Posted by antigua3 on February 7, 2009, at 9:50:31
In reply to Developmental stages in therapy, posted by DAisym on February 6, 2009, at 23:31:42
I guess we should do a list of the developmental phases of therapy, because I don't really know what they are.
I do believe, at least for me, that it isn't a linear progression, and I think you know what I mean. After going through the phase of generally sharing our lives w/our T, for example, I think we move (or not)into a phase of trust. (My favorite subject, you know). We establish some level of trust and maybe move to another stage where we start feeling the power of our own selves to deal with things as they come up. I'm skipping a lot of steps here, of course.
But each stage, IMO, contains elements of the whole process and we can slip downward/backward/deeper into any one of our earlier stages. I've shared my life w/my Ts, gotten closer and gone deeper, but going deeper can trigger me back to the earlier stage of trusting and we have to deal with and strengthen these issues all over again. I also think it's more painful each time because each time requires us to go deeper.
At the same time, though, I think we're moving forward into the next phase, laying the groundwork and foundation for our internal support.
I kind of see it as push/pull and each time we survive therapuetically the things that pull us back to an earlier stage, we make a little more progress and take a little step forward.
I guess what I think is that each stage contains these "elements" that can be brought forth at any continuing stage and must be dealt with all over again, just when (at least for me), I think I've gotten past that stage. It makes me want to stamp my feet and say, "But I was already over that!" when, in fact, I can be brought back down to my knees when I least expect it.
I think what you're feeling is perfectly natural. You're consumed right now by wanting to be "special," despite the fear that it causes you because you know what it can actually mean to be the "special" one.
Why do you want to be the special one? Do you know? Because hopefully it will protect you, that your T will be your protector if you are the most special? But on the flip side, you're dealing with the anguish of knowing what it was like to be special in your dysfunctional childhood (that's putting it mildly of course).
It's an interesting concept. From your child development work, do you see kids who want to be special? What does that mean to you? Does it trigger you?
We all go to such deep, different places with our therapy. I'm guess it's all based on what we need and our individual histories. Must be hard for a T to figure out. It's harmful when they use a cookie-cutter approach when we're all so different. That's just my bias showing; they probably can't use a cookie-cutter approach, but I do think some of them try, and sometimes that leaves us hurting through no fault of our own.
I'm sorry you're hurting. I have been so selfish lately dealing w/my own issues, I'm sorry I didn't reach out to you.
antigua
poster:antigua3
thread:878656
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090129/msgs/878703.html