Posted by Dinah on March 1, 2010, at 1:42:08
In reply to Re: Myers Briggs type, posted by rnny on February 27, 2010, at 21:19:41
There was a time when I was obsessively interested in my therapist. I don't really think of it as a crush so much as a reaction to the inequality of our relationship. I heard once a description that I used with him frequently. That for an hour a week I was naked with him, while he was fully clothed.
And also, I had some idea that therapists had some power to influence our minds. That therapy was to some extent something that was done to us. So even more than trying to learn about him, I tried to learn about therapy. I read obsessively about therapists and some of what I read did seem to imply that they had some mysterious knowledge or deep ability to understand what was going on in our minds. And I horrified myself by reading a book called "Shrink Rap" which really could confirm a client's worst nightmares of what therapists really thought of us. But then I also read a lot of stuff that made me realize that there were some pretty nutty therapists out there too, and that a lot of therapy was very very lacking in common sense. And eventually I came to understand that my therapist did have objectivity, and he did have some experience with certain things, but that he was no particular expert on *me*. I look back now on the fact that he was ten years younger than I am now when he first saw me, and that nearly all the stuff I thought he was doing to bring this or that reaction in me, he wasn't really doing for any particular reason at all. To some extent, he found me nearly as perplexing as I found myself. My understanding grew more balanced.
With the Wizard's curtain down, it didn't seem as important to find out those things about him or about therapy. Still, trust is an issue with me. To the extent that when I hear stories about other long term therapists letting their clients down in horrible ways, I still second and third guess his motives and intentions and the likelihood that he'll hurt me.
Not so much to be critical of him as to protect myself by reminding myself that I ought never trust too deeply. That people, even the people you trust, can behave in ways you'd never think they could. And that the only safety to my feelings is to keep that awareness in mind, balancing it against trust. Trying to understand him at this point is more part of that than anything else.
poster:Dinah
thread:938079
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100128/msgs/938255.html