Posted by crushedout on January 19, 2004, at 9:30:25
In reply to Having Gone The Special Circuit..., posted by Rigby on January 19, 2004, at 0:59:15
I love your posts, Rigby.I'm also finding myself playing the devil's advocate a lot with everyone on this topic lately. In reading this post, I was thinking, well, if your therapist had never told you how special you were, you might not have addressed your seductive/controlling/need to be special thing as quickly (or at all?). So, sometimes I think it's better that Ts are genuine and honest about their reactions to us. Maybe all the time in fact.
I'm really just trying to figure this out. I'm not sure what I think.
> Interesting topic. And yeah, I agree--favoritism should be kept under wraps no matter how strident the client's cries are to know that they are favored or special.
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> My therapist literally said to me in the middle of a conversation about me wanting or expecting her to make exceptions for me, "Don't you see?" I asked, "What?" "That you're special? Your specialness is obvious." She said it with this tone like was I blind or something. She said she had no other relationship like this with any other patient--nothing so close.
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> She told me that I have the ability to connect extremely intensely with people--herself included. She said I have a gift somehow of being able to draw people in. I asked her how she could make an objective generalization such as this given that she had said that she felt drawn to me and was hence no longer objective. She said that that's why she sees a therapist--so that she stays on track and so her stuff won't get in the way of my therapy.
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> Then she told me she'd become too involved with me and that she needed to step away to be of help to me.
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> And that's what she did. The boundaries got firmer. And firmer. And firmer.
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> Through the process of working to become her "favorite," I learned that, at least for me, being favorite meant being able to control. So I seduced her to become favored and to control her.
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> In therapy you, or at least I, have felt very out of control. What better way to regain control than to seduce the therapist? I wasn't conscious at the time but I think I was gaming things pretty hard to fascinate her, to reel her in, to get her to get lost in me.
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> And it worked just like it has in the past for me. She got kinda freaked, as mentioned, and realized she needed to get her stuff together. But alas, I'd "won"--I'd messed her up, gotten her confused, gotten her to feel vulnerable--evened the score. Victory?
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> Not really. I mean was this a good use of my money and if not, who's the fool here? I mean how did this whole seduction benefit me if I wasn't, (sorry to be crude here) gonna get laid out of it?
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> The benefit came in the form of an insight I gained about how I've used seduction to control situations and how I've gotten fairly good at it. I felt kinda crappy in the end about it actually. I felt like my therapist was only human and I'd gotten to her vulnerabilities. I felt a bit like a predator. Lesson (big lesson) learned.
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> Currently I do not feel special or not special. She gives no indication one way or another. But that's good. Because the focus isn't on whether or not I'm special to *her*, it's about helping *me.*
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> So I guess going through the Special Circuit I'd have to say, at least for me, that a good therapist probably shouldn't show his or her cards one way or another. Even if you're the most special person they've ever met. If being special or rather, being singled out as favorite, is a big deal to you (it has been to me) it's most important than to use the process to figure out why it's an issue.
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> I think we need therapists who have the insight, intelligence and backbone to respond appropriately to our various forms of crying out for them. They should not get sucked into our stuff but rather, point our stuff out to us. Having said this though, I think the best therapsits walk a line between reaching far into a patient's head and heart to understand the landscape. But, and here's the trick, they don't go too far so as to lose their own objectivity and ability to help. My guess is that some of the best therapists take the risk and slip up.
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> I would like to think my therapist is an example of someone who got a little lost trying to help. Time will tell, I think, if that's the case.
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> > > I think I got what you were saying when using the term "special", but I believe there's a fine line between finding the specialness in each client and thinking of the client as special. Once the therapist finds the client's individual specialness, I think it would be difficult not to think about which client's specialness is preferred. That being said, it is the therapist's responsibility to keep the "favoritism" under wraps so as to avoid inappropriately crossing boundaries. But I ramble. (I think I'm even starting to confuse myself. : ))
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> > I think if a therapist is genuine, her "favoritism" will shine through, even if the T never explicitly admits her feelings for the client. I, for one, feel it with my T even though she's never said it. And it messes with my head. In other words, I don't think it's so simple to keep it under wraps.
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poster:crushedout
thread:300720
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040116/msgs/302677.html