Posted by fallsfall on June 8, 2004, at 17:00:43
In reply to Waaaaaahhhhhhhh, posted by Dinah on June 8, 2004, at 16:00:35
Oh, Dinah.
My condolences for your hair.
As for therapy...
First of all, if we didn't try to please our therapists then we would never make any changes at all. Hmmm. Maybe we are supposed to make changes because WE want them - but THEY must have something to do with our changing our minds about these things - after all, you didn't do this hair thing before you met him (and I didn't start thinking about going back to school). So, if they are worth the exorbitant dollars that we are giving them, they should be doing SOMETHING to initiate a change of mind in us. I suppose that they could give us all of the good reasons why we should change our minds - but this isn't (in my experience) what they do. Besides, the kinds of changes that they are asking us to make don't quite seem like the "Gee, I think I'll do it differently today" kinds of changes.
We were talking about this in my therapy on Monday (no, not about your hair... about my deciding to go back to school). I told him that I felt seduced into going back to school (OK, there was this dream, but I'm not going to tell you all the details - the dream brought in the concept of seduction). I told him I didn't feel "coerced" - that would mean that I did it, but didn't want to. Seduced means to me that I was heavily influenced, but decided that I wanted to do it. So he left me with some comment about figuring out what "MY" part in all of this was. Sort of like he wanted me to stop seeing myself as so passive - like things are happening TO me, and start seeing myself as having some control over what happens. This seems really strange because I have always been a super-controlling person. But he is right - I see myself as being very passive these days.
So how can we tell if we make decisions because it is something that WE want, or because we want to please someone ELSE, or because we think it is the RIGHT thing to do? In some ways they all feel the same to me. If I want to please someone else, then it is more important to me for them to be pleased than for me to have my way - how is that different from me *wanting* the new thing? I am *wanting* the new thing - because the new thing gives me something that is really important to me (the opportunity to please the other person). And I don't know that I can differentiate between wanting something and thinking it is the right thing. Why would I ever want something that wasn't the right thing? Why would the right thing not be what I want?
I'm feeling really dense here.
But you do have me confused later on, too. You said "I had known all along that it was unbelievably rude of me to *notice* such a personal thing about him as his opinion about my appearance. " I don't understand why his opinion is such a personal thing. At least not in the sense that you "shouldn't" be seeing it - it isn't like you "shouldn't" be seeing his underwear. I guess that I see opinions as something that we show the world - they define who we are. And, even if I can get past that part, if his opinion is "out there" in the room, I would think it would be rude *NOT* to notice it. That would be ignoring part of what he is showing to you. Like if a child comes up and shows you a picture they drew, you don't ignore them and change the subject - you acknowledge their picture.
And you said "That his personal preferences were his business, and he tried to keep them out of the therapy room, and if he had failed he wanted to know how so that he could improve.". This I agree with. His personal preferences ARE his business and he isn't supposed to impose them on you - not about your appearance, or morality, or whether you should divorce your husband (but I can tell you *my* opinion - I think your husband is a pretty good catch - I'd keep him if I were you), or whether the Red Sox are better than the Yankees. And if he DID impose his preferences on you (which clearly he did...), then that IS an error on his part. And HE should feel badly about that - not you.
This said, as you can tell from the beginning of this post I am completely confused about how we decide what to do about anything, so please read this all with that in mind!
I think you have done *NOTHING* unforgivable or awful. The worst I could see is that this is a therapeutic opportunity (to figure out how you should decide what to do). You should NOT be beating yourself up. And you should NOT cancel your sessions. Just my humble opinion.
poster:fallsfall
thread:354845
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040603/msgs/354864.html