![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 15 of 15. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Shortelise on July 3, 2005, at 18:05:33
Today's chapter of ShortE's saga.
After a talk with my T on the telephone three weeks ago almost, which was of course after I stormed out of our session after five minutes saying audibly enough for his receptionist to hear that he's a nasty little man (which *is* nasty as he is only about 5'5 and weighs maybe 140) things were left in my court and I am wondering if I have the balls to go back.
It seems like it will be a battle, and one I cannot really even participate in as an equal. All I have is silence. The ground is so uneven. He can talk the birds from the trees, he has the gift of the gab, and he has a steel trap mind. When we talk, he has on the tip of his tongue every conversation we've ever had, as well as an analysis of them, so rational, so well organized.
I sit there a blathering idiot steeped in emotion and unable to justify a frilly pickle thing I am saying. "This hurts" "This is wrong for me" "You are taking away my safe place" "YOU HAVE CHANGED". That last is important. He really wants me to explain that. Have you ever lost a friend or lover? You meet him one day and you see in his eyes, you almost smell on him, that whatever there was between you is gone. He doesn't have to say a word, you just know. Or when your best friend says she has but really hasn't forgiven you for something. It's there, and you know it, but it's almost as though you're using senses that don't register on a conscious level.
So I am supposed to be able to verbalize now, but I can't, and it feels like a battle, and it feels like a battle I can't fight.
I used to feel this way with my sister, defeated, contstantly defeated, because she used a logic that I don't possess, and I could never compete with it. It was pure logic, and she could twist and turn it at her will, and I could not. I am playing chess and they are playing checkers and their rules make no sense to me.
I don't know what I will decide to do. I have two weeks and a day to decide. I'm not depressed, not even sad, just ... very thoughtful and a little apprehensive.
Posted by alexandra_k on July 3, 2005, at 18:35:14
In reply to Still torn - longish, posted by Shortelise on July 3, 2005, at 18:05:33
Hello. I haven't been following your saga but I hope you don't mind my jumping on in at this point.
Apologies in advance for any misunderstandings I have from not having followed it till this point.
(((ShortE))) Things sound really hard. I think I know what you mean about people who have the 'gift of the gab' and about how hard it can be to talk to them. I felt like that a lot as a kid. That the rest of the world used some sort of logic that I didn't understand. Maybe thats why I got so motivated later in life to learn as much about it as I possibly could. It is an unintended side-affect that people find me to be like that when they are having discussions with me sometimes :-( But I remember that feeling. I still get it quite a lot where I can't think of what to say, or a comprehensible way of saying it at the time. If I have some time to reign in my emotions and write about it I fare a lot better. But when I'm nailed there and need to say something... Well... Silence is about all there is. Silence and frustration.
It sounds like he is trying to push you to verbalise. It sounds to me like he thinks you have progressed to a point where the goal-posts or the rules of therapy have changed and now he expects you to verbalise more.
But maybe he is pushing a bit hard. It would seem to me to be counter-productive to have you feeling like you are backed into a corner and there is nothing left to be done but to be silent.
Is he invalidating of your experience? I wondered if that was it. If you are trying to talk about how you FEEL or the way you see things - and then he approaches it logically and tries to show you where he thinks you are going wrong or whatever. Because that can feel really threatening when a t wants to look at the logic of your interpretations when you are trying to express how your interpretations have you feeling.
I think that sometimes... The reduction in validation is seen as a consequence of the clients having made progress. They have moved beyond being able to adequately describe their experience and are ready to have a good hard (logical) look at the interpretations they are making. But if there is too much of a reduction in validation of the clients experience and what they do have to say then that can lead to them withdrawing.
Does this make any sense, or am I talking out of my *ss? I'm not sure...
If it does sound right, could you ask him to ease up a little? Maybe try and write something and give it to him.
Posted by daisym on July 3, 2005, at 19:59:29
In reply to Still torn - longish, posted by Shortelise on July 3, 2005, at 18:05:33
It all sounds so hard.
The way I approach people when I feel like I don't know how to make them understand what I'm saying is to ask them to go first and be me. I ask them to explain "my side" before they explain why my side is wrong. I might also ask them to explain my potential feelings.
Your therapist might resist. But if you went in and started with, "this is very very hard for me because I'm not sure how to help you understand why all this hurts so much. Or maybe I think I have to PROVE to you that my feelings are real and I've never had to PROVE things to you before. Maybe you could go first and tell me what you think is happening for me, what you hear me saying and what you think I might be feeling and why. Then I could see where the disconnect is and try to clarify my feelings again."
