Posted by Tamar on June 19, 2006, at 16:54:25
In reply to I saw him, posted by ElaineM on June 19, 2006, at 16:02:19
Elaine,
You’re a very courageous woman. You’re handling this really well. It isn’t easy at all.
I think it was a very good idea to cancel your next appointment.
I hope you won’t mind if I highlight a few more examples of his inappropriate behaviour. I’m not doing it to criticise him or you, but because I suspect you may be wondering if those things are inappropriate. And if so, I want to confirm it for you.
1. He should not have given you a present. Giving presents can lead the client to expect more from the relationship than the therapist can legitimately give.
2. He should not try to guilt-trip you into keeping appointments. That kind of behaviour is essentially emotional manipulation and should not be used on vulnerable clients.
3. He should never say he misses you when you’re not there, and especially not as a way to try to get you to come to your appointment. Disclosing his feelings in this way can lead you to believe that your purpose in the relationship is to gratify his feelings and meet his needs. That is not how things should be.
4. He should not have touched your face. Intimate touch in therapy is frowned upon by most therapists, and is particularly dangerous with clients who have experienced abuse. Touching can have multiple meanings to the client, many of which the therapist will have no idea of, since he can’t know absolutely everything about you. Touching your face could be frightening or intimidating for you. It is highly unprofessional of him to assume that he can touch you without any ill-effects.
5. If you have told him you don’t like having your face touched, he should have made a special effort to remember that. To be honest, that part of the situation makes me *extremely* uneasy. Perhaps he did forget… or perhaps he was trying to manipulate your emotions. Given his inability to stick to appropriate boundaries, I can’t assume his motivation was pure. But that’s just me.
> I feel so guilty. Now I get to add Liar to my diagnosis.
You are not a liar. It really *isn’t* possible for you to be there. It’s emotionally impossible, rather than logistically, impossible, but it’s still impossible.
> And I'm so nervous about my doctor. She has no idea at all that I'm going to burden her with this. It will be so out of the blue. I only started thinking of maybe telling her last week, when I knew this appointment was already coming up.
I think telling your doctor is an excellent idea.
> The more I write on here, the worse I am at being okay with his closeness. Even the stuff that is benign.
I don’t think any of what you’ve described is benign. Much of it is actually very dangerous.
> But there is a big part of me that wants to cry and fight to keep him even closer. I hate myself.
Maybe… maybe what you want is a feeling of closeness and a feeling of being loved. And I have no doubt that you are loveable and there are people in the world who will be able to hold you close and make you feel safe. But he is not one of those people. Your therapist cannot do that for you. He is one of the few people in this world who absolutely cannot make you feel loved in that particular way. His job is to help you explore ways of finding that kind of love and safety *outside* therapy.
At the moment it seems he’s trying to give you the love and safety you crave. But it comes at the cost of your therapy. He is not doing therapy with you. In fact, he has damaged the therapeutic relationship very badly. And I don’t think he can do this forever. I don’t think he can continue to have a non-therapeutic relationship with you forever.
> I don't know if I can do this. I already feel like I'm going to be sick. I'm going to burst out of myself being this afraid. In the end I always cave. I hope I don't go see him before, but I might not be able to help it.
If you feel yourself wavering, post at Babble. We will help! You do not need to cave. You have already shown so much courage. You can do this. We’ll be thinking of you.
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:657557
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060615/msgs/658799.html