Posted by Tamar on July 5, 2005, at 16:13:11
In reply to I need to find an old thread., posted by Dinah on July 5, 2005, at 13:57:59
> I think I have an idea where to look.
>
> Before Daddy died, I was thinking that it was time to cut back on therapy. That I was growing in such a way that I didn't need my therapist in the same way. Not quitting, but growing the way a child grows and separates from their parent.
>
> And I was upset about the loss that it would entail. I think I had a pretty good handle on what the loss was.
>
> The conversation came up again today, and it was frustrating in the extreme, because I couldn't verbalize the feelings of loss. I said I was sad, he said to talk about the sadness, and I didn't know what on earth he was talking about. I used the metaphor or whatever of my son who is now too old to want to sit on my lap to read his night-time stories, and who doesn't care if I kiss him goodnight or not. It's growth, but he loses that nurturing feeling of being on mommy's lap. That feeling that you never ever ever get back until you go into therapy. :) (Of course, Mommy misses it a lot too, with the added disadvantage of not growing in order to lose it.) And it's hard for me to see what this particular growth has as its advantage. I don't want to get off my therapist's lap, not even if I don't need to sit there anymore.I can understand that your therapist might be curious because in your metaphor it almost seems as if you’re identifying with *both* the parent and the child. I wonder if children actually go through feelings of loss when they grow up… it seems to me that not needing that feeling of sitting on mummy’s lap is rarely associated with feelings of loss unless it’s the mummy who decides it’s time for the child to grow up a bit.
If your daddy started pushing you off his lap when he felt you were too old to sit there any more (e.g. at puberty) then I can well imagine you might have experienced feelings of loss at the same time as feeling you were growing up.
From what you say, it sounds to me as if you’re thinking about cutting back on therapy because you feel you ought to be grown up, not because you feel you are actually grown up.
Or perhaps it’s that you feel you don’t know quite how to move to the next stage. If you want to stop sitting in your therapist/mommy’s lap (metaphorically speaking), what alternative comfort can you find? Kids often move from looking for physical comfort to looking for verbal comfort. How do you do that in therapy, when the sense of physical comfort is established by using words rather than touch? It’s a difficult question.
> To me that *is* explanation, but he wanted more. And I'm at a loss. Moreover, I'm a bit angry, because if he doesn't understand what it is I'm losing, maybe I'm not really losing anything at all, because I never really had anything. :(
Well, perhaps you have a sense of psychological holding. Are you worried you might lose that sense of being held if you become more separate from your therapist? Maybe it’s not his failure to understand that’s at issue, but rather it’s the difficulty of determining whether you really are ready to move off his metaphorical lap? Kids seem to do it gradually, without much discussion. It’s difficult to have to explain it.
((((Dinah))))
poster:Tamar
thread:523767
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/523822.html