Posted by backseatdriver on March 17, 2009, at 10:47:06
Hi Babblers,
I had a weird moment in session yesterday and could use some help processing it. I'm in once-weekly psychodynamic psychotherapy for depression; family history includes emotional, verbal, physical and sexual abuse, primarily by my mother, who had a mental illness. I don't remember much of this.
I have been in therapy a little over a year with a male psychiatrist who also does psychotherapy. Lately I have been feeling more connected and *inside* my body, not just a disembodied intellect operating from somewhere up on the ceiling while my body goes about its business.
In session yesterday, when I started to talk about my first sexual experiences at 14 with a boy my own age, my T said,
"Oh?"
and it seemed to me that the room was spinning, that I was about to be invaded. I dissociated, and we spent the rest of the session trying to reconnect.
He made a misstep right away, which didn't help, saying that 14 was too young for sex. My inner 14-year-old bristled right up and rebelliously reminded him that "I am not from a nice middle-class neighborhood like yours." In other words, shut up. (My inner 14-year-old is very much the class warrior.)
This is the first time we have talked directly about my first non-incestuous sexual experiences.
I think I correctly perceived an intensification of his interest at that point in the session. His interest did feel prurient to me. But even if it was, this ought to be something I can handle. Prurience is not a mortal sin.
Apparently intensification of his interest around sexual matters really throws me for a loop. Throws me, emotionally, right out of the session. Any thoughts about how to re-approach this material next time?
And what about the "too young" comment? After a night's rest I think he was trying to be protective, as if to say "If you were my daughter I would have tried to help you with this." But my inner 14-year-old is still unhappy about it. (She wants to grow up fast, and get out of the house even faster.)
Developmentally speaking, how *does* one become a sexual person, growing up? Does this ever happen with parental support and approval, or it is always about painful conflict and disconnection?
BSD
poster:backseatdriver
thread:885758
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090227/msgs/885758.html