Posted by Dinah on August 24, 2005, at 19:41:58
In reply to Re: If it were next session » Dinah, posted by alexandra_k on August 24, 2005, at 19:07:08
Welllllll.... Ok it gets sticky here.
He does care if I see him. He would dislike it if I decreased my frequency, both because he cares about me and because he likes my fees. But he cares enough about me to have thought of me when negotiating for his new job, and tried to work it out so that he could continue to see me twice a week. And he'd be really sad if I quit completely I think.
Not that he'd say it like that, of course. But I know him well enough to know he'd be good and angry.
So it's not really that he wouldn't mind seeing me leave, which is probably why I'm mentally punishing him by thinking of not going.
And there's never been any intensity on his side. Never. The intensity is on my side. I don't want to lose the intensity, and he doesn't mind if I do. Because overall, it's better for him for me not to mind his leaving town, and not to call him between sessions. So if I'm not terribly intense, and need him less, and keep coming in twice a week that's probably his ideal. And since he never felt the intensity, he doesn't mind losing it, or not losing it really because he never had it. But he doesn't care that I lose it.
But it's important to me, and I think that ought to be reason enough for it to be important to him. There are some things that are important to me that just aren't important to him. He won't help me get back the daydreams. He won't help me get back this. And he doesn't even care enough to remember what I said about it.
It doesn't mean he doesn't care about me, but it does mean that he doesn't care about what I care about, and he's not willing to listen and help me recover the things I care about. He'll say he doesn't know how, but that's cr*p because there are plenty of things he doesn't know how to do but he still helps me. It's just the things I care about and he doesn't that he doesn't help me with.
He likes me well enough. He'd miss me if I were gone. And he cares about me. But if we disagree about what's important, he just tunes me out and becomes as dense as a post.
And I think they should matter if for no other reason than that they matter to me.
Although in general, if I didn't already know he wouldn't really like me to get all better and not need him, I'd be really really sad. Except if it's in his best interests for me not to see him anymore, like he's leaving town. Then he would want me to not need him.
Ok, there's been some boundary crossing over the years. But we've been together for ten years. And all the important boundaries are still in place. He's very firm about those. But the ones about caring about me as a person, not just as a client, and having mutual commitment, well, those are a bit breached. But they're stupid to begin with. Everyone deserves a therapist who cares about them as a person and would miss them if they left.
poster:Dinah
thread:543244
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050824/msgs/546254.html