I think it is important that you try to go and try to stay. At least one more time. I'm sure that both of you don't want things to end like this. I wish I could go with you and just offer you strength and calm. It *is* so hard to talk when engulfed in these really intense emotions.
I'm sure it is going to be a long two weeks for you.
Hugs,
Daisy
Posted by Tamar on July 3, 2005, at 20:04:47
In reply to Still torn - longish, posted by Shortelise on July 3, 2005, at 18:05:33
> It seems like it will be a battle, and one I cannot really even participate in as an equal. All I have is silence. The ground is so uneven. He can talk the birds from the trees, he has the gift of the gab, and he has a steel trap mind. When we talk, he has on the tip of his tongue every conversation we've ever had, as well as an analysis of them, so rational, so well organized.
I think that even people who are very articulate in real life become lost for words in therapy. It’s the context and the atmosphere. And since therapists are usually intelligent and well-educated, they seem to have us at a disadvantage, even when we’re intelligent and well-educated ourselves.
> I sit there a blathering idiot steeped in emotion and unable to justify a frilly pickle thing I am saying. "This hurts" "This is wrong for me" "You are taking away my safe place" "YOU HAVE CHANGED". That last is important. He really wants me to explain that. Have you ever lost a friend or lover? You meet him one day and you see in his eyes, you almost smell on him, that whatever there was between you is gone. He doesn't have to say a word, you just know. Or when your best friend says she has but really hasn't forgiven you for something. It's there, and you know it, but it's almost as though you're using senses that don't register on a conscious level.
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Is he prepared to discuss whether he really has changed? I hope he’s not suggesting you’re imagining it. Because if he claims he hasn’t really changed, there must be an actual reason for your feeling that he has changed.
> So I am supposed to be able to verbalize now, but I can't, and it feels like a battle, and it feels like a battle I can't fight.It’s not ideal that you feel as if you’re in a verbal battle with him. He should be helping you to verbalise how you feel. He should be on your side in the battle: advising you on weaponry and tactics, and going on manoeuvre with you.
> I used to feel this way with my sister, defeated, contstantly defeated, because she used a logic that I don't possess, and I could never compete with it. It was pure logic, and she could twist and turn it at her will, and I could not. I am playing chess and they are playing checkers and their rules make no sense to me.
I used to feel that way with my dad. It took me years to learn to play his game. And I learned that a big part of that game is to be able to b*lls*it. It’s all about p*ssing up a wall and seeing who can get the highest. But that’s not so useful in therapy, in my experience.
The way you talk, it sounds as if you feel your therapist is trying to defeat you; trying to win a debate for the points. And I can imagine why it feels that way. But I think you *can* win this game. You’re certainly putting in the work!
> I don't know what I will decide to do. I have two weeks and a day to decide. I'm not depressed, not even sad, just ... very thoughtful and a little apprehensive.
(((((ShortE)))))
Thoughtful sounds OK. Apprehensive is understandable. I guess it seems important to figure out (with him) how exactly he can help you at this point. I’m sure he’s still on your side. It’s a question of figuring out together how he can support you through this.
Tamar
Posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 0:31:33
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » Shortelise, posted by alexandra_k on July 3, 2005, at 18:35:14
It does feel as if he is not validating my experience at the moment - not exactly as you interprete, but all the same. Thanks.
I am in general pretty articulate. I lack logic at times, but I express myself as well speaking as I do in writing. You express it well, being nailed there and needing to say something - all there is is silence and frustration.
ShortE
Posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 0:38:52
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » Shortelise, posted by daisym on July 3, 2005, at 19:59:29
Thanks very much Daisy.
I could ask my T to do this, but he would say that we need to talk about it first, and there comes the frustration. When I am feeling strong and ask him to do things along this line, he asks me why and I sometimes find it funny and say, because I want you to. It scares me to try to ask him to "be me" as you describe because I think it would turn on me.
Thanks for the moral support - maybe I willtry to imagine my husband is there with me, and holding my hand.
Leaving things like this with this T is the last thing I need. This needs to be a complete thing that ends without me feeling hurt, lost, rejected, or like a failure. That's my history, and maybe I'm trying to repeat what I know, but I don't think so. He and I are just bypassing each other.
Is he asking me to prove my feelings? Maybe it's more that he's asking me to deal with them in the way I have been trying to learn to do in therapy.
What, can't a girl have a relapse?
ShortE
Posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 0:47:32
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » Shortelise, posted by Tamar on July 3, 2005, at 20:04:47
Could I go in and ask him to help me with this, not fight with me? This brings tears to my eyes. It doesn't feel as if he is on my side and I need to tell him that.
