Posted by Adia on September 5, 2003, at 16:57:59
In reply to Re: Please help..feeling really confused.. » Adia, posted by Dinah on September 5, 2003, at 16:18:51
Dinah,
Thank you so much for responding to me...and sharing your thoughts and experience with this...
I'm really feeling scared and I wasn't expecting this at all so I am really confused.
I do feel it is unfair that she did this and it hurts that knowing me the way she knows me she does something without even talking with me or asking me..She is always encouraging me to feel I have a right to ask for what I want, etc and now she decides for me something so important to me..(so important that I feel my stability and sense of safety and everything depends on it)
Thank you for understanding..it didn't feel right..that she did this via mail..it hurts she didn't even give me the chance to explain what had happened our last session.
I'm glad you and your therapist could work through the same difficulty and that you are working together and that this could be worked out between you two...
Thank you for saying you'll try to look for the letter you wrote to your therapist.
I guess my therapist may be frustrated 'cause I promise her so much and then I am able to do so little compared to what I promise her.
I have difficulties opening up , sharing out loud but I was making progress, in baby steps...but it seems she doesn't feel the same.
She is experienced and has been working for lots of years now, she's 50-something, I'm 27. She does psychoanalysis..not quite sure about the other things she might do..but mainly that's what she does..
And she said she learnt a lot with me too...
but she admits to me that she has felt frustrated.....because she says I desperately ask for help and she sees how much I hurt and then I don't take or accept her help...
she feels happy when I do...
I feel I am just learning to trust and talk...and it's such a slow process for me...I felt I was getting somewhere ... but she wants more from me...
I really don't understand why she has decided this without even talking with me...our last session she didn't even mention this...I just cried and when we said goodbye she asked me to write about what I had been unable to share and to bring it next time...I wrote something during the week and I made the mistake of asking..in an email..if she could see me before thrusday (our appt day)...She got my mail today..
and it seems something in that mail made her decide this...She says our sessions are too hard and difficult for me right now.
Maybe she wants me to react??
I really can't understand how this can help me..
I so want to believe there is hope and I will be able to work this out with her...
My therapy relationship with her is too precious and I would be devastated if I lost her..
Thank you for saying you think therapy can recover from this..
I will hold on to that...
I'm terrified here.
I need it to work...
Thank you for sharing with me...and validating my feelings too...
It means so much to me.
Thanks..
Adia.> Adia, as much as you care for your therapist, and as many fine qualities as I'm sure she has, I'm still forced to say that what she did stinks.
>
> My therapist has from time to time, and in fact the most recent time was a few weeks ago, wondered if therapy was useful or harmful for me. Every time it throws me into a wild panic. But at least he did it in person. Maybe you two have gotten a bit to comfortable with email.
>
> Since this has happened to me, I can say with absolute certainty that therapy can recover from this. The most recent time I wrote him a very long letter that was my attempt to help him reframe his thoughts of the usefulness of our therapy. I put forth as convincing an argument I could as to why it was good for me, despite the fact that it also caused some upset. He thanked me for the letter, and said it helped him understand things a whole lot better. And the process continues somewhat. I'm gaining a better understanding of what he's thinking is going on as opposed to what I'm thinking, and why he gets so frustrated when I think things are going along fine. I'm going to start a thread with part of what we discussed today.
>
> There are a few possibilities. Your therapist may feel she's in over her head, and she may be. How long has she been in practice, and what sort of therapy is she comfortable with? That's a tough hurdle to overcome, but not insurmountable if you're both committed to the therapy process. My therapist has grown as a therapist quite a bit while I've been seeing him, and I've stayed with him while he grew.
>
> The other possibility is that she might just be frustrated at what she doesn't understand. That's way more easily dealt with. If you marshall up all your rational explanations of the good therapy is doing you and what you think is going on, it might give her a new way to look at the process.
>
> Since I just went through this, I'll try to look at the letter I wrote my therapist and see the sort of thing I wrote him. Obviously you have different issues, and your letter would be completely different from mine. But the fact is that we can convince them at least some of the time by explaining what it is that they don't understand.
>
> I *completely* understand how upset you are. And I'm rather upset with your therapist for addressing this via email. But perhaps we could give her the benefit of the doubt for the time being and assume she was out of her mind in delirium from her illness at the moment.
poster:Adia
thread:257321
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030905/msgs/257380.html