Posted by Dinah on June 19, 2008, at 16:31:47
My therapist is now talking about the last few weeks in the past tense. He's talking reflectively now, about how shaken he was, and how he must have been delusional to think people wouldn't notice. He says that his life isn't settled and there may be more storms ahead.
But my experience with him is that once he's reached this reflective stage, the worst is past. I have no idea why. Maybe he gets help of some sort. Or maybe things in his life settle down. The main thing is that he felt congruent today. What he looked like with my eyes open and what he looked like with my eyes closed matched!!!
He says it made sense that I fell apart when my therapist fell apart. That that is a pretty big constant in a long term therapy client's life, and that we have the right to expect that our therapist will be more stable than we are. And he laughed when I told him I certainly don't expect that!
We talked in terms of my early parenting experiences. And how I realized that even though my mother is great with kids under the age of seven, she was also unbelievably stressed with her marriage and with me when I was very young. And how she was probably a stimulating presence rather than a calming one, and probably didn't help me organize my world very well. That coupled with what would have been abandonments in the eyes of a toddler and preschooler probably combined to change the neural pathways in a still growing brain. It makes sense that just as prenatal experiences change the developing brain and even body, postnatal experiences on an immature brain can change the developing brain as well. I probably received cortisol and adrenaline brain baths quite frequently both pre- and post-natal in those development periods.
Anyway, all that doesn't matter as much as basking in feeling him be ok. Or ok enough.
Until next time anyway.
He said in the larger picture of things, he wasn't at all angry with me. That even if he was angry in one session, or one moment, with my admittedly borderlinish behavior lately, that it didn't register in the entire map of our relationship. I told him that was easy for him to say. He only carried his anger during the session. I had to carry it until I saw him again.
poster:Dinah
thread:835505
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080616/msgs/835505.html