Posted by Daisym on November 11, 2006, at 16:21:20
In reply to Eeek no. I just can't think about it., posted by Dinah on November 11, 2006, at 9:28:13
I've been thinking about this concept of "needing to need" your therapist a lot lately. There are times when the intensity of need dies down for me and while it is a relief, there is anxiety surrounding it too. It feels like a loss that is hard to put words to.
I've thought about it as a developmental progression. Similar to an infant who needs her mother to meet her needs, when therapy began, I needed my therapist to help me hold and tolerate the onslaught of new and unnamed feelings. It was a very primal thing, including the development of a new vocabulary which I needed to communicate all that I was feeling. Now it is more of a toddler stage - I'm upright on my own two feet - but I still need to cling to his leg every now and then to rebalance myself. I've ventured further into the past than I ever have before and I've made huge changes in my present and for my future. He remains my "safe base" that I return to again and again. And like a toddler, I long for the complete safety of my mother, and yet I'm excited about my own autonomy. So I'm conflicted and the conflict itself feels like too much to bear. I want someone wise to tell me either "stay close to your mother, you aren't ready to leave her" or "you are so ready, go forward and the pain of leaving will lessen, swallowed by the joy of living." I remain frozen, unable to completely give into my need for safety and soothing and unable to move forward. Maybe this is where the development diverges - because with your parent you start to give something back and they appreciate it and accept it and even expect it, want it and enjoy it. In therapy, it remains one sided and you continue to pay for it. So maybe this is why I'm stuck? The process itself remains stuck.
The other thing I've thought about is a little out there and it might be a very personal thing, applying to me only. So feel free to poo poo it. I have found in my therapist and in therapy, a powerful catalyst to love. I finally know that I have the ability to love and it feels amazing. He knows I love him, in all the forms of love and he is totally OK with that. And because he is OK with that, I'm slowly learning that loving someone won't hurt them...and might not hurt me. Getting in touch with the ability to love - my own lovingness - fills up a space in me that only my children have reached before. Its almost like a deep spirituality unleashed, an ability I didn't know I had. I'm secretly proud of it. And I'm astonished how good it makes me feel. So I need therapy and my therapist as the setting for and object of, my love. I need to practice and be reassured that it is OK that I love someone like this.
I need therapy for lots of other stuff too. But when I really try to understand what goes missing when the need goes missing - it is that profound sense of love. I don't understand it more than this yet - maybe I never will.
poster:Daisym
thread:702376
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061109/msgs/702638.html