Posted by Dinah on February 22, 2002, at 8:32:50
In reply to Distressing therapy appt today, posted by Dinah on February 20, 2002, at 18:47:58
Yesterday when my therapist heard how genuinely hurt and upset I remained after Wednesday's appt, he offered to see me that evening. I reluctantly said yes, since often his attempts at correcting things end up with him being defensive and me being more upset. But this time we hashed out a lot of things that had been hanging in the air for a while.
Almost the first thing he had said in session had hurt me and it turns out that he didn't realize he had said it aloud. He understood why it had upset me said alone and without the accompanying thought processes. He had been having trouble understanding why I was upset with his final answer, which wasn't really a bad answer. He hadn't addressed the initial answer because he hadn't realized he had said it aloud.
We discussed how our respective "issues" sometimes clash and get in the way of therapy (thanks mouse and jane). But given the years of work together and the inevitability of that sort of thing happening in any long term relationship, he thought and I agreed that it was best to work on the problems rather than simply switch therapists. We talked about the areas where that might be true and agreed to try to recognize them when they came up.
We talked about his sometimes rigid way of reacting to things. We talked about my extremely good perception of WHAT was happening but my poor ability to figure out WHY coupled with my reluctance to ask for fear of hearing the answer. For example, when I get upset, he grows more distant and rational, which makes me more upset, which makes him more distant and rational, etc. I assume he is backing off because he is uncomfortable or disgusted with my emotion and I don't ask. He said last night that my perceptions are accurate, he is backing up and getting rational, but the reason he is doing it is different than I think. He is backing up because he realizes he has blundered and doesn't want to step on any more landmines. And he is getting more rational to try to figure out what went wrong. He promised to try to stay still when that happens and ask me what is going on. I promised to mention what I think is happening and my perception of it.
I know that there will be many instances when neither of us keep our promises, since it's only human to fall into familiar patterns. But I feel so much better about our ability to work through those things without my having to "stuff" feelings of hurt.
I know this is a really long post but I just think it is such a happy event. You know, when two people in any sort of relationship stop sticking to their own views of reality and pause to consider the other's person view. I'm going to have to try to apply this lesson to my husband, although I'm not sure it will work in a one-sided way.
Thanks for reading all this if you made it to my salutation.
Cheers,
Dinah
poster:Dinah
thread:18605
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020214/msgs/18695.html