Posted by Lucie Lu on August 6, 2008, at 13:31:46
In reply to Talked to him about everything, posted by Dinah on August 5, 2008, at 21:31:07
It's interesting how things like trust and closeness which seem so unambiguous... really aren't. My T sometimes asks me to define a word I'm using, e.g. transference, not to "quiz" me but to understand what it means to ME. He says that his assuming that he knows the precise meaning of a word I use in our conversation can prevent him from hearing what I am really trying to convey and leads to miscommunication. So he is careful to try to clarify my meanings. I find that there are often surprisingly many nuances and variations within definitions, especially for such emotionally loaded words as love, trust, and closeness.
We went through this yesterday with the word closeness - he asked what it meant to me. He said that for him, closeness reflected a true engagement between people, so to be close to someone meant you were fully engaged with each other. For me, I said, it was fully about trust - that I could let myself be seen in my entirety, warts and all, by another human being, in peace and without fear of intentional hurts on either side. I also said another, different type of closeness is what you feel when you have shared a meaningful journey or experience with another person. And when you have both, that's the best kind of closeness and what most of us, therapists and therapees, keep striving for.
Dinah, with your T you seem to have all of the above. You are very fortunate, although I know you've worked hard and long to get to that point, so it's more than just good fortune. I really like what Daisy's T said about people getting yanked out of our lives all the time. Neither your T nor mine can guarantee that they won't ever be yanked from our lives (or vice versa for that matter). Even if it is by their own choice, they are presumably making those choices in response to significant forces or pressures from within their own lives - family, health, finances, whatever. Our T's recognize all too well the emotional costs of those "yanks" because they frequently have to experience them with patients they have come to know well and care for. So they try hard to shield us in every way they can think of to make our "landings" as soft as possible. I remember when you were going through all the uncertainty with your T and, even though it sometimes seemed he was making a pig's ear out of it, it always seemed he was trying to protect you in his own way. Every human relationship has its own shortcomings and imperfections, but clearly there is an awful lot of trust and closeness (and probably love too) between the two of you.
Lucie
poster:Lucie Lu
thread:844447
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080727/msgs/844586.html