Posted by Shortelise on August 23, 2005, at 11:04:09
In reply to Confusing meltdown, posted by daisym on August 23, 2005, at 1:24:03
Those "irrational" feelings are the bane of my life. Feelings that come from somewhere deep in the bone, somewhere so old I don't know how to understand them sometimes.
I think that is where "staying with the feelings" is supposed to be helpful.
Daisy, how well I know that feeling of someone I need being taken away. It's from tiny childhood for me, and after too. I guess it's about separation, and the loss we can feel when separation happens badly.
There is a book by John Bowlby "Separation: Anxiety and Anger". It's a psych. book, the second of a series called "Attachment and Loss". Not a self-help book, but one of the ones a T would have to read in school - or at least refer to. I came across it for 50 cents in a second hand store and couldn't pass it up as it is so ... topical! The library would have it, and it's worth a look, though it's not an easy one.
Daisy, when we've established a safe attachment, a secure one, the idea of letting go of it is terrifying, isn't it? And letting one session a week go would, for me, mean the beginning of the end of the relationship. It's fear of death, fear of loss, fear of the abyss. We are helpless as children, incapable of surviving without a caregiver, and we go into that with our T's.
We flip into these feelings right off when they are triggered. It's knee jerk.
Maybe what you need to decide is are you ready to go there, have you dealt with the things you need to in therapy, and are you ready to deal with this stuff. Maybe as you still see your T often, it wouldn't be the focus of your sessions for very long? Maybe it would be helpful to go there now. Or maybe you are in the middle of other things that would be interrupted by this, and it would be best to postpone cutting back. I think I'd talk to my T about it.
I find it hard not to be motivated by fear. So, I wonder if I am making a "rational" decision sometimes, or if I am making a decision based on fear.
Daisy, I know I've written things you know well already, but I hope it helps to read them.
((Daisy))
ShortE
poster:Shortelise
thread:545517
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050813/msgs/545622.html