Peaches, thanks for your many, thoughtful comments. Lots of food for thought. (And a kindred spirit who writes long posts!)
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Originally Posted by peaches100
What I read what he's said, my impression is the opposite of yours: that t believes you have some additional trauma to work through, and he believes this form of processing may address that need.
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I know. It's kind of bothersome. I didn't know I had more trauma work to do. I thought I was doing pretty well. I do need to talk to T about that. Maybe he sees me as worse off than I do myself.
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Can you think of anything t has actually said that indicates that he believes you come to therapy just because you "enjoy his company?"
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Well, yes. He has said before, "we should actually do some therapy today." Also, we have some shared interests in one of his professional areas of focus so we sometimes talk about that, which is not really doing therapy, and I think we both benefit. It's hard sometimes to separate out what is what. In a way, it's all therapeutic, because it makes me feel better to be with him. But I struggle with that. So maybe I should be glad he thinks I need to do trauma work, because then I wouldn't have to feel guilty about being there just because I like him.
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The t relationship IS important to most clients. If you feel that he's minimizing the importance of that, it's something to be talked through. Also, if you're ready to hear honest responses, why not come out and ask t: "Do you feel I've developed too much dependency on you and/or placed too much importance on our relationship? You obviously find the t relationship to be conducive to your healing. No wonder you resist a therapy technique that you believe would remove that necessary element (a definite possible "con" to LI processing)!
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To me, this is the number one thing I want to talk with him about. It's at the center of my anxiety about our talk last time. I could not wholeheartedly do LI until we had discussed this.
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it would be important for you to ask yourself how you feel about being a guinea pig? Are you opposed to being one of the first persons to try out a new technique?
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It's not the being first part that I don't like, but two concerns. First, do I
need to do more trauma work? If I need to, then fine, but could T just using be me as a pilot subject for this, to help develop his own skills, test the technique, etc., when I don't really need this? If he thinks I need to do more trauma work, why haven't we been doing EMDR? Second, I don't want to lose our relationship by doing this technique which seems to minimize that. Do I have to give up the T relationship, as I know it, to do LI? On the LI website, the table of contents for the LI book is given, and some of the chapters are how to troubleshoot problems that arise in LI, for example, "when the client talks too much," or "when the therapist talks too much." I like T and I to talk! I have to give up our high degree of verbalizing to do LI?
Do I just sit there silently on the couch and process? While T is over at his desk eating a turkey sandwich and reading his email? To what degree is the interactivity minimized?
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Taken in the context of discussing not being able to recall any positive experiences during a 20-year period, I guessed that his comment, "Not unless you have another diagnosis you have been hiding" to be a reference to DID (e.g., in other words, you have a 20-year gap in your memory that you can't account for). If that's the case, I think the joke was in poor taste.
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Yes, he didn't get my joke at all about the 20 year period being my marriage. His response fell flat with me. I am not DID. But that's OK. We can't always be funny, if that was his intent.
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Have you canceled sessions before when you were upset in order to think about it? Did analyzing it on your own help you understand things more clearly?
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I have never canceled a session with T unless it was for sickness or scheduling, so this is a new response for me. Yes, it does help me to understand things more clearly when I have time to process. Usually a week is enough time. But I have had to cancel this appointment anyway due to scheduling, and I don't have another one on the books, so I will get my extra time.
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t wants to distance from me. . .
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Yes, that is part of my assumption, but it's more than that. It's not just that he wants to distance, but that our relationship, and therapy relationships in general, appear not to mean that much to him, whereas to me the relationship means a lot. It's like he wants to sell the relationships down the river. What is more important to him is fast healing, and he is willing to put the relationships on the sidelines to do that. That hurts. I don't want to sideline our relationship. I want us to continue to be close. This is what needs discussing between us so he can clarify what he said and I can perhaps get reassurance or at least have an accurate understanding.
In the meantime, I need to focus on getting through my D, and this is a distraction to me. Maybe I need to talk about the D in therapy, and now I have this other thing.