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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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Posted by alexandra_k on March 2, 2005, at 20:51:45
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » pinkeye, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 20:48:47
> I'm beginning to suspect he rather likes positive transference. :)
I dare say they all do :-)
I think it is nice being called a 'difficult' client. That means we are challenging and never boring :-)
I think that is a nice thing to say.
But maybe he should have said 'I find you a challenge'...
Posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 21:24:22
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by alexandra_k on March 2, 2005, at 20:51:45
Posted by Toph on March 2, 2005, at 21:30:54
In reply to I am officially a difficult client, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 19:35:16
As you well know Dinah all patients put up a fight with their therapists wrestling over issues of trust, autonomy, superiority, jealousy, envy, regression, you name it, practically every emotional conflict a growing child faces in becoming a secure independent adult. Its all acted out there in the room. But no patient is more adept at resisting entering into a therapeutic alliance or engaging in a mental chess game to maintain the upper hand than the bright patient. I hope your therapist isn't waving the white flag.
Toph
Posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 21:45:31
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by Toph on March 2, 2005, at 21:30:54
Hmmm... You've got something there. I congratulate you on seeing beyond the surface. I mean, I'm not afraid that he'll quit on me, but...
While I'm outwardly incredibly compliant, I think he lets me get away with a lot. I suspect he knows it, too. He expresses it as frustration that I don't like him to "challenge" me. But I wonder. Maybe he is giving up in a way, and accepting the level of therapy he thinks I can handle. Lowered expectations. Or maybe he's got some big plan that involves letting me set the pace, or have a corrective emotional experience, or something. I don't know for sure.
Our relationship has definitely settled into a sometimes teasing, but very comfortable routine. Like an old married couple. It definitely works in getting me to do what he wants. But maybe not for the right reasons. Has he waved the white flag?
And do I care? I like old shoes. I like comfort, and I sorely miss teasing since Daddy died. I like making someone I care about happy. I *like* our relationship. I *like* being dependent.
I confided in him today that I think of therapy (metaphorically of course) as coming and curling up at his feet with my head leaning on his knee. And told him that that's a big step up from how I used to think of it - with me as the blind puppy seeking the warmth of a milky mother. It's still a dependent picture, but not *as* dependent. So does that mean that his overall plan is working? Or are we both just comfortable with maintaining the status quo?
Posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 22:03:03
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Toph, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 21:45:31
Thinking about it, I realize that things have changed lately. It's not completely the status quo.
He tells me a *whole lot* more how what I'm doing makes him feel. The very opposite of blank slate. So while he still often tries to use logic to change my mind about something, he's using his reactions as a person a whole lot more now than he used to.
It works.
But I wonder what it means?
Is that a therapeutic technique? Or is he just going with what works? I hate it when I don't know what's going on.
Posted by Toph on March 2, 2005, at 22:50:08
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Toph, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 21:45:31
I am not trying to be your therapist Dinah but I think your response to my post sort of reflects what I was saying. All of the things that you said are of course important, but I think they are a very cerebral reaction to what I said. I complimented you on being smart and that your therapist might be a little intimidated or frustrated with your tendency to stay on the intellectual level avoiding the emotional level (again, purely speculation on my part). So, if I were your T, I guess I would be frustrated that a warm compliment is not acknowledged or even felt because it is seemingly lost in analysis. Please don't take this as a criticism. I'm just sharing my sense of what I feel when reading your posts.
Toph
Posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 22:58:18
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by Toph on March 2, 2005, at 22:50:08
I'm sorry Toph. :(
I didn't mean to come across that way.
But I think that's a completely different problem on my part. I am *awful* at accepting compliments, even warm ones. I'm trying to work on it, but it's very hard for me.
I'm really sorry if I seemed dismissive. And I really do appreciate the compliment, and the sentiments even more.
Posted by Toph on March 2, 2005, at 22:59:26
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Toph, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 21:45:31
After rereading your response, maybe I got it backwards. Maybe the problem is me. Your response was maybe too articulate (if there can be such a thing as too articulate) for me to see the underlying emotionality. So if I were your T, the frustration would be because of my deficits not yours. Either way, I still maintain that the difficulty that you claim your T has with you can, in part, be attributed to you being so smart.
Toph
Posted by daisym on March 2, 2005, at 23:48:27
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by Toph on March 2, 2005, at 22:59:26
I'm jumping in here.
My therapist often reminds me that I need to stop trying to be my own therapist. I research, read and in general try to figure out what is going on with me. I watch him like a hawk and often think to myself -- "Yeah...I know what you are trying to do here..."
But what I've discovered is that I hate, hate, hate problem solving sessions. I don't want him to jump in and help me "fix" anything. (OK, once in a great while.) I need to emote, to feel and to cling in therapy. Stuff I don't do in the real world. So him telling me how he feels, and asking how I feel and talking at that level is so much more productive. I don't think he is waving the white flag around my "problems" -- I think he is helping me understand why I create them or why I view certain things as problems at all.
I hope this isn't totally off the mark. It just hits a nerve with me -- the whole, "smart clients are so much harder". Actually, I think articulate clients are better at hiding their stuff because so often they just seed the session with red herrings and never really get to the issue. It takes a savy therapist to see through that!
Posted by Shortelise on March 3, 2005, at 0:35:09
In reply to I am officially a difficult client, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 19:35:16
Well, doesn't being a challenging client mean you're special, too?
His honesty is wonderful. You already knew you were er, challenging, so now you know he's being straight with you, right.
:-)
ShortE
Posted by Shortelise on March 3, 2005, at 0:36:23
In reply to Hmmm...., posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 22:03:03
That sounds like what my T started doing as I was progressing. It sounds like what he calls our "real relationship".
