Posted by Dinah on July 4, 2005, at 16:43:13
In reply to 3 days and counting...(a little long), posted by daisym on July 4, 2005, at 15:50:10
Daisy, I think there's reason for clients to be angry when their therapists go on vacation. Not that their therapists don't deserve a vacation, or that we don't want the best for them.
But some of them, both our therapists included, do encourage us to rely on them, to call them when we need to, to schedule extra appointments if we need them. And that's wonderful! I'm glad they do!
But then they go off and leave us for a week or two weeks or whatever, and expect us to just shut off that reliance. Ok, that's a bit unfair. They know it will be difficult for us. They understand the dilemma we're in. But they still act in such a way that the result is the same.
I always get really angry that my therapist has asked me to do things that make me more vulnerable and less strong than the coping mechanisms I've used in the past, then goes off and leaves me naked and vulnerable.
And won't even provide me with a fill in therapist. Scowl.
I think it all depends on our basic trust that in the end this will make us stronger. That we're leaning on them more in the short (Hah! Nothing short about it!) term, but that eventually we'll be able to lean on them less and less, while relying less on the coping mechanisms of the past.
Sometimes I wonder at the truth of that. But... Well, his absences aren't as painful to me as they used to be. And I'm way more aware of which coping mechanisms I'm using. And overall, I think I'm better adjusted now than I was when I started therapy. I think slowly it's actually working.
I think back to what I was before, and know that I don't want to go back there. I don't want to go back to the days when the only two emotions I could name in myself were "ok" and "upset". It was half a life. I didn't know how to have a real relationship with anyone. It hurt less, but it was also lacking in so many ways.
Yet one of the things I do when he goes away is shut him out a bit. It takes a few sessions to let him back in. I guess some ways of coping are hard to overcome. How do people whose spouses go away frequently maintain the same level of intimacy?
poster:Dinah
thread:523383
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/523402.html