Posted by fallsfall on April 20, 2004, at 6:49:31
In reply to some thoughts after a nap and journalling » fallsfall, posted by crushedout on April 19, 2004, at 22:56:35
Wonderful.
A joint consultation was recommended to me by one of the therapists I interviewed (and she gave me a name of someone to go to - it happened to be my old group therapist!!!). At that point, it was just too late for me, I was too hurt and too far along in the "choose a new therapist" path. I never asked her if she would do that with me. I found it a scary thought.
If you can be completely open and honest with Ellen, I think that you could learn a lot.
It sounds like you have gained the same feeling after your consultation that I did after mine - that there IS a possibility that another therapist could meet your needs. That let me feel like I had options. That I could leave my therapist and actually survive. That was incredibly empowering for me.
I chose my current therapist in part because he wasn't as warm and enveloping as my other choice. I didn't want to end up in the same dependency hole with him. The detachment that I brought to the new therapy relationship was good. I'm still incredibly dependent on him (after 9 months), but I have a little more conscious distance. Also, he handles my dependency so differently than she did (she reduced sessions, he increases them) - and I find that my yearning is much more managable this way. I ended up in the same transference bind with him, but he handled it differently and we could work through it (boy was it nice to see the other side after being there!) So, yes, it it is possible to enter a new therapy relationship and work to minimize problems that you have seen before.
Just please watch boundaries with Ellen. If she doesn't seem to be able to maintain them, point this out to her. And if it continues to be a problem, then you probably would need to leave (but now you have a place to go - and that helps).
poster:fallsfall
thread:337644
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040419/msgs/337993.html