Posted by stellabystarlight on October 29, 2008, at 17:39:49
In reply to Rupture in therapy (long), posted by Wittgensteinz on October 28, 2008, at 20:09:25
Hello Witti,
I ran out of coffee today, so my thoughts are a bit disjointed and incoherent from the withdrawal, but I wanted to reply to your post...so I apologize for not being helpful to you as I'd like to be. I understand the pain and the confusion of various emotions and thoughts you must be going through. It' s excruciatingly painful when the rupture feels like an emotional reenactment of the original wounds. I was sorry to have missed your earlier post when you needed to chat...I felt your pain and it would have been mutually helpful. I've been going through a painful rupture of my own with my therapist for the last month, and although we got through the most difficult part of the repair yesterday, I'm still left with the resentment of having to go through a rupture which I feel was brought on by his "stuff" or counter-transference. I won't get into my rupture right now as I don't want to impose on your post.
I read your posts so I'm very aware of how insightful and intelligent you are about therapy, and I don't want to further upset you with my anger towards these therapists, but I feel your T was being selfish and insensitive! You did absolutely nothing wrong...you're in an immense amount of pain, and he should have shown more empathy! Whether he is disappointed over a broken pact or not, or needing to keep to his rules, or not wanting to talk about his past, etc., the bottom line is you are the "wounded" and he is the "healer". Yes, they're flawed and make mistakes like everybody else, but just 5 minutes of kindness and understanding on his part when you're going through an especially difficult time would have helped you toward healing and not furthering damaging you. Again, I hope I'm not upsetting you with my point of view, but I just spent 4 hours in session and 2 hours on the phone for the last 2 weeks telling my therapist exactly how he made me feel and what I needed or didn't need from him in order for us to continue. I surprised myself with my directness with his mistakes in our rupture as I'm also very attached to my therapist and fear abandonment, but it came down to not being able to do therapy without at least a certain amount of trust. Trust that he won't further damage me - intentional or not.
Every therapy pair is very different so I'm not suggesting you confront yours the way I did with my T, but he ended up respecting me for having the strength to confront him yesterday, and we ended the session on a warm note. He teared up and told me that our therapeutic relationship is very important to him. Is is scary to risk possible abandonment(real or not), but I find it healing to stand up for myself - without attacking him and also acknowledging the other "135" good experiences I have had with him. Repairing ruptures for me are like going into a war, and I thoroughly look at both of our point of views and plan out everything I want to say to him in advance....without putting him on the defense. It's worked for us so far and we've been able to come out with better understanding of each other.
I had to tend to something for awhile, and noticed you had posted a follow up....I understand your feeling responsible for his "bad" feelings and wanting to take chocolates to him, because I have taken "peace offerings" to my T during our ruptures. Part of the reason why I did it was to show him that I am grateful for the kindness he has shown, and also my tendency to value him above myself, but it's mostly that I wanted him (my mommy or daddy) to see me as a "good girl" and love me again, and not abandon me. Because if I'm a good girl who didn't cause any trouble for him, then everything would be "alright" with us. I almost took treats to yesterday's session, but I stopped myself when I realized that I would be doing disservice to both of us, and possibly sabotaging my therapy. I wanted to give us a chance to work through the rupture without reacting to my fear by appeasing him and making him "love" me again. I have taken all the responsibility for some of the ruptures in the past, because it was easier than confronting him with it, but it's a temporary band aid and the ruptures come back bigger and even more painful the next time.
I hope you try to work through your rupture with your T, before going into a day program. I don't have any experience with it, but it sounds like something to try if the repair fails(although I'm sure you'll succeed in repairing it.) I'm glad you have your pdoc's support. Take care, and I apologize again if I haven't addressed everything in your post properly. Please let us know how you're doing with the repair.
Stellabystarlight
poster:stellabystarlight
thread:859655
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081018/msgs/859774.html