Posted by daisym on September 1, 2004, at 20:17:56
Yesterday I was pretty upset by the time I left my session. We've accessed another set of memories, a different age perspective and this one is full of so much pain and fear and huge amounts of distrust. My therapist kept asking questions, reality testing I think and I kept saying, "I don't know." Mostly I was trying to explain why I felt responsible and he was closely questioning those beliefs. In the end, I asked him if he was mad at me for not having any answers. He was surprised that I thought he was mad.
I called a couple of hours later and said I didn't think I should come anymore this week. We weren't getting anywhere and I thought he needed a break before he became frustrated with "I don't know." Besides, I just didn't think I could cope with anymore. He called back (of course) and in his most gentle way, insisted that I come back today, that he wasn't at all frustrated, just really scared for me. He said he could see that I was coming apart and he wanted me to be safe. He talked for a long time about going slow and figuring out why I was feeling the need to pull back. I was sitting outside on my swing and it was really calming, just having him talk to me as I rocked back and forth.
So I kept my promise and went today. We spent the session processing my feelings about him and actually about getting support for all of this in general. I asked a million questions about how he thought I was doing, was I too emotional? Should I fight to close down these feelings more? Or let them out more? Did other clients get like this? Should I cut back my time? and on and on...
He was great. He said he wasn't holding back anything, that he was being truthful when he said he wasn't frustrated with how things were going and was completely available to me. He said I wasn't giving enough credit to the strength of our bond, that it worked both ways and he couldn't imagine anything I could do that would "mess it up." I said I had a number of fantasies about what could happen to him or to our therapy relationship, so we went through them. I made him laugh at some of them. (Eaten by tigers...)
Then I seriously asked him if he understood HOW IMPORTANT this relationship was. Did he really know what it would do to me to give in completely to it and then have it go south? That I would do anything to not destroy it, but I didn't want to be destroyed by it either? Did he get that? I love his answer...he said not only did he understand how important our relationship was to me, but that he held the therapeutic relationship as a sacred trust. That he viewed the responsibility as huge and it was highly likely that I would be ready to give it up before he was. And he said all this in such a gentle, steady way that I finally, finally, felt like he was really back from vacation and we were connected again.
So...do you think that was a strange thing to ask? In retrospect, I hope he doesn't think I was questioning his professionalism or commitment to being a Therapist. *sigh* There should be a rule about rethinking sessions. (It's OK, I still feel so much better than yesterday that I don't *really* regret asking.)
poster:daisym
thread:385420
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040828/msgs/385420.html