Posted by Girlnterrupted78 on September 9, 2007, at 16:23:57
In reply to Re: Frustrated and unhappy with T, posted by annierose on September 7, 2007, at 17:18:15
> You have gotten great responses and I agree with all of them. Sometimes t / clients are just not good fits. Othertimes, the t's approach just rubs you the wrong way ... it doesn't mean she is not professional, ethical, etc ... it's just not what you want out of this relationship right now.
Yeah, I don't know whether she is professional or ethical. I guess in my particular situation she hasn't been entirely herself and it has come across as unethical to me. But she definitely rubs me the wrong way.
> Having said all that, I do want to throw out something out there, sometimes your resistance is a red flag. It signals that this is an area that needs exploring. If she is a blank slate type of person, all this angst you are experiencing is coming from some experience inside of you that needs attention.
That's what my previous therapist (the one I liked) told me when I spoke to him about this. We only spoke for like 5 minutes, but he told me to give it a shot when I had almost decided to terminate it.
At some point my current T and I found that I was having the same issues with her as I had with my stepmother. But I doubt this has to do with a memory of my stepmother. The reality is that I simply can't tolerate someone who is supposed to be in a 'guidance' type of role, and who I sense to be lacking. How can I allow someone I sense to be unqualified and/or insecure, to guide me in any way? I sensed my stepmother to be fully insecure about me, and yet she was a guiding role to me. We ended up with life lasting problems.Now this therapist, who is supposed to "guide" me through recovery, I sense her to be insecure, lacking in character, sometimes dishonest, even unsure of what her therapy is like.
One time I told her I was confused about her therapy and wanted her to explain to me a little bit of how it worked or what she expected. Basically, she gave me a definition from psychology 101. "We will explore the issues that.. blah blah blah." I told her I was looking for a more specific answer, like: she would listen and not talk, or I would start the session and she would make a comment or two.. etc. I was confused about the fact that I barely knew her, and I was supposed to TRUST her all of a sudden. We hadn't even created a rapport, how did she expect me to suddenly confide everything in her?? I always sensed something was missing.. she had missed to do something very important to get me to trust her.. but apparently she didn't even realize this and she expected me to arrive the first day, sit down, and start trusting her just based on her role there. Well, NOOO.
I don't trust her. Either she does her job and creates some kind of intro that will make it easier for me to have a relationship with her, or I can't just meet her and make her job a piece of cake by creating the whole therapy myself just to PLEASE her, and then paying her for it.
> You mentioned that she is bringing her stuff into the therapy room. How so? Does she talk about her life and friends and family? Or are you projecting anger onto her reaction of saying little?
I have no idea what is happening. All I know is that she didn't do anything to make me trust her. I don't trust her, like her, and I feel she wants me to sit and talk and then pay her for it.
I don't know if I am projecting anger onto her reaction of saying little. All I know is that I feel like I'm there to please her. To do her job, and then pay her for it.
She seems afraid of talking, and she doesn't seem to know what to say either. She also seems EXTREMELY sensitive. She seems to take everything personally, so that is one of the thing she's bringing into the therapy. To the point that up to TODAY, I refrain myself up to 10 times per session from saying something. Like, the other day she mentioned she took her kids to school. I didn't know she had kids. Well, I didn't ask either, for fear that it might bother her that I might be intruding her life. I tend to restrain my talking a LOT in this therapy because I know she's easily annoyed and anything that might slightly touch more of her than it should, will annoy her. She has a very strong shell, that if I go beyond it by a fraction, will be a problem.So here I am, in therapy, doing an effort to make sure my comments are fully impersonal, never making a comment slightly conversational--and it doesn't feel as a therapy style, it feels more as making sure I keep the therapist happy and secure in her role. Like I said before to her: I am there to please her. So I am constantly changing my own versions of my thoughts to suit her sensitive personality and make sure nothing will annoy her even a little. It's such a pain because this is MY therapy, not HERS, and yet I am constantly worrying about her issues with sensitivity and annoyance.
So is there a red flag here? Maybe. But I am not sure if the problems here are mine, or the therapist's. She seems to have a whole bunch of issues of her own that seem to contaminate the therapy. In fact, I feel her issues make it IMPOSSIBLE for me to even start a therapy with her. If I have to constantly restrict myself in the way I say things, I am not doing anything for myself, but rather I am making sure the therapist is happy and I am ensuring her job satisfaction and also paying her for her services. This I'd call b*llshit therapy.
poster:Girlnterrupted78
thread:781352
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070904/msgs/781855.html