Posted by Solstice on January 8, 2012, at 20:27:20
In reply to Re: Ideal client, posted by emmanuel98 on January 8, 2012, at 18:46:48
> My p-doc told me the ideal client is someone willing to change and grow in the least amount of time. I changed and grew very quickly and felt such trust in him. But now I can't let go and I'm afraid of losing his respect. I see him every other week for an hour. Last summer, I met with him and my DBT social worker and they both felt she (the SW) should take over primary responsibilty for therapy. I feel like I should stop seeing him, or cut back to once a month, but I can't. I miss him too much when I've done that in the past. I feel like I am no longer his ideal client, but am instead one of those "therapeutic lifers" Glen Gabbard talks about who can't let go.
>
> Both he and my SW think I should continue to see him every other week and that, eventually, I will be able to let go gradually. But I've been seeing him for 7 years and I still feel so much emotion for him.The therapist I see now initially seemed to believe that keeping therapy as short as possible was ideal, and that if it got stalled or went on for an unnecessarily long period of time, it was a problem. One time T said to me that there would be a time when I would start cancelling because I was too busy for therapy.. would have things to do, places to go, people to see... and that that was how T would know that I was getting better. I have certainly gotten to a place where I don't 'need' my therapist as much. I've internalized T, I guess. And when I made huge jumps in progress recently, I cautioned T saying "Please don't take it as meaning I don't need you, and please don't be the one to let me go. I have to be the one that does that." That seems to work real well for me. I used to think about therapy throughout the week.. but now I rarely think of therapy or my therapist between sessions. I've been out of town for the last three weeks - haven't seen my therapist for almost four weeks, and it hasn't bothered me one bit. I look forward to my next session, but I'm not feeling off-balance with the long gap. I think I have a baseline assumption that I'll always have access to my therapist, who is attuned to me and capable of 'being' whatever I need at the time. Earlier in therapy (I've been with T for four years now), I saw T at least twice a week, sometimes more. And then, and even when it was only once a week, I would have periods of needing between-session contact, which my T has always been fabulous about. But for about a year now, I haven't needed it... and I see T every week or so. I think I could easily handle every other week.
Anyway, I wonder if your angst could be eased by a frank talk with your therapist about the issue of whether you are somehow disappointing him? What I understand in retrospect about my situation is that the more convinced I was that my therapist was wholly available to me and not in a hurry for me to leave, the more that enabled me to 'let go' and feel less 'need.' Does that make sense? But the arrangement my therapist and I came up with that has worked so well had to be worked out along the way.. and the kind of angst you're describing was always what pushed me to discuss it. Is there anything I've shared here that might help in your situation?
Solstice
poster:Solstice
thread:1006540
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20111220/msgs/1006730.html