Posted by vwoolf on December 20, 2006, at 8:07:34
In reply to 2 Therapists At Same Time, posted by happykat on December 19, 2006, at 23:32:58
When I first started therapy, I decided that I was going to do therapy with a woman because I had been sexually abused as a child and I knew I would have a lot of sexual issues to deal with. I found a woman who was highly rated and started. I did not like her very much, but I put that down to transference and decided I would have to work through it. She subsequently referred me to a pdoc who is also a psychoanalyst. After one session with him I felt incredibly attached. I felt sure he could save me.
I spoke to my t about it, and told her I would like to do therapy with both of them. She refused. She said I would have to choose. She said it would not really matter who I chose, that I would work through the same stuff, but that I could not split this way.
To work through transference, you have to face up to all the good and bad stuff that you project onto others, which is based on your early childhood relationships. By working with two t's, you would never be able to integrate the split off parts of yourself, which is the aim of therapy - or at least it's the aim of my therapy. To become fully integrated, to accept myself in all my aspects.
I opted to work with her, simply because the other option seemed too wonderful to trust. I know I would have tried to seduce the pdoc, and he might have succumbed - it has happened to me before. It was very, very, very hard to not see him again. It took me a few years to get over my yearning.
Now, four years down the line I see what she meant. I am working through my
abusive parts in the transference, and it is hard to have to face these things in myself. If I had half a chance, I know I would still be avoiding it. Which I would do if I had someone else I could go to.I think that therapy is a subtle, hard art, and I think we should trust our therapists if they tell us clearly that something is not in our best interests. I think you should talk it through with both of them and take the advice they give you. Apart from a few rotten exceptions, they do know what they are doing most of the time. Trust them.
poster:vwoolf
thread:715149
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20061210/msgs/715181.html