Posted by antigua3 on August 2, 2008, at 10:40:45
In reply to talking about your childhood in therapy, posted by raisinb on August 1, 2008, at 15:54:10
Oh, what an interesting topic. It sounds like your feelings are really quite complex, and from my experience--and please don't get offended, I'm only speaking from what I've learned--you've found plenty of ways to cope with how you feel about your childhood, but a lot of them sound like denial to me. Especially the boredom caught my attention, as if you don't want to go there and you've decided it's boring. A psychodynamic T would probe that, and try to get you closer to the your original feelings.
You said,
"It seems like you don't necessarily need to know the source of your feelings to be able to work on them."IMO, yes you do have to work on the source. Think of it as reversing the situation. You get upset with your T for things she does--and yes, she certainly has a responsiblity for the here and now--but the feelings are coming up from the past. Part of her job is to figure out what is triggered in you that makes her absences so difficult for you.
You may not want to go to the source of the feelings at all; that may not be what you want, and that's certainly OK. The only time it's trouble, again, in my experience, is when those original coping mechanisms don't work for you today. For me, I had to learn WHY I had certain reactions, and to open up to my T so that I could have a corrective emotional experience (I really hate the jargon, sorry), which helped me develop new coping skills that weren't destructive, physically and emotionally.
I must admit, though, my T does think every experience I have with her (vacations, our relationship) all trigger feelings from the past.
Can I ask a question? How do you think she should handle this (is it a she? if not, I'm sorry). How would you like her to handle these types of things?
antigua
poster:antigua3
thread:843520
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080727/msgs/843664.html