Posted by Dinah on May 26, 2005, at 9:29:45
In reply to Re: Voices » Daisym, posted by cricket on May 26, 2005, at 7:45:00
He turns to face the wall? That's not... typical.
Is he perhaps too well known? I've heard tales that very well known and well respected therapists feel very free to be a bit eccentric.
Paper tearing and turning to face the wall do seem a bit punitive, unless he has other reasons and can explain them.
That sort of thing bothers me more than his suggestions. Because you may not be typical in wanting him to believe you about the voices, especially among clients who are reluctant to talk about them, as you seem to be. For a client like me, for example, that approach would work reasonably well because it was less threatening. I wouldn't experience it as disbelief.
But I'd bother asking about the paper and the chair turning even if it's been a while. And you can frame it in terms of safety, if that's how you experience it. Actually, I'd mention anything that bothered me. Because I couldn't do real work until I sorted out the trust issues.
My therapist was reluctant for me to discuss my dissociative symptoms, which are further down the scale than DID, because of past experiences he had had. So he didn't push in any way. Quite the opposite. For a while there he seemed to be trying for extinguishment of any mention of dissociative symptoms by ignoring them (and by a certain stillness and internal turning away - but he didn't mean to show those, and wasn't even aware that he was).
When I talked to him honestly about what I was experiencing from him, and how it was keeping me from being honest with him, he became aware of what he was doing and stopped it.
If your therapist can do that, you'll be in a much better position with him. If he can't, you'll know that it's at least time to look at other alternatives. You don't have to follow up on them. Just know that they're there. I've made a list, several times, of alternate therapists to call.
poster:Dinah
thread:502661
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050521/msgs/503131.html