Posted by lucie lu on October 24, 2008, at 9:30:43
In reply to Re: my feelings were hurt today :-(, posted by Annierose on October 24, 2008, at 7:03:10
Sid,
I'm sorry you're having such a tough week and having this happen on top of it. I can really empathize with your hurt feelings. My experience is the same as Annierose, and it happened just yesterday, ironically. My T sometimes gets a call or fax at the office number but never answers it while we are in session. On rarer occasions his cell phone will ring, and typically he will glance down to see who it is but not answer, and then apologizes and turns his cell phone off. Rarer still he will apologize, ask for a moment, text a quick reply, and then turn his phone off. Rarest still, only happening twice that I can remember, is his need to take an urgent call. When this happened yesterday, he apologized and asked me for a 3-5 minutes (I left the room). When I got back, he explained to me what the urgent call was, that it was about a patient of his in the hospital and the clinical group there were recommending that the patient be released but wanted my T's OK before they did and they were al just waiting. So my T handled it as tactfully as he could, I think. It would be different if such interruptions happen with any frequency, but they don't.
My feelings about all this? On one hand, I appreciated that he at least told me what the cal was about so I could see for myself that it was urgent. Maybe if your T had done that, it would have helped and softened your hurt feelings. After the interruption, we got back down to business and the rest of the session (he did give me a few minutes extra time to make up for the interruption) was OK. I also would have felt bad giving him a hard time about it since he had given me an extra session and a between-session phone call this week (it was a rough week for me too). I wanted to be able to give something back to him. OK those were themore positive feelings and thoughts.
On the negative side, the interruption had broken my concentration and the flow of the session. It is interesting that, as I think about it, what emerged later in the session after the interruption (and nominally not related to it) was an old issue between us that could be interpreted as subtly critical of him. Coincidence? Well, I started the session feeling needy, there was an interruption, and then I bring up some stuff that subtly criticized him and asserted my own views of the therapy. It seems pretty clear to me in retrospect. I then recognized that after the session my feelings were telling me that there definitely had been a small rupture (as twinleaf described in an above post). I felt, in addition to the warm feelings and gratitude that he had given me "extra" during this week, an extra dollop of separation anxiety (on top of that left by the bad week) and also a return of some of my earlier ambivalent feelings about him and the relationship. Anger at the professional relationship and re-emerging mistrust along the lines of "he only thinks of me as a time-slot" because I had seen his clinical side in action and for another patient at that.
For me at least, this situation in some very tiny way resembles the great Vacation dilemma because in both cases, the interruption needs to take place, we feel abandoned and undervalued anyway, and they know we feel that way but probably wish we didn't. Hopefully your T handles Vacation OK and can accept the need to process a similar set of feelings after the Phone Call. If your T has been trying to get you to express anger and hurt and these feelings are blocked in you, and you think he can handle it well, this might be a great opportunity to kick his butt :)
I don't know what else has been going on in your relationship with your T (have you been meeting long? is there mutual trust? do you usually get along well?) but if your T doesn't allow you to voice your feelings and work together through them, then suggest to him that his countertransference is showing ;) and that he should re-examine the issue from your point of view. Something valuable could come of it if you two can repair the rupture. Does he get defensive about Vacation issues? If so, maybe you can lead off discussion of the Phone Call by saying that you know and understand he needs to do what he needs to do, but you noticed within you afterwards feelings about x,y, and z and could you both talk more about them and what they might mean to you in the context of your relationship with him and maybe others in your life? BTW, I do fully recognize that as paying customers, we should "own" the session altogether and in theory should brook no interruption from someone else. But realistically, I think such an approach might be less productive - therapists are people and they will remember things they've done for you out of the therapy hour, and it could be you on the phone next time!
Anyway, again, I'm sorry you are feeling bad after this session and in general, and hope the incident gets worked through with your T.
Lucie
poster:lucie lu
thread:859040
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081018/msgs/859074.html