Posted by Aphrodite on March 3, 2005, at 17:56:39
Along the lines of being a difficult client (see Dinah's thread above), we have gone around and around for a year and half about whether or not my T cares about me genuinely. I've thrown around phrases like "meaningless business agreement" and "income source" even though I *know* intellectually that he does care. He tells me and shows me repeatedly, but I cannot seem to receive and feel it in any kind of healing way. Well, sometimes, but it's fleeting, and I end up talking myself out of it. He's gone so far as to tell me that he loves me (with all the right disclaimers and assurance about the type of love he's talking about, of course). Still, it's a struggle . . . or a distraction.
So, in the past couple of weeks, he's been writing everything down. I have a list of things he appreciates about me chock full of details of little things he has remembered. A lot of it was gleaned from our small talk when I doubted he was really tuned in. Last week, we had one major miscommunication and in a follow-up phone call, I for all intents and purposes hung up on him. He wrote down his side of the story and his reassurances and gave it to me. There has been a profound change in how I feel -- something about hearing it and seeing it has made something click in my brain, and I can feel the difference. Plus, it has been so, so comforting to go back and read what are essentially affirmations when I am miserable and/or beating myself up internally.
Maybe I am a visual learner -- I don't know. But something about seeing the words makes me believe them.
The other therapeutic benefit for me is that when I feel or hear something painful in session, I "float away" and miss some of what he is saying and spend time trying to catch up instead of hearing everything as it was intended. The writing fills in those gaps. Those dissociative moments have often been at the root of misunderstanding.
He certainly works hard for the money;)
poster:Aphrodite
thread:466118
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050225/msgs/466118.html