Posted by cricket2 on July 5, 2005, at 19:36:05
In reply to Re: What do you call your Therapist? » cricket, posted by Tamar on July 5, 2005, at 17:17:06
> Wow! A Victorian marriage as in enormous emotional distance between two people who have little in common and married to please their parents? Or a Victorian marriage as in a profound but largely unspoken connection between two people who have discovered a means of finding harmony against all odds? Or something else entirely?
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No, more because I am completely passive in therapy. I never ask for anything. I wait quietly in the waiting room until he comes and gets me and have never complain even if he is 15 or 20 minutes late. I made one 3 minute phone call in 3 years of therapy. I never have any topic that I want to discuss and am perfectly content if he rambles on the whole 50 minutes. In fact those are my favorite sessions - no kidding. Despite repeated offers, I never eat or drink anything in his presence while he sort of slurps and crunches away. I never ask questions, always say the room temperature is fine (not sure why he keeps asking).So he says that he wants me to learn how to take the lead sometimes. I have no idea how to do that, not in there, not with him.
> I think names are particularly significant for a woman in therapy with a man. Wherever there are social differences, I think it’s a good thing to challenge them. I guess that’s why it annoys me if older men talk down me, and why I find it uncomfortable when young men show too much respect for me. I think it’s particularly important in therapy to feel able to get close to the therapist. Therapy is often complicated by differences of sex, race, age, class, and orientation. Finding ways to cross those (if not other) boundaries seems important to me.
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You are so right. I mean we have the innate power imbalance of therapist vs. patient and then we have the fact that he is rich, white and male and I am none of those things. So sometimes I feel like I have centuries of cultural conditioning that I am up against (not to say anything about a horrendous childhood) in trying to cross all these boundaries and make a connection. Sometimes I don't think he appreciates the difficulty of that. I mean I know how to passively resist - always arrive late, a polite shrug serves many purposes, bolt off the couch when he gives the nod that I can go - but all those tactics do more harm than good.Anyway, on his part, I think he is trying his best. He probably reveals far more about himself than most therapists. I think primarily to try and find common ground with me. I get everything from "Oh I was an angry adolescent too" to "I like peanut butter sandwiches too."
So it seems that what I call my therapist is just the tip of a very large and complicated iceberg.
PS - Thanks for the grrrr. I needed that.
poster:cricket2
thread:523728
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050628/msgs/523956.html