Posted by twinleaf on November 12, 2007, at 1:02:19
In reply to The Phases of Therapy, posted by Daisym on November 11, 2007, at 23:23:11
That was so good to hear Daisy- that you are working at such a deep level, and still feeling so trusting and connected- no matter what comes up- and you know for certain that he feels that way towards you also. You talked about stages, but didn't identify one. I'm getting the feeling that you maybe feel that you are moving into the last phases of deep therapy work, and that perhaps the stage to follow is termination. I went to a conference just today about termination, and was very reassured to learn how long everyone takes to go through it- about two years seems to be average- sometimes much longer. And, as you know, most therapists don't shut the door in a final way. They expect and welcome "as-needed" contacts. In one (extreme) case, a woman "terminated" seven years of analysis, and then kept on going once a week to the same therapist for 30 years! There was a lot of very interesting discussion about how it is a relationship of lifelong importance- whether one is going frequently, occasionally, or just keeping the memory of the therapist in mind.
By the way, this was the conference at which my former analyst was the keynote speaker. He gave a very abstract, historical talk-mostly about termination boundary violations by long-dead analysts, such as Masud Khan in England, who slept with most of his female patients! That was so extreme that it didn't seem very relevant, although his point was that the threat of loss of the patient can result in very destructive boundary violations by the therapist. It was sad to see him across a room full of people. We kind of avoided looking at one another. Twice, I saw him suddenly look at me, with a grave, searching expression. Perhaps he was wondering what I am doing now (he doesn't know about the new analyst, because the new one says he would be saying something like "what HAPPENED between you and Dr.,,,,,,,,,?!", and he doesn't think there's any possible, useful answer), and perhaps he was wondering, himself, what on earth happened to us. It's awfully hard to go through something like that, and understand it so little. It felt so sad, and like so much love, trust and hard work had just been wasted and thrown aside. I feel like I've been thrown aside myself.
Well, I need to remember that I've got a wonderful new analyst!
poster:twinleaf
thread:794498
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20071105/msgs/794516.html