Posted by Dinah on August 14, 2004, at 23:20:50
In reply to Best Moments in Therapy, posted by Pfinstegg on August 14, 2004, at 22:38:10
I'll give it a shot. It's probably silly little things tho. Nothing really important.
There was the last day at his old office. He was moving the furniture the next day, so this was it. The weather was bad, and the office shut down about the time I got there. They had been calling and cancelling the sessions. And I asked him if he wanted to go home. He told me that he knew how important his office was to me, and that he wouldn't do that to me on my last day there. So I think I was his last appointment in his old office, because he went home after too.
Around the same time, I suppose he was feeling emotional too, and probably was well disposed to me because I understood that his office wasn't just a space. But he really relaxed around that time. The drawl that he has pretty much eradicated appeared quite a bit. And I know when he drawls that I've reached him as a person.
There was the time when we were hammering out a difficult spot in our relationship. I was insisting that I could feel something negative from him. He was insisting that was my perception, not reality. Then all of the sudden, he broke and admitted he had always had trouble with dependent women. That my dependence did put him off a bit, but it was his issue and he would work on it. And he did. His negative attitude did get better and he never referred to it again. I referred to it again a few times, and he never denied it but he never said anything else about it. Not too long thereafter he stopped fighting my dependence, which helped me cling less to him.
I had been pretty awful to him the first five years of therapy, and I had finally admitted my attachment to him and decided to trust him. But during those five years I had berated him, quit several times, told him he could rent his office to me without him in it because it was the office that helped. I didn't need him. Several months after I had changed, I noticed that he was still bringing up things I had said and done before and was waiting for me to act the same way. I sat him down and asked him to look at the me that sat across from him. I told him my attitude towards him had changed, and that the things he was saying had no bearing on what I might or might not do any more. I asked him if he could ever stop seeing the me that had been and start seeing the me that was in the room with him right now. And he started trying. He admitted that I had hurt his feelings in the past, but that he would try to start rebuilding his trust in me. And he did try to start rebuilding his trust in me. I think he *does* trust me now as much as I trust him.
There was the time just the other day when I was trying hard to explain something that didn't make a lot of sense. My eyes were closed but when I said one phrase I could feel him breathe in and lean back. I realized that he understood. He really understood! Not because I was explaining myself so well. But because of the years of work we had done together. Mind you, he didn't agree, but he was able to work from that understanding which helped the conversation a lot.
Then there are the little times where he teases me like my daddy does. He knows the psych phrases I hate, and sometimes he uses them lightly with a laugh, so that I smile too and over time they become less hurtful.
Nothing big or momentous. Nothing earth shattering.
I suppose the biggest moment was the first time I spoke. He was totally cool. Didn't miss a beat. Knew what was happening but didn't make a big deal of it, because that would have scared me off. And he's been that way ever since. No big deal at all. Just the way things are. Totally matter of fact. I was rather disconcerted and shaken. But his manner made it a lot easier for me.
poster:Dinah
thread:377790
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040812/msgs/377807.html