Posted by antigua3 on August 2, 2008, at 13:01:57
In reply to Re: talking about your childhood in therapy » antigua3, posted by raisinb on August 2, 2008, at 12:15:48
> It just seems a futile, endless process to try to reverse something that happened so long ago.
>
I don't think you can ever reverse it; it's finding a way to live with it maybe.> Maybe "bored" wasn't the right way to describe it. I think I feel *pressured* when I go in, because I've only got 50-60 minutes (my therapist is nice and lets us run over--but still) to feel better, to process the intense, painful feelings about her. Talking about my childhood feels like a waste of time--a detour from the stuff I desperately need to get out. It's as if I'm feeling restless and anxious and I have only half an hour to exercise--and someone's making me do Tai Chi (if that analogy makes sense :)).
>>>I know exactly what you mean. I'm always watching the clock, trying to stuff everything in and wondering at times "why are we going down that path?" This is what I tend to do, since I'm such a control freak. I do this with both pdoc and T. First I address anything that bothered me about the last session, and try to limit their responses, until I get everything out that I want to say that day. Then I throw it back to them.I'm getting better at timing it, so they have at least 30 mins to respond, but invariably something comes up in the last 10 minutes, and that can be awful, because you're left hanging.
> I get the idea of a corrective emotional experience--and I want one very much. I suppose talking about my childhood doesn't feel like the way to get it.
>>OK, what way do you think would work for you? You know I'm asking honestly, and not in a hurtful way at all, because there are so many ways to approach this--there is no "right" way; it's what works for the patient.
>
> Also, before I finally went into therapy, I spent several years reading books, analyzing myself, journaling, etc. I was so desperate to figure out why I was in so much pain and why my relationships were always so horrible in the same ways. And I did. I figured out all of the childhood origins.>But it never did me one bit of good. It never changed a thing, and I think it's because it all happened on a purely intellectual level. My deepest emotions weren't touched. So I am afraid of doing that all over again with my therapist.
>
>>You should be afraid of it! It's a terribly, hard, difficult, hurtful thing to have to do. But you have a head start. I'm a great intellectualizer, too, but now my T and pdoc don't let me do that--They want the feelings now and I've distanced myself so far from them that it's very hard for me to access. I used to cry over these things all the time, and then grew a hard shell that has yet to be cracked in places because of my fear of letting one in, to trust again with the fear of being hurt. It's horrible, but in my case, it has been so worth it. I have yet to "let go" of things, but what I have released has the added benefit of giving me more energy to deal with the world, and less of a need to be in such tight control of everything. Now THAT takes a lot of energy.
> How would I like her to handle it? Well, ideally, I'd like to do both--process my feelings about her in detail, then, *later* talk about childhood connections. I just want the first to happen thoroughly before the second begins. And I want to be able to choose the timing and the pacing of how that happens. But it feels like my therapist doesn't trust me to do that. Maybe that is partly what hurts about it.>>See, you have a plan. Go ahead and discuss this with her. My T always lets me set the pacing because I'm so impatient that I want to barge through everything, but my mind won't let me, and neither will she. She always says that our minds let us know when we are ready. Forcing it has never worked for me.
all my best,
antigua
poster:antigua3
thread:843520
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080727/msgs/843689.html