Posted by Dinah on August 8, 2004, at 16:46:24
In reply to Re: Therapy increasing shame? Tabitha and Dinah, posted by Aphrodite on August 8, 2004, at 15:53:32
The only time I actually made an appointment I was totally open with my therapist. I was having trouble with both my pdoc and my therapist (and the trouble with the therapist was caused in large part by the pdoc) and I called another therapist. I was ummm... somewhat overwraught at the time and she insisted I see a psychiatrist she worked with before I saw her. I consider that whole episode to be more of a consultation than anything else. The psychiatrist did both meds and therapy, I laid everything on the table, he said something absolutely infuriating to me about transference, said that my therapist and I seemed to be doing fine and that I needed to go back to him and work on the relationship, and that my pdoc had a good reputation in the community for meds. My therapist knew all about this consultation both before and after I went, and it was his common sense approach to the nonsense about tranference that helped me decide to stay with him. I was all indignant that everything the therapist did was written off to transference on the part of the client, that sometimes the therapist was just wrong. My own therapist thought that was rather funny, admitted that he was quite frequently wrong, and offered to go over everything again with the goal of admitting where he was wrong and explaining where he thought he might be right. But he always said that it was possible he was wrong on any given point. This is why I like my therapist. He's very good at admitting when he's screwed up. In an ideal world, I might prefer he didn't need to admit that so often. But this isn't an ideal world, I don't always communicate clearly, neither does he, and sometimes each of us screw up.
I still dumped the pdoc shortly thereafter. He now gets most of his income doing drug trials, which explains a *lot*.
Most of the time, I just make the list. I generally tell him about it. And he always says he's not angry that I make the list without telling him, but he'd probably be angry if I used the list without telling him. And one thing we're good at is working things out.
He and I had a running battle for a several months over my desire for forever therapy. He would ask me what I intended to do, stalk him if he terminated me? And I always knew, and probably told him a few times, that it wouldn't be that hard for him to get rid of me. If he changed his behavior sufficiently that I had *already* effectively lost my therapist, he could get rid of me quite easily.
poster:Dinah
thread:375362
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040805/msgs/375397.html