Posted by Racer on August 30, 2008, at 17:48:02
In reply to Re: General thoughts on the subject of responsibility, posted by susan47 on August 30, 2008, at 17:27:21
> >The focus should be the problem, what led to it, how to fix it, and how to prevent it from happening again.
>
> And in all parties verbally and fully taking responsibility in their own part for what went wrong, in bad therapy. And this is something we don't have, yet. There is no method or system for this, and it holds up healing. Damn it. Why does NOBODY LISTEN? It's as if I were invisible, and the more invisible I feel, the more rage I want to express.
> >I've got some of the same issues, Susan -- and the hardest part for me is recognizing that I will NEVER get acknowledgment from the other side that ANYTHING that happened included ANY responsibility on the part of ANYONE other than me. (That's not distortion, by the bye -- I went through a formal complaint process, and that was their written response.) These people, who failed to meet my treatment needs in such varied and damaging ways, will NEVER satisfy this need for me.
Here's my question to myself, which might help you: "what, exactly, would I get out of an apology from them?" It's taken four years for me to internalize the answer -- "I would get validation." Simple as that.
Next question I started working on: "Since I'm never going to get that validation from the source I want it from, how else can I satisfy that need?" And that's the hard part.
For more than three years now, I've had a therapist who has provided validation on this subject. She has offered every kind of reassurance she knew how. She has tried to help me express my anger at them. She's good at all that, too. Since I still struggle so hard with that question, there's obviously something which is still missing. The Bad Ones said one thing about me; the Good Enough One contradicts nearly everything they said, and has included as much objective support for her view as exists. Hm... Why am I giving so much more weight to people I *know* to be inadequate, less competent? Why can't I transfer that need for validation to someone I respect so much more?
If I ever answer any of that, I'll let you know.
poster:Racer
thread:849022
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080826/msgs/849305.html