Posted by seldomseen on June 24, 2009, at 8:58:03
In reply to Need help reframing, posted by Dinah on June 23, 2009, at 20:07:35
This assignment would cause me stress as well.
But I have to think that the amount of emotional work that it has already caused you might prove to be beneficial for your therapy. I think this is true whether you complete the assignment or not.
Something is obviously going on here that has triggered you.
I'm going to play armchair therapist here for a second and speculate. What strikes me about your therapy is how you and your therapist appear to have come to some sort of peer relationship. Not that that's a bad thing, but you've definately progressed through the "therapist as the authority" phase of therapy and have adopted the "therapist as a partner" in your recovery. I know that's an oversimplification because our relationships with our therapists often move in and out of phases given a lot of variables.
But, partners don't give each other homework that the other "grades". Certainly not homework with rigid specifications. It seems very juvenile to me and "do it my way or it's not good enough". I would feel humiliated too.
However, knowing your therapist from what you have described, I sincerely doubt that was his intent. I'm also fairly confident that if you decide NOT to do the assignment he will "get it" and likely apologize.
This is not something that you have to do, but I would definately talk to him about it (we need an acronym for that on babble - talk to your therapist - TTYT perhaps).
Peace
Seldom.
poster:seldomseen
thread:902818
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090614/msgs/902912.html