Posted by Dinah on March 17, 2005, at 10:04:21
I hadn't thought too much about Tuesday's session beforehand. I had appreciated his call (which was to apologize more than to check up on me as it turns out. He "admitted" with a smile he's not one of the "perfect therapists" like my friends' have who called.) I didn't feel particularly angry with him. I had forgotten the more insulting things he said. (If you really work hard on not encoding something when it happens, you can do it.) I even had some of my usual between session imagery which is sort of silly, and has to do with typical mother/child interactions. You know, visualizing me reaching up with my arms and having him pick me up, or visualizing me sitting at his side with my head on his knee. The normal stuff.
When I got there and asked how he was, he answered that he was stressed out from the family health problems I've alluded to. I expressed proper sympathy.
But when the session really started, I was floundering. This isn't the only time it's happened. I realized that I knew intellectually that this was therapy, he was my therapist, and he meant a lot to me. But simultaneously I had no idea why I went to therapy, what I said when I went there, what I was supposed to talk about, and who this person was.
It was a lesser version of the day long ago when I looked at my mother and she wasn't my mother any more. She was a screaming woman who looked ridiculous. Poof. No connection, no emotional recognition of her as my mother, and it never came back.
I tried different things to say, everything seeming so distant, then gave up and retreated to rational work mode, then tried again. And with not all that much time left in session I was honest and told him what was going on.
He thought it was because I was angry with him. I didn't feel angry. I thought I might have been worried about him and didn't want to distress him, but that didn't really ring true either because telling him I didn't really know who he was or why I was there was not guaranteed to be unalarming to him.
He was a trooper. His usual unflappable self. He answered my questions, apologized again if he had made me feel unsafe, and my favorite moment was when I asked who he was and he answered "I'm your therapist/mommy." with a gentle smile in his voice.
I wish I knew what happened, or why it happened. It's such an unsettling feeling. I've been anxious ever since.
poster:Dinah
thread:471999
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050315/msgs/471999.html