Posted by Dinah on December 12, 2005, at 21:36:26
In yesterday's session. I wonder why some of the deepest sessions have Babble inspiration?
Maybe it's easier to discuss tough topics by bringing them up in third person then slipping into the personal aspect.
At any rate, the main thrust of the session was about clients wanting to feel special to their therapists, about me wanting to feel special to him. He actually brought up that exact topic from some things I had said. He said that most clients want to feel special to their therapists, and that in some ways of course they are. But in other ways they aren't.
At which point I interrupted him and told him I didn't think I'd like where this was leading. And I got soooo anxious of what he was about to say, yet so sure that it was probably something I needed to hear, that I deliberately left the room, so to speak. The emotional self that usually attends therapy focused on going up and up and up into the rational self that doesn't think much of therapy, and wouldn't be hurt by what he was about to say.
After a bit of small talk, he asked why I had left, so to speak, and if it had had anything to do with talking about wanting to be special. He said something fairly innocuous about all clients having to make appointments, and having to pay, and technical details like that. Things that had nothing to do with feeling special really, and that I don't think were what he was about to say when he saw me get upset and zone out.
Welllll....
Rational me said a lot of things that emotional me never ever would say (at least not in the same way), and overdisclosed all sorts of things along the lines of what we've been talking about lately on Babble.
I told him how important he was to me, rather graphically. I never wanted to say that quite so bluntly. I've said it many times of course, but it felt different and more shameful coming from my rational side.
I asked if he knew that little girls flirted with their Daddies, and when he said he didn't really because he had a step-daughter, I explained it with the probable evolutionary reasons. Then told him that I flirt with him that way all the time, in an attempt to gain positive regard and emotional investment, just like a little girl does with her Daddy. I never really wanted him to know that. At least not using the word "flirt". Thank God he clearly understood perfectly that I didn't mean man/woman or sexual flirting. And that I thought it was a very bad thing, because I didn't allow myself to get angry with him or show him my bad side. He thought the two things were different. That it was ok to flirt like a little girl does with her Daddy, but then it was ok to get mad and yell and know that the relationship could stand it.
He did seem a bit disconcerted.
Then he said he'd been eager for a chance to ask why I constantly put him down when talking to myself. And I answered him honestly that it was a safety issue. I was afraid he'd hurt me and that I constantly wanted to remind myself of all the reasons I shouldn't trust him because then I wouldn't be surprised at least. I claimed that we were out of time when he asked me to be more specific than I was, but I was pretty blunt I guess, because he seemed to have problems writing out the receipt. He stopped and restarted several times while writing, including while writing his own signature.
So now I'm afraid of course. But I can't call for reassurance, because the last thing I said to him on my way out was that I'd probably call him for reassurance. And I don't want to prove myself right about *anything* I said after becoming my rational self.
It's just too too humiliating. I would have never said the things I said in the way I said them if I weren't in superrational mode.
poster:Dinah
thread:588515
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20051210/msgs/588515.html