Posted by crushedout on April 7, 2004, at 9:26:43
In reply to Re: had therapy today it was so painful » crushedout, posted by fallsfall on April 7, 2004, at 7:59:29
fallsfall,I, for one, appreciate you telling this story very much because it gives me hope and clarity on what I should or can try to do. And each time you tell it, I learn something new. So, thank you.
> You said: she thought I should stop if (a) I was having trouble feeling invested in the rest of my life (umm, yes) and/or (b) my feelings about her were making me feel so "dysregulated" that the only way I could cope with them was to cut (um, yes also).
>
> So, in effect she is saying that based on HER criteria you should stop.Yes, although I didn't tell her that I thought I met the two criteria. I only realized this afterwards.
> I was in immense pain, and my old therapist was not dealing with that pain. I found out, at the end, that she did not have any clue of how much pain I was in for the last 4 months that I saw her. That was the final blow for me - she was not even aware of the most important thing in my life. When your therapist says that you need to work through a maternal transference - I am a little confused. I thought your transference was erotic. Aren't those different things? IS she aware of exactly what you are feeling? Or is she, like my old therapist was, seeing things in a different way than you are?I'm sort of wondering the same thing. Yes, it is an erotic transference. There's certainly a maternal aspect to it (I don't think they need be separate) -- for example, I long for her to take care of and cuddle me. But for me, what bothers me about this, is she says it has something to do with *my* mother, and there are no similarities whatsoever between my feelings for her and my feelings about my mother. That's not to say that indirectly this doesn't link back somehow to the relationship I had with my mother, but I don't feel like we've really talked about what it has to do with that, and, as I told her, I don't feel we've been making any progress dealing with my transference. It's only been getting worse.
And yes, I feel she has been unable to help me deal with my pain. I feel like I can imagine her saying that there's nothing she can do to help --this is something I just have to go through in my own time. But is that true? Aren't they supposed to help?
I find myself getting really angry at her today, at how she's failed me, and I'm starting to have this severe "sour grapes" thing where I'm telling myself that she's really been a terrible therapist (and maybe even a bad person) all this time. I think maybe I feel I need to do this to move on but I'm sure she would say that I was enacting something from my past, or that this was not productive for me (because I will have to reject her completely and not internalize and use the parts of her that have been helpful to me) -- and THIS, guys, reminds me of stuff with my mother.
Which leads me to an interesting thought, which I think gardenergirl first pointed out: that by terminating, I may actually be starting the "working through" that we have not been able to accomplish so far. Because it's in leaving her, rejecting her, that I need to do work. But I guess I need someone to help me do this the "right" way, and not the way I've always done it in the past.
poster:crushedout
thread:332291
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040402/msgs/333656.html