and well thought out, I just don't think they are. I think we co-create each session, based on what we both bring to it.
I wish it wasn't so tough for you right now. I hope he gets himself together soon.
poster:Daisym
thread:834764
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080524/msgs/834811.html