Posted by Wittgensteinz on August 11, 2008, at 8:23:53
In reply to One thing to keep in mind perhaps, posted by seldomseen on August 11, 2008, at 7:41:45
I have to agree with Seldom - therapists are experts in containment, and they have to be to do a good job i.e. unless therapeutically valuable, the details of their personal lives, including their annoying habits and their imperfections, stay out of the room. If we were privy to all that stuff, the therapy would become terribly complicated and non-productive.
I've been seeing my analyst for nearly a year and a half now, and I've grown to deeply respect and love him - occasionally he does make mistakes, and that usually makes me feel more endeared . I feel a tight bond. That said, I haven't experienced feelings of jealousy. I have sessions at his home and on a few occasions have bumped into his wife at the door or she has answered the phone. Maybe I've felt a bit awkward - probably more so from the thought of intruding in his home life.
It's easy to idealise our therapists - but they are humans too. I recall one time, he was talking on the phone, talking to his wife because their new cleaner had got lost on her way to their house, and he cursed loudly. I'd never heard him curse before and it stunned me somewhat - I'd somehow not thought it was within him! I told him sometime later that "gentlemen professors weren't supposed to curse like that". I think we want our therapists to be perfect, ideal fathers, mothers, spouses (of course they are not these things, but I'm talking transference), and when we meet an anomaly, we shrink away from it, turn a blind eye, sooner than see them for what they are, just ordinary, imperfect, human beings, like everyone else.
poster:Wittgensteinz
thread:845448
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080810/msgs/845489.html