Posted by Dinah on July 26, 2006, at 16:10:39
In reply to He's leaving ****triggers****, posted by ElaineM on July 23, 2006, at 16:29:16
I haven't written much, although I really do wish I could help somehow.
I guess that although you've written many things about your therapist that have distressed people, and distress me as well in terms of therapeutic behavior, it also sounds as if he meets some of your needs in a way that a therapist who stuck to the rules might not.
I'm not condoning his behavior, but I guess I'm getting the sense that this is a very complicated relationship and he's acting as more than a therapist. Or perhaps just that I don't have a sense of the full nature of your relationship.
He's no longer charging you?
I can certainly see the benefit to getting a "real" therapist to act as a therapist with you, even if you find this relationship helpful in other ways. When lines are blurred to a really large degree, I'm not sure therapy as therapy can take place.
I can feel my therapist starting to act like a therapist now in ways that highlight that he wasn't acting precisely therapist-like before. And I find him soooo helpful as a therapist. Therapy is a valuable and unique relationship.
But I must confess that I'm not sure what it would take for him to do before I'd totally cut off ties with him. I'm not known for my low self esteem, but I think I'd forgive him anything, and I mean anything, to keep a relationship of some sort.
But I hope I would also seek out a truly therapeutic relationship even as I held on to a nontherapeutic one with him.
If that makes sense?
poster:Dinah
thread:669755
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060721/msgs/670805.html