Posted by Dinah on July 31, 2004, at 23:55:17
In reply to Re: The Experiment Continues » daisym, posted by LauraG on July 31, 2004, at 12:09:45
I think those styles vary widely. They even vary with the same therapist over a period of time. My therapist started off discouraging phone calls. He had had the privilege abused by other clients, and didn't understand that I was willing to pay for his time. Plus he's not very good on the phone, and maybe he knows that. But over time, he came to realize that it made more sense for him to make himself available to me over the phone - it actually reduced the number of calls to him! He also said you can't do therapy over the phone. I don't think he meant it as a statement directed to me. I think he was making a statement about his overall belief that therapy can't be done without face to face contact and body language. And that phone calls were limited in their usefulness, and major topics were better discussed at our next session.
My therapist was always pretty free with the "I care about you"'s. Perhaps a bit too free. In the beginning, I didn't believe it a bit, and would have preferred that he didn't say something that really couldn't have been true. Have patience. A lot of times they won't say the words, but they'll say some little thing that really means more than the actual words would mean. Maybe a silly little thing that you might feel silly to be really happy about. :)
It's a really odd relationship, and it's sometimes hard to come to terms with the strange rules and boundaries that don't at all resemble any other relationship in the world.
poster:Dinah
thread:371026
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040728/msgs/372789.html