Posted by Racer on May 26, 2004, at 14:50:10
In reply to 2 scoops, extra whipped cream and a cherry, please, posted by All Done on May 26, 2004, at 0:51:16
Here's another, male-oriented analogy of why it might make a difference to you to change therapists:
A car is a vehicle to get you from one place to another, right? So, why do you have to have your own? Why not just have every car parked with the keys in the ignition, and we just take whichever one happens to be convenient when we want to go somewhere? Ask your husband if he would be comfortable driving random cars every day, instead of his own.
(Hey, t'ain't great, but not so bad as on-the-fly analogies go, eh?)
Seriously and for you, though, I'm so sorry. The little voice I hear in your post, telling you there's something wrong with you for thinking that the therapeutic relationship counts, and that any therapist should be just fine for you, that little voice sounds so critical. Can you allow yourself to say, "well, maybe there is something wrong with me for needing to stay with this therapist -- but that's what *this* therapist is going to help me process and resolve?"
And I agree, I, too, would both cry *and* be sick.
Something very similar happened to me a few months ago. All my treatment has been through a single agency, but I lucked out with my first therapist. She and I were starting to work pretty well together, I was starting to get to a place where opening up wasn't so frightening that I shut down entirely, and then, one day, she tells me that we have two sessions left, because she was just promoted out of clinical practice. I was devastated! Not only that, but being the "I have to be strong, stoic, etc" I didn't say anything about it. I expressed all the positive things I thought I was *supposed* to express, rather than saying, "I'm so scared and I need *you*!" That, after all, would be childish: I am an adult, things happen, I must be able to adjust myself because I cannot control everything. It's my work to do, so any therapist should be able to facilitate it. Guess what? Acting on that ended up being devastating! If nothing else, I was acting on something I didn't feel, so the distress of that internal conflict -- what I felt and what I thought I had to express -- added to the distress of having to change therapists without any real preparation. (The first therapist made a bit of an effort to reassure me, but the second just jumped right in to her method of therapy without really getting into anything with me about how I felt about any of this. {{shrug}} If that had been the least of her mistakes, maybe things wouldn't have gone so far downhill.)
So, there's my experience of "being a grown up" about changing therapists against one's will. I do hope it helps you give yourself permission to work something out with your therapist and stay with him.
poster:Racer
thread:350659
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040522/msgs/350820.html