Posted by onceupon on September 3, 2009, at 23:53:34
In reply to Re: Wanting » onceupon, posted by Dinah on September 3, 2009, at 8:38:22
Oh, Dinah, your description of between session fantasies really struck a chord with me. What powerful imagery! The one about wanting him tell him to pay attention to you is interesting too. Between sessions, often late at night or early in the morning, I find myself chanting to myself in a not entirely conscious way - "Will you be here? Will you be here?" Which is obviously telling about my fear of abandonment (why do I hate that phrase so much?). Sometimes it's just, "Please. Please. Please." in this plaintive voice in my head. As much as I might try to push the thoughts away, I also cling to them, I think because they offer some strange semblance of connection.
I really like your image of resting your head against his knee. And I'm fascinated that he actually offered to let it happen! That you declined his offer looks like amazing self-restraint to me :) But I get wanting to hold onto the fantasy. I'm at a place where I feel like I *should* give up the fantasy, though I'm loathe to do so, because I'm just tormenting myself with it. I like that you feel able to express your wish whenever you want. In some ways, I hold that kind of free, untormented communication about the whole thing as a sort of goal I'm working toward. Somewhere along the way I got the idea in my head that if I could talk about whatever came to mind without the knee-jerk censoring and sky-high anxiety, that I'd feel a lot better. Perhaps obviously. Can't remember which school of thought talked about one being "cured" when able to free associate, but that seems close to my thoughts about it. But there are times when I do wonder whether the cure is worse than the disease!
One last thought: I remember reading once in a book about psychodynamic psychotherapy one therapist's approach to gratifying clients' fantasies in fantasy. In other words, she described talking through with her clients, using a lot of imagery, what it might be like if she were to hold them, or take them home, or whatever. That appealed to me in a lot of ways, but I don't know that my therapist would ever go there.
poster:onceupon
thread:915522
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090730/msgs/915680.html