Posted by gardenergirl on March 3, 2005, at 0:42:32
In reply to Re: Hmmm.... » Dinah, posted by Shortelise on March 3, 2005, at 0:36:23
I have to admit, I read the subject line of your first post, Dinah, and thought: Good for you! :)
gg
Posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 0:51:46
In reply to Smart clients makes difficult ones, posted by daisym on March 2, 2005, at 23:48:27
>
> I hope this isn't totally off the mark. It just hits a nerve with me -- the whole, "smart clients are so much harder". Actually, I think articulate clients are better at hiding their stuff because so often they just seed the session with red herrings and never really get to the issue. It takes a savy therapist to see through that!
>
>I think daisy that was what I meant to say only you said it better. No one can be too smart for treatment, but they can outsmart themselves while in it.
Toph
Posted by Dinah on March 3, 2005, at 3:31:16
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by Shortelise on March 3, 2005, at 0:35:09
Posted by Dinah on March 3, 2005, at 3:43:53
In reply to Re: Smart clients makes difficult ones » daisym, posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 0:51:46
Well, at the moment smart is very much from what I feel, so I appreciate that idea.
You guys wouldn't know me in therapy, though. I am childishly open and direct with my emotions, if unbelievably tenacious. I think it's the tenacity that makes me difficult. In some ways, I guess I am still like that blind puppy. I know what I want, and I'm singleminded about getting it. Intellect has very little to do with what goes on in therapy, and appeals to intellect fall well short there. Which probably also makes me difficult. I take in what he says, and I process it later. And I probably intellectualize later. But in there, it's very direct. I suppose my lifelong ability to figure out what others are feeling kicks in, along with my instantaneous reflex to zig and zag to be pleasing and acceptable to my parents. But that's all going on in the background. In the foreground is a trusting and open, sometimes playful, sometimes sullen and stubborn, puppy.
I think I use Babble a lot to defuse that intensity. To make light of him, and what happens there, or to share the good stuff perhaps. Definitely to make light of what happens there, and subtly put him back in his proper place. Because intellectually I realize a lot about him that I just don't feel in therapy. And I guess I think it's important to never lose sight of that.
Toph, you wouldn't recognize me. The puppy with the therapist/mommy.
Posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 9:27:25
In reply to Re: Smart clients makes difficult ones, posted by Dinah on March 3, 2005, at 3:43:53
Before I got my puppy, I would have thought your post to be a curious analogy. Puppies used to mean to me something weak, vulnerable, needy and dependent, loved because they are so cute. Now as a fellow dog lover, I know them to be those things and also, curious, assertive, playful and competitive with their siblings, defiant, demanding, eager to learn, loved also because of what they will become. Is that what you meant?
Posted by Dinah on March 3, 2005, at 9:41:01
In reply to Re: Smart clients makes difficult ones » Dinah, posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 9:27:25
:) Perhaps, and thank you.
Posted by Aphrodite on March 3, 2005, at 16:36:08
In reply to I am officially a difficult client, posted by Dinah on March 2, 2005, at 19:35:16
Me too! Let's have a club! My T used the word "challenging" as well.
At first I was mortified, but I am who I am. I'm smart and evasive and protective of my emotions and want him to read my mind. I say, "Yes, but . . ." a hundred times each session.
I'm quite sure he's going to write an academic paper about me some day because every time I'm "difficult," he pulls out the paper and takes furious notes. :(
Posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 18:55:17
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by Aphrodite on March 3, 2005, at 16:36:08
Aphrodite, if you don't mind my asking you, what did your parents do when you challenged them? Also, did you get any satisfaction out of being difficult at that time in your life?
Toph
Posted by Aphrodite on March 3, 2005, at 19:22:08
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Aphrodite, posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 18:55:17
My parents beat the sh*t out of me. It didn't take me long to learn not to challenge them -- just a couple stays in the hospital as a preschooler.
Posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 20:20:02
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Toph, posted by Aphrodite on March 3, 2005, at 19:22:08
I am so sorry to hear that. I've seen a lot of that as a CPS worker. I can't even tell you Aphrodite how much courage it must take for you to be challenging in therapy. It seems that you have come a long way in healing some of those scars. I have always been amazed at the resiliency of children. I apologize if my questions were inappropriate, I wouldn't have asked such personal questions had I known.
Toph
Posted by Aphrodite on March 3, 2005, at 22:57:12
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client, posted by Toph on March 3, 2005, at 20:20:02
> I am so sorry to hear that. I've seen a lot of that as a CPS worker. I can't even tell you Aphrodite how much courage it must take for you to be challenging in therapy. It seems that you have come a long way in healing some of those scars. I have always been amazed at the resiliency of children. I apologize if my questions were inappropriate, I wouldn't have asked such personal questions had I known.
>
> TophIsn't everything here personal?:) It's no problem at all. Thanks for the encouragement about where I am currently in therapy -- it's been a long road.
Posted by Dinah on March 4, 2005, at 11:28:07
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by Toph on March 2, 2005, at 22:59:26
Your post became the center of an interesting session today. Thank you.
Posted by Toph on March 4, 2005, at 13:56:06
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Toph, posted by Dinah on March 4, 2005, at 11:28:07
So, enquiring minds want to know, did you tell her/him that I suggested that part of the difficulty may be that you are so smart, and then did s/he reply, "I'm still smarter than you are, missy!"?
Posted by Dinah on March 4, 2005, at 14:24:45
In reply to Re: I am officially a difficult client » Dinah, posted by Toph on March 4, 2005, at 13:56:06
Alas no. He didn't. :)
I'm not sure I was able to convey all I wanted to convey. I should have taken your posts and my posts with me, as I am rather inarticulate in therapy. I suppose we'll talk about it again Sunday evening, although we may work on coping skills for next weeks sudden trip instead.
It was interesting though.
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