Posted by twinleaf on April 22, 2008, at 9:45:48
In reply to I think I am pretending in T.....(triggerspossible, posted by rskontos on April 21, 2008, at 18:20:14
Hi. It seems very sad to me that when your T gets sleepy, which necessarily involves a withdrawal of his attention and feelings from you, that you sometimes start worrying that it is YOU who is unable to form a bond with him. Just from knowing you here on this forum, I feel completely certain that you are able to. I don't mean, though, that you won't have many intense struggles over trusting and bonding in therapy. One could say that the process of therapy for people like us, with severe abuse issues in our backgrounds, is one of repeatedly moving a little forward towards trust and love, and then moving a little back again to make sure we are safe, with the forward movements being just a little more prominent than the backwards ones, when looked at over time.
The sleepiness is a very difficult situation. I have gotten the general impression that your present therapist has actually been very helpful in understanding you. I have also gotten the impression recently that you are at an important point of facing some extremely painful things. Your therapist may have been important in making this possible, and manoeuvers on your part to delay or avoid dealing with these things are certainly very familiar and understandable to everyone here, if indeed they are even playing a part at the moment.
I think what I would do is talk to him about the effect the sleepiness is having on you. I think this is the most pressing issue, because it involves a withdrawal of focus from you at a time when you need it every moment. I personally could not go deeply into past traumas without feeling certain that my analyst was with me in a deep emotional way, every moment.
You could also talk to him about feeling that you are "pretending" in therapy- why you feel this way, what the causes and solutions might be..just airing the whole thing. Everyone wants to feel real and genuine.
Finally, at some point while you are trying to work out these things, you could investigate the new referral. It is a bit distressing to me that your present therapist wants to cut down the frequency of sessions at a time when you seem so ready to deal with traumatic events in your past; if anything, that would at least call for maintaining your present frequency, if not increasing it.
poster:twinleaf
thread:824636
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080405/msgs/824768.html