Posted by honore on August 31, 2007, at 18:20:03
In reply to please help, posted by Dory on August 31, 2007, at 11:01:32
Hi, Dory. Sorry I haven't responded earlier, but I've been away from the computer pretty much while on vacation.
It's terribly hard that your T feels that he needs not to have as many phone calls-- or not to respond to them--I wasn't exactly sure which-- between sessions.
Even though I agree with what Dinah's saying, and know there's a lot of truth and importance in it-- I myself feel that it's important to have a fit between the kind of boundaries that a T can be comfortable with and some fundamental needs for connection that a patient has. It can be difficult to do without the kind of contact that sustains you through the difficult, frightening, and lonely times between appointments, and helps you keep touch with the hope and even trust in the possibility of a better future. So I feel really badly, worse than that for you, Dory, if your T feels that he needs more breathing space, or less porous boundaries around the sessions.
I've had Ts like that-- and have found it difficult. But that doesn't mean that you won't adapt. If you believe, as you do, that he really cares, and can accept truly that he needs certain things in order to do the work he does-- that it makes him a better T for you in the time you have together-- and that he is doing it, as Dinah says, for the relationship-- and in that way for you, too-- perhaps you can hold that connection so that it continues unbroken between times.
It's really that that matters. I have trouble sustaining the connection-- I need that contact-- and I know that you often feel in crisis and in desperate need for some immediate contact or response. Yet it can be done. I hope that you can, because he seems to be a good T for you-- and you looked so hard and had such trouble finding him.
I'll try to be around more this weekend; please keep in touch and let us know how you are, even if it violates your self-ban-- if you feel at all that you need to.
(((Dory)))
Honore
poster:honore
thread:779947
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070822/msgs/780049.html