No it's not a debate I want to "win". It's a discussion where I need to be able to say how I'm feeling and why, but I need to explain it in a way that makes sense or he won't understand. The problem with trying to explain it is that I don't understand myself, and maybe underneath it all I'm again afraid that an exploration of what I am feeling and why will reveal ugliness and wrongness and the slurry slime that I sometimes feel is who I really am.
He has changed, and it's obvious, and it now seems clear that I have to think it through beforehand and write it down. That might help.
You know, rereading what you wrote, it IS as if he is trying to defeat the old me, the me we have been trying to evolve.
Thank you, Tamar.
ShortE
Posted by alexandra_k on July 4, 2005, at 1:19:50
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » alexandra_k, posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 0:31:33
From what I've noticed of your posts I do indeed get that you are pretty articulate - I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.
I think... That when it comes to trying to express how you are feeling and what is going on for you then logic isn't something that even applies.
I struggle a lot with talking about how I am feeling and what is going on for me. A lot more than you do by the sounds of it :-( I needed a t to tell me what feelings were. I know that sounds strange. I didn't even understand that what was the matter with me had a lot to do with problems regulating my emotions. I just used to say 'I hurt'. In my stomach somewhere, and my head sometimes. And I knew it wasn't a physical pain. But I didn't know what it was. Wow, I can see that I have made progress when I remember back to there...
Logic only applies when you start to critique the rationale behind your interpretations. But if someone hones in on critiquing your interpretations when you are at the stage of reporting on your experience then that really is invalidating. We need to feel heard and to feel like the other person has an understanding of what we are trying to say BEFORE they go on to try and change the situation.
What I am wondering...
Is that you say that he has changed.
I'm wondering if he has changed the way he responds to you because he thinks you have made progress and he is trying to push you.
But feeling invalidated - well... That is pushing too hard.
Posted by fallsfall on July 4, 2005, at 8:46:33
In reply to Still torn - longish, posted by Shortelise on July 3, 2005, at 18:05:33
>I used to feel this way with my sister, defeated, contstantly defeated, because she used a logic that I don't possess, and I could never compete with it. It was pure logic, and she could twist and turn it at her will, and I could not. I am playing chess and they are playing checkers and their rules make no sense to me.
This sounds like transference to me. You are relating to him as you used to relate to your sister. The other thing that points to transference is that you feel that he has "changed". If he says that he is not doing things differently (and you really need to ask very specifically), then the two of you need to determine what HAS changed. Is it subtleties in his behavior? Or is it your perceptions?
These are excruciating sessions. Where you have to dissect everything and figure out what really happened - what in your perception is skewed, and what in his perception is skewed. It does feel like a fight. When I get in these situations it feels like I'm trying to prove that my perceptions are real, while he's trying to prove that reality is different from what I perceived. All I can tell you is that when I've been able to pursue the fight to the end (I guess it is known as "resolving the transference"), I have moved forward. But I can't just give in and say "Gee, you must know more than I do about it". The fight for reality is important somehow. Don't give up now. Follow this through. If it gets too excruciating, ask for extra sessions so that the calendar time of the misery doesn't have to be so long.
I can SOOO relate to playing a different game and not understanding the rules. I'm sorry. That is a very frustrating place to be.
Best luck
Posted by Dinah on July 4, 2005, at 12:31:03
In reply to Still torn - longish, posted by Shortelise on July 3, 2005, at 18:05:33
If I remember correctly, didn't he admit that he's changed his approach as termination nears?
G*d only knows that telling you you're addicted to therapy, or something like that? is probably not his old way of speaking to you. So I think you can rest assured that your view of what's going on is not completely incorrect.
The reality of your feelings is what it is. He can't logic it out of you.
But maybe you can try to find out what his reality is? How he sees an "ideal" termination.
Because I strongly suspect it differs from how you, and probably most of us here, see an "ideal" termination.
I think this is just something that's going to hurt like h*ll unless the two of you reach a mutual understanding of what you want. If you're trying to relate to him as if the relationship was the same, just less frequent, and he's trying to relate to you as if the relationship has moved on to a new stage, it's just going to lead to pain for you. Just like any other relationship that is changing. Not just ending but changing first.
Mainly they do, though. Change before they end. And it hurts. It hurts like h*ll.
I think I'd try to figure out the reality of what is happening, and see if the reality can be changed. Can his vision of termination be changed to what many therapists are seeing it as? As therapy being done in stages, and termination just being the ending of one stage, but if you need help down the line, it can continue. If it can't be, if he sees it as pushing you out of the nest, and can't see it any other way, I think you're going to have some grieving ahead.
Therapy in some ways is just like any other relationship. Drat it.
Posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 12:53:49
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » Shortelise, posted by alexandra_k on July 4, 2005, at 1:19:50
I didn't take offense about being/not being articulate.
