Posted by DAisym on November 12, 2008, at 23:07:56
In reply to Re: A bit of a RAMBLE » DAisym, posted by Dinah on November 11, 2008, at 22:20:51
> I still want to trade therapists at some point, if only for a session or two. I just love your therapist - he always makes me smile. I think he'd be fun to chat with. :)
I'm certainly game. I'm pretty sure he is too. :)
I wouldn't quite say he's fascinated with Babblers, but he certainly interested in them. He's been really impressed by your insights. He's jealous of your therapist. I mentioned something about how everyone loves your therapist, and he expectantly asked what everyone thought of him. I ended up saying that I thought people loved our relationship, and while he was happy with that I still think he's jealous of your therapist.
***It is funny when I talk about Babble sometimes - I get the feeling that my therapist worries that I want him to be able to do everything everyone else's therapist can do - like EMDR. I tell him a lot that we all arrive at the same conclusion - what works for one person would not work for another. He likes when I can pose questions here and get feedback from "peers" as he says. Like asking about sex - he had been trying to tell me that he sees a lot of couples that struggle with their sex life and there is no csa - so while it is different for me, it isn't unusual for it to be a tricky thing. He felt that the responses from Babble were more convincing than he could be.
I think I was hoping no one would remember to ask. In his defense, I must confess that I didn't mention it until the last ten minutes, and we covered a lot in that ten minutes so I clearly pushed him past the deliberate pace he prefers. It wasn't our finest ten minutes and may have been a showcase of the worst aspects of our relationship.
****Sorry - sometimes things just stay with me. Other times...
His initial response to my question was to look a whole lot like my son when I walk in the room and find him reaching to turn off the TV and pick up his homework. He muttered something unconvincing about being distracted by other things. He was so unconvincing that I'm still not sure he remembered what the heck I was talking about at first.
*****I hate that. I never want to believe that my stuff could get mixed up with another patient's stuff.
I pressed him a bit, making sure to give memory jogs, and he said that he wasn't sure how to go about getting vomit, or if he wanted to. A bit better, but I reminded him that the treatment plan suggested didn't actually mention real vomit. I told him that I'd noticed the change in his attitude came when I was talking about being afraid it would influence our relationship or that I would associate him with vomit. I told him that while I thought he generally had the detachment needed to help me with my problems, it occurred to me to wonder if he had the same detachment when it came to disruptions in the therapeutic relationship. He fell on this with almost too much relief and acknowledged the possibility that he wasn't really objective in this, and that if there was an aversion reaction (I think that was what he said) he didn't want to be caught in it.
*****I can see this but I still think you gave him the out. After all this time, he should know that your relationship can withstand just about anything. And I would think exploring this from your safe base would make it less likely that you would develop an aversion to him - maybe therapy over all for a while - but not him.
I asked him whether, in the extremely unlikely case that I could find someone in the vast expanse of New Orleans who I thought I could get along with and who had the expertise in this, would he object to my using one of my two sessions a week seeing another therapist. I added a lot of my fears that this would be unlikely and my concerns about this being a long term proposition. His candor was endearing I suppose. He said that if anyone was going to be vomit guy, he'd prefer it not be him. And he reflected on how he would feel if another therapist fixed my problems and became the hero. We rounded off this ten minutes by my suggestion of the possibility that even though I complained about his liking of the status quo and that he didn't seem to like to push me or to challenge me, that I really actually liked this and preferred not to use one of my sessions a week being pushed and challenged. He said that we had spoken before about the dilemma of his pushing/not pushing. I laughed and reminded him that he'd told me I bite. And he said, yes, I did. With the most sincerity that I'd heard from him in the whole ten minutes
*****I know you bite sometimes. But I guess I think that he is supposed to keep things safe enough for you to do that and not have it destroy the therapy. I worry about my anger a lot but my therapist keeps reassuring me that he won't let the transference get so far out of hand that it would derail everything we've done. I do like that your therapist was willing to admit that it would feel rotten to have someone else be the hero. That's admirable honest.
I swear to you that this was far from the normal standard of therapy. I really think I pushed him off balance and kept him there. I certainly wasn't at my best. Maybe a bit anxious? A lot of what I was asking him were trick questions with no really good answer, and he had to balance the answers he would give to emotional me versus the answers he would give to rational me. It really is a minefield, and I freely admit that.
*****Again - you are suppose to push him on occasion. It keeps him on his toes! It is important, I think, that he is reminded that you still need him to be thoughtful and to manage some of your anxiety. I doubt they were trick questions, but rather complicated ones. There are no easy answers to this stuff.
The end result is that I am left unsure of what is going on. He was so clearly uncomfortable that it messed up my perceptions a bit. He was clearly less than completely honest at times, and clearly happy to agree with other things I said. But was he happy because I was right? Or because he thought it was taking him off the hook for whatever he felt guilty about? I led the witness way too much, and I didn't ask enough questions that he had to answer in his own words. Too many multiple choice and true/false. Not nearly enough essay questions. :)
*****Probably a bit of all of the above. I think he does need to explain his thinking without your prompting. And you need to try and hear what he says, even if his guilt makes you feel bad. I don't think it is that you don't want to work hard, or that he doesn't want to work hard. I think it is hard to risk a rupture, which is what you are clearly doing.
I don't know if you were able to sift any of that out. The predominant feeling I left with was disbelief that he was afraid that seeing another therapist would change my attachment to him. Does he really think that I'll see another therapist and have my eyes opened to his flaws and inadequacies? That I'll find out he isn't as wonderful as I think he is? Wait! Isn't that my role in the relationship? Silly man. As if I don't already know his flaws and inadequacies. As if love ends that easily. As if imprinting could be overwritten by another duck even if it swam faster or caught more fish.
****I didn't get that from what you wrote above. I can't believe that he isn't aware of how strong your connection is and how attached you are *despite* his flaws. I think the issue is that you keep him as balanced as he keeps you, in some ways. So to stress things on purpose might seem less than desirable. Kind of like rocking a boat on purpose, even if the objective is to get it to shore. The destination is desirable, as long as you don't fall out and drown trying to get there.
But I'm not sure that is the right impression to walk away with or if I'm totally off the mark. It went too fast.
********My therapist is fond of telling me that "truth" during therapy sessions is less important that the feelings we are left with. If I hear him say something, and he says he didn't say it - then we can argue about one thing. If I hear him say something and he wonders why I heard it that way, we get more work done. I'm sure this is one of those sessions that will lead to other important discussions.
poster:DAisym
thread:860712
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081104/msgs/862722.html