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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 5 of 5. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Racer on April 29, 2006, at 12:50:29
I just read your post under DisposableDoll's thread above, and I'm thinking you may have misunderstood what I was trying to get across to you in my post. If so, I'm very sorry it upset you. Let me try to say it a different way, maybe that will help make it clearer?
I was truly not trying to say that you shouldn't have been upset. If you're upset about something, you're upset about it, and that's all. And I am sorry you were upset, whether it was about something your husband did, or something I wrote. I'm not terribly good at emotional support, even if that's what I want to be offering. (And I have to tell you, my feelings get hurt when that's pointed out. Yeah, I wish I had some sort of emotional fluency -- but I don't. Part of my psychopathology, I guess.)
When you wrote that your T had said something you were upset about was "ridiculous," it sounded as though he might be a bit clumsy in trying to get you off the details involved in why this one incident upset you so much, and step back to look at the larger issues underlying it. Trying to say, "you're not *this* upset because your husband doesn't set the table right, you're *this* upset because it feels to you as though he doesn't respect your desire/need for the table to be set properly," or whatever. Those large issues are more important, sometimes, because if you fix the larger issues, the smaller incidents that illustrate them tend to stop. You had said that you liked this T, so this didn't sound as though the therapeutic relationship was the problem. It sounded as though the problem was crossed signals in the communication about this one thing.
My own experience is that if I get bogged down in details, it's because I'm too frightened to look at the big picture. That adds fuel to my detailed listing of the little things, because it's easy to sound angry when one is afraid. My T will often stop me if I start a detailed explanation of why something upset me, to remind me that I don't need a reason. And that's frightening to me, but that allows us to move on to what the detail illustrates about a larger issue.
I was trying to suggest that your T might have been trying to do that with you.
Again, I'm sorry that I apparently hurt your feelings. That was not my intention. The sort of support I am capable of offering may not be a form that everyone recognizes, but it is meant as support.
Peace
Posted by starloree on April 29, 2006, at 13:47:13
In reply to To Starloree (got long), posted by Racer on April 29, 2006, at 12:50:29
thank you, racer for clarifying what you meant to say. i am sorry for getting so upset! i thought i had already noted that I KNEW what i was upset about (the large picture; wanting to be heard, not just noting the details), i thought i had put that in the other post...it all got confusing after a while i guess! thanks again,
starloree
Posted by madeline on April 29, 2006, at 16:43:42
In reply to Re: To Starloree (got long), posted by starloree on April 29, 2006, at 13:47:13
Also, if I made you feel criticized, please know that that was not my intention at all. Heavens no!
I'm glad you brought the issue up and gave me an opportunity to apologize.
Which I surely do.
I also hope that you bring up the issue with your therapist, that what he said you felt was inapropriate and made you feel somewhat slighted.
He needs to know. He should correct his behavior - I mean not validate everything you say, but recognize that you were hurt by his words.
I let my therapist have it everytime he does something like that, which is all the time. If it's really bad I will write him long, scathing letters in which I point out everything he has ever done wrong EVER! Then I write him long, detailed apologies about how he was right and how I was just jumping to conclusions.
Now that I think about it, my therapist is a saint.
Maybe you should give your therapist a chance to be one too.
That's all I was saying.
Maddie
Posted by Racer on April 29, 2006, at 21:38:06
In reply to Re: To Starloree (got long) » starloree, posted by madeline on April 29, 2006, at 16:43:42
>
> I let my therapist have it everytime he does something like that, which is all the time.I'm in therapy IN ORDER TO LEARN how to "let someone have it," so I can't manage that yet with my own T... (Although I have recently managed to contradict her once or twice, when I thought what she suggested was wrong. That *doesn't* happen much with her, though...)
Posted by Dinah on April 30, 2006, at 7:26:45
In reply to Re: To Starloree (got long) » starloree, posted by madeline on April 29, 2006, at 16:43:42
This is the end of the thread.
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