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Re: countertransference in therapist LONG » Dinah

Posted by LG04 on March 21, 2005, at 12:02:17

In reply to Re: countertransference in therapist LONG » LG04, posted by Dinah on March 21, 2005, at 10:17:15

wow Dinah, what an interesting perspective. i really appreciate your point of view. and yes, it is always very painful for me when she sets boundaries. we know that's an issue between us, and esp. b/c it's hard for her to set them. i just felt this was so extreme and so sudden and and at such a vulnerable time for me and she didn't talk to me about how to deal with her new boundaries, what tools to use. she shell-shocked me.

she didn't totally back out of her boundaries. she still kept the main one, which is long calls between sessions. she says 5-15 minute check-in calls are okay. that's the boundary she opened up again. if she had said that from the beginning, it wouldn't have set off such panic and pain with me. it was the NO calls ever in between that totally did me in. it was taking away too much at once. but i know her, and if she wasn't okay to allow check-in calls, she wouldn't have done it. she kept her strict boundaries until she felt balanced again. she even worried about what would happen if i tried to call her for a check-in and couldn't get a hold of her, b/c she knows that if i'm in a really bad state, i will panic and think she is avoiding me on purpose. (pathetic, i know). she told me she has never ever screened my calls.

you are right that she overextended herself in this situation. but she still says she isn't leaving, that she is here for the duration. that she has worked our two weekly phone calls into her life. (i did offer to call her at her office and other things....we've talked about all the different alternatives. she prefers to be home though. also we have an 8-hour time difference so we are very limited in our choices.)

i am going back to visit where i was living for 2 months this summer, so of course i will see her twice a week while there. so it's weird b/c we haven't really terminated in the sense that we knew i'd be back over the summer and probably every single summer (and perhaps winter break too) until i die. (i am extremely attached to the country and have a zillion friends there and basically a very full and rich life there and if i were wealthy, i'd buy a house there and spend most of the year there.) so i don't know exactly what is going to happen. she is willing to let our relationship play itself out. for now, that's okay with me too.

yes, i do pay her, i pay her even more than i'd be paying if i was seeing her in person twice a week. (this was my idea to pay her that much; she was okay with $100 a month b/c i have an extremely tight budget. but next year i am going to get a bit of inheritance money so i wrote her a post-dated check that will amount to paying her even more than if i was seeing her in person)

i just wish she understood the affect that it had on me. i hate that she acts as if she didn't do anything to hurt me. it did hurt.

but, i hear everything that you said. i so appreciate your point of view. it will help me to hear her better. it has calmed me down. i still am so angry but at least i know that someone objectively doesn't think that what she did was horrible, that maybe my reaction has very little to do with the "real."

the question is, how responsible is a therapist to try not to trigger a client if she knows where her client's vulnerabilities are? and she knows that her client is in a terribly vulnerable place? i just feel like she wasn't responsible with the power differential that exists. i guess you feel differently.

i will re-read your post many times and see if i can take it in more.
Thanks so much Dinah,

LG04


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poster:LG04 thread:473495
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