Posted by Dinah on August 31, 2004, at 1:36:57
In reply to I shared. Now I think I'm done, posted by daisym on August 31, 2004, at 1:00:41
Daisy, I may be way off base here, but you said in a previous post:
"I'm not sure she has shared at this level before, what she was doing and feeling. And she has rarely, if ever, "talked" in therapy."
Is it possible that it feels like you're starting over because in some ways you are starting, maybe not starting over, but starting anew? And it feels like it's the first time you said it because in some ways it is the first time you said it? And that maybe the sharing was even more scary than what was shared? And that you are afraid of is that your therapist wouldn't want to be therapist to all of what you bring him?
Sometimes you can look at things from different angles, different perspectives, and it's as if you'd never seen that thing before. I'm sure you've experienced that. You usually drive past a particular piece of scenery from the east, and one day you approach it from the west and it looks eerily familiar yet unfamiliar. And you approach it from the north and you see things in it that you never noticed from the east or west. And if you were to fly over it, it would be as unrecognizable as if you had never seen it.
I think that part of the repetitiveness of therapy is that not only do we have to incorporate new ideas slowly, but sometimes we need to approach things in all their complexity one piece at a time. All we can take in is one view at a time.
And we probably present ourselves to our therapists and to anyone with whom we have deepening intimacy of any sort the same way. We expose one aspect of ourselves and see if it is accepted, then another, then another. And each time we allow someone a glimpse of another aspect of ourselves it's scary. We fear that this will be it. This will be the part of our being that we should have kept hidden. "Drat! I should have kept the north access road blockaded!"
I could be completely and totally off base, but if there's any truth in my theory then you aren't doing badly at all. If I'm not totally off base, you deepened the level of intimacy a big step, and you're quite naturally frightened that it was a mistake. Well, naturally because any deepening of intimacy is scary - not because I think your therapist can't accept a deeper level. And wanting to withdraw after opening up seems quite reasonable in many situations, if perhaps a bit counterproductive at some times.
Therapy, for me, started to really work it's best when I felt accepted in my entirety. When my therapist maybe didn't approve of everything about me but understood at least as much as I did and accepted probably more. When he had seen me from north, south, east, west, NE, SW, and overhead and could really speak in a language that I could relate to because he knew what made me tick. The only problem is that I know when he's playing me like a violin. :)
And if I'm babbling nonsense, feel free to just ignore it. :)
poster:Dinah
thread:383769
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040828/msgs/384486.html