Posted by fallsfall on November 28, 2004, at 10:53:52
In reply to Re: Need advice on therapist boundaries, posted by eugenia on November 27, 2004, at 21:07:52
>I guess I am dwelling on this now because I wish I had acted differently, and feel that if I had been less confused I would not have gotten married and would have saved everybody loads of pain.
>I guess I am still angry.I'm not sure if I read this the way that you meant it. Or possibly that you have unconscious feelings that you aren't really aware of...? This may be completely off base, and if it is, please feel free to tell me that this doesn't apply to you.
It almost sounds to me like you are angry at that first therapist because you went to see her to decide whether to get married or not, you then did decide to get married, but later that turned out to be a bad idea. Therapists don't (or at least shouldn't) make life decisions for us. Their job is to help us think about the decision so that *we* can make the decision ourselves.
While I was in therapy I decided to separate from my husband. During the years before this important decision, we would talk about him a lot. And she would make comments "It sounds like he is making it hard for you to do what you know you need to do", or "If you decide to stay with him, then you will need to figure out how to ...". But she also said "If you leave him then..." She NEVER said "He is bad for you" or "You should leave him". Even when I announced that I wanted to leave, she never said that she thought it was a good or bad decision. When I finally left this therapist, I summed up our work together, and that included mentioning that *I* thought that leaving him was a good decision. She seemed pleased that *I* was happy with my decision. (My current therapist has mentioned that it sounds to him like leaving my husband was a good decision for me).
It is not our therapist's job to make our decisions for us - it is not their job to live our lives. My therapist was more directive about other things ("I think that since you can't get your kitchen cleaned up that you should consider using paper plates for a while").
Regardless of whether she did make the decision for you or not, telling your ex that you were borderline is clearly outside of the boundaries. (If she hadn't seen you as a patient, and had only met with you in his presence, and only could base her opinion on what he had told her about you, then she could *speculate* that you *might* be borderline - and that therefore he might want to handle things with you in a particular way. But this wasn't the case with you. She had an individual professional relationship with you.)
This post seems kind of confusing to me... The point I am trying to make is that there seem to be two issues - the triangle between you and her and your ex (which I do think she has handled poorly), and a (possible) expectation on your part that she would prevent you from making a bad decision (which I believe is not her job).
If I am making no sense, feel free to ask questions or ignore this post... [Fingers! Stop typing before you make more of a mess!!!]
poster:fallsfall
thread:420954
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041123/msgs/421260.html