Posted by LG04 on January 17, 2005, at 21:21:44
In reply to Re: :-) » Dinah, posted by fallsfall on January 15, 2005, at 8:42:30
Dinah, my hterpist and I recently dealt with this exact same issue. I had been in my "little kids" for about 4 or 5 phone calls in a row. And a couple of them crying very, very hard, one of them being very angry, and so on. I know my therapist was starting to feel overwhelmed with me, well the better word might be that our conversations felt "out of control," in other words I was all emotion and she had no one else in me to speak to about all this.
We both figured it out together when one day I cried alone for literally hours, and then I was finally back in my adult, rational self. Our next phone call I was very rational and adult and talked with her about several things that had been happening in our prior phone calls and we realized that we had been in a sort of "dance," where she was reacting more and more to my emotions because there was simply no adult to consult with. It's harder for her over the phone to not get into countertransference stuff, we've talked about this before, and I have this phone relationship with her knowing that.
Anyway, it made so much sense to me and it made me feel so much better to bring out the adult me finally.
I had a suggestion that we've been trying to remember to use. I said that maybe when we start a phone call, she could ask me first, "How are the little you's doing? Do they have anything to say?" or something like that. Because then I can sort of "report" on how they feel rather than totally be IN the feelings. And then we can talk about what's going on with them with me sort of acting as the intermediary.
It's worked well so far. Sometimes of course I still go into the little girl feelings, and that's okay. I think our new method is to try to keep it from going on and on and on for many phone calls in a row where I'm all "little girl feelings" and not at all adult. It helps me too to have the adult more out there. I feel more connected to her and I feel less out of control inside which I prefer. I feel less desperate towards her and less like I want her to take care of me, rather that I am taking care of myself with her helping me sometimes.
Anyway your post simply was exactly what I just dealt with so I wanted to relate to you my experiences.
LG
poster:LG04
thread:442346
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050117/msgs/443492.html