Posted by Dinah on September 28, 2010, at 19:26:16
All different aspects of it.
I also gave him an excerpt of Witti's post. He really liked it, and I'm hoping it will help him keep in mind what cutting back really is.
He said more or less the things I had said in my more rational posts. That he didn't have formal analytical training, although he was exposed to some of the ideas in supervision. That he didn't have any experience with very long term therapy, and that we had to work out some of the problems together.
He said it was important that we were able to keep talking about it. Which was a very charitable spin on the multitude of phone calls I made Friday...
I apologized for behaving badly, and said that I recognized that I had put him in a no-win situation.
He said he should have been more aware that "Ok then, see you next Friday" wasn't the ideal response.
We talked about how his natural response to feeling upset, angry, anxious, etc. was to pull back to assess the situation. And that the more intense anger I showed him, the more he pulled back to think. And how my reaction to his pulling back was to get angry. He told me not to blame my reaction on his actions, and I said no, it was just a situation where everything snowballs. I asked him if he could try not to pull back, because it makes me more and more angry and scared. He said something about my not getting so angry, because anger makes him pull back. He asked why I was so special. I reminded him that I was so special in that hour because I was the client, and I paid him, and the hour was about my issues, not his. I liked that he understood the terminology I used to describe how I perceived his reaction. He used to never understand, but now he understands easily.
We agreed to talk about it some more. About what cutting back means to me, and about my needing to feel like a daughter. I asked him if that was a bad thing, and if I was supposed to be my own father or something. He laughed and suggested I ask my friends with knowledge of analysis. He said he didn't know whether not needing him as much was a good thing or a bad thing, because how can you know what the future holds?
He looked at the handout, and seems happy that it's just exposure therapy, which is well in his skill set. He said he'd read it before, and found notations from when he did, but that he'd forgotten. I think we're going to talk more about it later.
I'm not hating him right now. I'm not angry. I'm maybe a wee bit disappointed. But I guess those disappointments are part of leaving the nest...
poster:Dinah
thread:964144
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20100831/msgs/964144.html