Posted by Dinah on August 23, 2008, at 10:05:21
In reply to Therapy is going so well again, posted by Dinah on August 20, 2008, at 18:45:28
I was telling him what I wrote, about how I sometimes got bored but found therapy helpful anyway. He suggested that if I got bored, we could maybe walk to the nearby park for the session to shake things up I guess, unless I'd freak out about it.
I politely declined to go to the park, and acknowledge with equal politeness that I would indeed freak out.
He asked me why, and I found myself totally unable to explain it. I know I've talked about it here without trouble, but the most I could say to him was that I didn't think he could be my therapist/mommy outside the sacred therapy space. He acknowledged that he didn't understand.
Of course it's not as simple as that. If there was need, I could meet him just about anywhere, and recognize that he could carry the therapeutic space with him. In fact, I have experience of that. But that would be a purposeful meeting and a conscious creation of the space.
He's not the same outside his office. He's more matter of fact. He feels different. But even if he could consciously maintain his therapy self, it just wouldn't feel right... Therapy belongs in that room, or wherever the substitute is for that room, because therapy is not real life. It's a bubble, a sacred bubble.
I know other people have done this. And I'm not entirely sure why I'm not willing to even try. I even know I couldn't explain to him even as much as I've explained here. I'm way more aware of these things than he is.
poster:Dinah
thread:847432
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080810/msgs/847810.html