It's true for me too that I didn't understand what I was feeling at first, it was all a jumble. How many people, though, can sit and say, hmmm... I am feeling this and that and this and that? Some, surely, but not a lot. But, still, like you, sorting out those feelings and figuring out what was what was a long, hard part of therapy.
And I guess I'm still there in a way, aren't I?It's absolutely true that he's changed toward me because I have made progress. He doesn't seem to see it though. He may think that he evolves, but it really is as though he decided, ok,now's the time to blah blah. In fact, he said to me a few times ago "I hadn't planned on saying this, but" and went on about something. So I know he plans, I know he has an agenda of a sort that he follows, which is of course to be expected. But he isn't God, he doesn't necessarily instate these plans at the moment I am ready for them.
THis helps so much!! Thank you.
ShortE
Posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 13:01:11
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » Shortelise, posted by fallsfall on July 4, 2005, at 8:46:33
Falls, tranference, ARGH!!
Excruciating. Yes.
I am so convinced he is different. But I don't know how to express it. That's the hardest part. He is no longer on my side, that's how it feels, and if he wants concrete examples, I can't give them because I blank out, my mind just goes thoroughly blank. I feel questioned, on the spot, doubted?
Again and again in my life I have been told that what I preceive is not reality. My Mom is the queen of lies - she cannot face her own feelings, so says she feels one thing when in reality she feela another. There was always the need to figure out what was behind the words. So when he tells me he has not changed, and I perceive that he has, it makes me crazy.
Thanks, falls. I will try. I will go and I will try.
ShortE
Posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 13:08:20
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » Shortelise, posted by Dinah on July 4, 2005, at 12:31:03
That's funny "therapy is just like any other relationship".
He does think I can see him when/if I need to after termination.
I don't want to terminate suddenly. I don't even want a "last session" and he seems to agree. We are tapering off very nicely, and I don't have an argument with him about the time we are taking to terminate.
But you're right that I need to talk to him about his "technique". In the letter I wrote him I said that his technique was painful and it has to change. When he called me, he seemed reluctant to consider that, but he can't possibly be serious. He must listen to reason. The question I have is will I be able to reason with him?
I think it's my actions, not my feelings that may be what he is objecting to. What do I do with these feelings that are so horribly strong when he just looks at me like a fish, blowing bubbles? When he doesn't look at me kindly and say, what's this about?
Sh*t.
ShortE
Posted by Dinah on July 4, 2005, at 13:47:22
In reply to Re: Still torn - longish » Dinah, posted by Shortelise on July 4, 2005, at 13:08:20
Well, unfortunately he doesn't have to listen to reason. No matter how persuasively you present it. I think it's important for you to recognize that, or you'll blame yourself if the outcome isn't what you desired. It takes two people to make a relationship and you can only control your half.
Maybe it would help to have a concrete set of examples where he responded differently than he has in the past. And you can ask his motivation for responding differently.
Posted by Jazzed on July 5, 2005, at 11:09:37
In reply to Still torn - longish, posted by Shortelise on July 3, 2005, at 18:05:33
> Today's chapter of ShortE's saga.
>
> I am wondering if I have the balls to go back.That would be really hard. Sounds like it's been on your mind a lot, which probably doesn't make it any easier.
>
> It seems like it will be a battle, and one I cannot really even participate in as an equal. All I have is silence. The ground is so uneven.Sounds like a really uncomfortable situation, but it also sounds like he also has qualities that you really admire. I know how that feels.
>
> I sit there a blathering idiot steeped in emotion and unable to justify a frilly pickle thing I am saying. "This hurts" "This is wrong for me" "You are taking away my safe place" "YOU HAVE CHANGED". That last is important. He really wants me to explain that.I agree with daisy, maybe he should explain it to you, so that you can understand it too. Do you have to justify how you feel or why you feel things? I'm confused by that. I want to understand the things that make me feel like a "blathering idiot steeped in emotion", and that's why I wanted to go to therapy.
>
> a logic that I don't possess, and I could never compete with it. It was pure logic, and she could twist and turn it at her will, and I could not. I am playing chess and they are playing checkers and their rules make no sense to me.I have no logic either. Very hard to see it, want it, and not have it. Seems like it should be something we could aquire, but I guess you either have it or not. Painful if it's used against you. Shouldn't be in therapy.
>
> I don't know what I will decide to do. I have two weeks and a day to decide. I'm not depressed, not even sad, just ... very thoughtful and a little apprehensive.
>
>
Maybe a different T? Someone who makes you feel more comfortable being you? Esp. if you wouldn't feel sad to leave this T.Jazzy
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Psychology | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.