Posted by mair on August 22, 2002, at 13:22:14
In reply to Re: Thanks guys. I think I'm just scared., posted by Dinah on August 22, 2002, at 9:54:44
Dinah
I'd be interested to know if your spouse has ever come with you to a therapy session. My husband has attended several, however all but one were with a therapist I no longer see. He was a willing participant as long as he was being led to believe that he was there to "help" me. As soon as my last therapist tried to suggest that my husband might have a problem with his own moods that needed addressing, things got pretty ugly. I guess I'm sort of the "designated patient" in my family. It was helpful having him understand how some things he did pretty unconsciously were real triggers for me. On the other hand it's made me very gun shy about drawing him into the therapy process again. When was coming with me, it was aggravating to me that he didn't understand that he needed to be an active participant. It was like it was my therapy and he had no obligation other than to just show up and ocassionally offer a comment. Also, he has a tendency to attack (verbally of course) when he feels defensive, and a couple of the sessions got so ugly that it pretty much cured me of wanting to go through that again.
Unfortunately I've gotten to the point with my current therapist where I've started to think that the extent to which I can sustain some kind of a remission really depends on my husband and I working out some different ways of dealing with one another. I dread feeling that I may need to make him a part of the therapy process again, since I think he'd be such an unwilling and maybe rather resentful participant.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:950
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20020702/msgs/957.html