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Re: managing life while in therapy » emmanuel98

Posted by Annabelle Smith on February 7, 2011, at 20:51:35

In reply to Re: managing life while in therapy, posted by emmanuel98 on February 7, 2011, at 18:36:28

Emmanuel,

That makes sense-- when you (generic) feel that dependent and needy, it seems like the more you see your therapist, then the more the need is met, and the better things are. Although it seems sort of counter-intuitive at first, I think you are right that seeing him all the time would just make the dependency deepen to a more deeply debilitated place. Sometimes when I am in that deep place of longing and thinking about him that you describe, I find myself feeling angry towards him-- like he is frustrating me on purpose by his absence. I don't believe this is actually true, but it is just a feeling I get a lot.

Emmanuel, if you don't mind my asking, how long were you in therapy on a weekly basis (with the same therapist) until you went to a monthly basis? I am presuming that you probably did this gradually too.

You know all of this that we are talking about here-- the super intense longing for our therapist (and it is intensely focused in one individual and seems like it could never be anyone else)-- is creating huge problems for me. To bounce off another thread here, this is really the source of much of my current chaos. I feel like I am in bondage to my therapist through this longing. Without him, I would be moving on in life to the next thing-- probably listening to my inner restlessness by going to a new city or a new country for a while. But as it stands, while most people around me are moving on and away-- I HAVE to stay in this city where I live becaue my therapist is here. I need more time with him-- but I ask myself: how much time is enough time? 3 more months (a summer)? Probably not. A year? Maybe. Longer? Then I wonder if he would work with me longer...I am embarrassed to ask him directly, like maybe he doesn't want to work with me.

Sometimes-- I know this is really stupid-- I get the feeling that I am not "serious" enough for him to work with-- like I am not "bad off" enough. I don't know what other problems his other clients have. Often, I really, really want to know and wish I were a fly on a wall in their sessions. I guess the implication would be that if I am not "bad off" enough, he would want to terminate me. But I feel in distress most of the time. But I still compare myself to others.

I have heard someone once refer to therapy as a "luxury" (I think it was a website). That seems ridiculous to me. I think in many cases, therapy is a life or death matter. Those who don't have it, will be dead-- either literally/physically or emotionally/relationally (in another sense, literally). That idea of it as a "luxury" made me mad.


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poster:Annabelle Smith thread:978715
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110206/msgs/978853.html