Posted by JennyR on July 17, 2001, at 5:45:26
I have a therapist that I usually have a great relationship with. But every six months or so we get in this jam, this painful dead-end jam that is torture for me and we are in it now.
We usually have a very incredible connection, and I am grateful to him for it and he is very supportive of all the insights, changes, I have made. He never says anything about his feelings for me, and I understand why - he's psychoanalytically trained, and he just doesn't do that. But since he's usually so kind and empathic, I do feel cared about and don't care if he doesn't say so.
But what's happened a few times, is he'll say something ambiguous that implies caring about me, caring for me, but it's ambiguous, and I question it and then he totally backs off, reverses it, makes it all about me and my need to hear it, when he's the one that said or did it in the first place. Like one time he said a dream was about our warm feelings for each other. I questioned it and he turned it into being about my attachment to him, which made me feel small and stupid, and when I tried to pin him to what he said he just talked about my need to hear it. It hurt and infuriated me, and it took many sessions to get on track again.
The latest was he was just on vacation for a week. Not a real big deal to me, it's the fourth summer, and it was only a week. He doesn't even usually address the vacation when he returns. This time, he asked how it was for me, I said it was okay, a lot going on, talked about the things that had happened. Then after talking about feeling slighted about a friend picking another friend over me for a special honor at her kid's Bar Mitzvah, he asked how does this tie into his vacation. i didn't see it at all. Then he kept pushing, repeatedly, in about 5 or 6 different ways about this vacation business. "Well, you're used to seeing me twice a week, you must have had some reaction." "Well, what we do here and I am very important to you, you must have had some reaction." I said you know I'm not that needy and dependent." He said "well, you said it was hard getting started" and I said yes, because of the lack of the momentum after a break." I had mentioned a I had a dream about him that morning, it just had to do with returning. I didn't get into it because I got into the things that happened when he was away, and then he asked to hear the dream, like it was so important to him because it was about him. We got a little into it and were out of time. He said we'll continue with the dream next time. He never does that, sets an agenda. I said it seems more important to you than me. The next time, I talked about stuff with my husband. Then today I brought up last week, how he kept harping on the vacation like it was supposed to be some big deal to me. Like he had his own agenda. Like he wanted me to say I missed him, like that was important to him. He said it was only because he was checking on the "pulse of the relationship" that he was concerned because after all, I'm used to him "being there" for me and he wasn't. (actually I'm quite independent and though I've told him this means a lot to me in the past, I also work my ass off). I told him the way he had kept pushing 5 0r 6 different ways that time seemed to be more about his agenda, like he needed to hear that I missed him or that maybe it was his way of saying he missed me. He turned the whole thing into this very unpleasant very hurtful thing where he never owned up to any feelings, and made it be about me. I want to hear HE missed ME. I don't want to tell him I missed him unless he says so first (I didn't really miss him much). I told him his actions that day did seem to be saying something about his feelings. He expects me to lay my guts out every time, but he will never express and honest feeling, even though we seem to have this incredible rapport and incredible communication almost all the time. But to me I operate on two levels - I think this seems so incredible, it must be for him too, but then I also think I'm nobody special and he sees a lot of people and it's all in a day's work and I'm stupid for thinking it can mean anything to him.
And it's almost never an issue except a few times a year when he does sort of unknowingly express something, or here reading between the lines he seemed to be doing it. But I never get any confirmation of any feelings. He just throws it back in my face "what would it mean to you if I said you were special?" I'm not asking him to say I'm special just that this means something to him too, within all the appropriate boundaries and context. But he never does, he just puts it on me - that it's my need. He makes me feel very bad. I've been totally bummed out since I saw him, and up most of the night even though I took extra klonipin to sleep.
I feel torn up over him jerking me around. I think when it comes to this area, he ought to treat it with kid gloves, only he uses boxing gloves.
I don't know if I'm making mountains out of molehills. I just think there's something really insincere about having a great rapport, only he'll never comment on it from his side, he'll only comment on how much it means to me, and if I address his side, only because he opened the door with some ambiguous remark, he just makes me feel like a stupid little needy kid. I just want him to acknowledge what's there. That there obviously are mutually warm feelings. But there is apparantly some terrible prohibition on this. It feels insincere.
poster:JennyR
thread:7541
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20010717/msgs/7541.html