Posted by fallsfall on December 3, 2003, at 12:19:35
In reply to Re: 2 Years Later, Still Not Over Therapist, posted by LostGirl on December 3, 2003, at 10:49:26
Oh, my god.
My heart goes out to you. Yes, it does sound like he had some countertransference issues. I'm so sorry. They could explain his "need" to have you miss him in July, and his "forgetting" to tell you about the 4 weeks in August, and also not being able to promise to do it differently, and the tears. The only consolation is that his particular countertransference to you meant that he liked you very much (too much?). I hope you understand that you did nothing wrong (actually it sounds like you did exactly the right things). This was his issue - unfortunately his issue ended up hurting you.
My first therapist and I had a transference/countertransference issue. I'm still not sure really what happened. I saw her last 5 months ago, and this week I started freaking about it again. It was too painful to process at that time, I guess now is the "later" I was waiting for. It just doesn't get harder than this. She, too, didn't process the transference that I had. I blame it on the fact that she is a CBT therapist and they don't pay much attention to transference (but it could have been countertransference or some CBT therapists may do better with transference than she did). We had sort of agreed (although we each had very different reasons...) that I should find someone else, so I was in the process of doing that when I knew that I had to leave her cold turkey. I was with her for 8 1/2 years. I miss her so much. Oh, did I mention that one of my issues is "Intense dependence" (my new therapist's words)?
My new therapist is great. He is so different from her. We recently had a 2 week period when I had an excruciating transference with him, but he was able to help me out of it. That felt like such an accomplishment. It gives me more faith in therapy, because I was afraid I'd end up in transference hell with him, too. I'm a little braver now. He is Psychodynamic (esp. Psychology of the Self).
You certainly had an incredibly stressful year. You must be very strong to be able to write in full sentances after all of that. I'm glad you have a new therapist, and that the two of you have talked about the old one.
I know that I have unfinished business with my first therapist, and it seems that now is the time when I should figure out how to finish it. I don't know if I will only need to talk with my new therapist, or if I will have to go back and see her again. I was terrified to see her in July - I couldn't go. I think that I have managed to get more strength and stability over the last 5 months. If I do end up needing to see her, I hope that will be enough. (She works in the office across the hall from my pdoc, so everytime I go to see him I'm afraid I'll run into her).
I definately think that "finishing" with your old therapist is important. If you can finish. Do you feel that he admitted that it was his issue? Other than the tears, did he tell you that he was sorry? Those are things that I would need if I were in your shoes, but you may need something very different. I hope that your crises can abate long enough so that you work on this issue with your current therapist. If that doesn't seem to be happening, can you increase the frequency of your sessions in order to get some time to work on this?
My experience says that my pain won't go away until I deal with it. If your pain is the same way, I hope that you can find the time, energy, and courage to deal with it.
poster:fallsfall
thread:285353
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20031202/msgs/286217.html