Posted by pegasus on July 28, 2009, at 10:03:37
In reply to something in a session that shocked or surprised, posted by friesandcoke on July 27, 2009, at 13:22:29
For what it's worth, seeing a T slip off her sandals during a first interview would not have shocked me in the least. I probably wouldn't even have noticed.
I've seen Ts wear all manner of "professional" and "non-professional" attire. I had one T who showed up in the most awful dumpy frumpy dress from the 80s once. And she was usually very well dressed. It changed my whole view of her.
If you want to talk about really shocking stuff, though, I had a T one time who told me that he'd just had a vasectomy. No lie. In the context of the session it actually made sense. Although, if I could go back and revise that session however I'd like, I'd probably have him not tell me that. But it didn't have a big impact on our therapy. He was probably taking a big risk, but based on the solid relationship we had knew it would be OK, and maybe even helpful. I don't suppose he would have blurted it out to a new client.
I think therapy is all about being shocked, frankly. The best moments of my therapy have all been shocking in one way or another. I remember most the moments when I got stopped in my tracks, in response to some "crazy" thing my T just said or did. It reveals so much about the way we tick.
For example, this sandal thing seems really important to you. I've seen you mention it in several posts here. You're working hard to process it. Is it a problem with the Ts? Is it something that's a particular issue to you? Does it matter? Is this telling you something important about what you require in a T? This kind of struggling is exactly what therapy is about a lot of the time. Especially if you can then talk about it with your T (shoeless or not). In my experience.
peg
poster:pegasus
thread:908831
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090706/msgs/908975.html