Posted by mair on August 14, 2004, at 22:47:50
In reply to Boundaries (may trigger), posted by lucy stone on August 14, 2004, at 15:56:52
>" He would never encourage me to add an extra session, even if I were in great distress."I'm not so sure my T would either, although the one time I actually called her at home, she did encourage me to come in the next day. My last T would more than encourage me - he'd just say he wanted to see me, like maybe the next day, and I never really challenged that at all. I think my current T's hours are a little more circumscribed.
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> "He would never call to check on me, even if I had had a very difficult session or was in obvious distress. We had an argument about this once, and he implied that he would not call and check on me even if I were in one of my suicidal periods. I have promised that I would call him before I hurt myself and he said that he trusts that I would do that. I'm not sure I believe him on that one (that he wouldn't call), so I personally think he would."Again, I'm not so sure my current T would either, although my last T did on several occasions, including one time from a rest stop on the Maine Turnpike. His reasoning was that he knew I would rarely initiate contact even in moments of distress. My T just says she trusts me to call her if I need to, although I think that trust is a little misplaced.
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> He would never volunteers any personal information about himself.My therapist self-discloses about some things where she thinks it would help - like we'll compare notes on issues with our children or she used to talk alot about how she balanced work/home, when that was more of an issue for me. I know an enormous amount about her because I discovered one day that her husband had written a book which had a ton of stuff in it about his home life and his relationship with her. This really puts things on a different plane - I don't think she'd be anywhere near as open if I didn't already have this trove of knowledge.
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> He very, very seldom initiates the conversation in a session, he waits for me to start.Well my T tries to initiate things less than she used to because she decided that I'd follow her lead and then not talk about things that really were on my mind.
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> He seldom carries thoughts or topics from one session to the next, he waits for me to do that. Once in a while he will start a session with thoughts from a previous one, but they are rare.Actually my T does this alot although she usually won't jump in until she makes sure there is nothing I'd rather talk about. And if she didn't initiate things, I might never talk. She does jump in too soon sometimes when I'm struggling, and I've discovered, somewhat to my chagrin, that when she attempts to finish my sentences, she rarely guesses right, about what I was thinking. It makes me feel sometimes that maybe she doesn't understand me at all, or at least, that she grasps too quickly for the obvious and easy explanation when things may be more complicated.
>I'm not sure how much this has to do with boundaries other than the self-disclosure issues. I think it sounds like your analyst wants you to direct things. This is all well and good, but sometimes i really need my Therapist to put things into context for me so I can see some structure. I've told her that it's not always so important that I see a future, as long as she does. It's really helpful for me when she periodically sums things up and explains where she's trying to get with me.
Mair
poster:mair
thread:377663
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040812/msgs/377794.html