Hangingon, that was really hard to talk about those topics. Could you have done that when you first began therapy? If not, give yourself a pat on the back! Although I feel very close to my T, I don't think I would have the conversation you had.
Part of what you wrote made me wonder if your T is the one who needs a break? Maybe she isn't used to doing work like this and the intensity is getting to her.
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She said something to the effect that she thinks it is really healthy for people to take breaks when it gets to be too much, or if it starts to interfer with things like school work ect. Even if its just a one week break.
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I wouldn't consider not going to therapy one week to be a break. Does she think you need more time to process in between sessions? Usually a week was good for me. I know there were times when if I had 2 sessions a week, that would have not given me enough processing time. Another way of taking a break is to ease up on the intense work and spend a session every so often not going deep and reconnecting with your T. It's a supportive session rather than problem-solving. Do you ever do these with your T? Do you think that sort of thing would satisfy her desire to have you take a break?
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I said that I asked on a site that I use if people had taken breaks before and many had said that even after two years they never had, except for vacation.
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I think this is not uncommon--the client takes breaks usually when the T has vacation or they do themselves. I don't always go to therapy every week (especially this year since I am trying to get control of my budget). I haven't heard of people taking a break just for the sake of taking a break. I have heard of people taking a break to get some breathing room or because therapy is not helping them right then or because they are too busy in life, etc. When I get way too busy, I do not always have time for therapy. But these are
reasons for taking a break, not taking a break just to say you did it. If you don't have a reason to take a break and it will not help you and T is available, what is the reason she wants you to do it?
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She said how do you know you can trust the people that post.
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LOL, as if there would be any reason to lie about how often one takes a break from therapy!
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In my head I was thinking taking a break from the heavy type sessions certainly, I can see that, but a break from therapy itself doesn't seem wise to me giving the fact that things were too overwhelming.
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This seems like a really good point to bring up to her. Maybe she sees a need to back off on the intense work and so thought a break might help, but she didn't think of taking a break by doing less intense sessions.
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In my head, I immediately went to thinking, ok, so now I have a 2-3 year time frame to get through this stuff.
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HangingOn, on the very first meeting with my therapist, he told me that he doesn't do longterm therapy and defined that as longer than 3 years. So it sounds like your T and mine are similar on that view. At that time, it never occurred to me I might see him for anywhere close to 3 years. I have now been seeing him for 2 years 8 months. He has told me since then that sometimes people do stop seeing him and then come back later to work on a new problem or sometimes for a tune-up. I don't know how much longer I will be seeing him. It could be that I might see him a bit longer than 3. I doubt he would be so rigid about it. If I needed a bit longer, he would probably let me. But I can really relate to your feeling about the limited time frame. Mostly I have tried not to worry about it and be hopeful that I would be like the majority of his clients and finish within 3 years. I feel like he knows his field and I don't, and if his clients finish in 3 years than that must be the length of time most need to finish in. I don't have the feeling he would desert clients arbitrarily. And if he had clients who really needed longterm help, he might refer them to a T that included that in their scope of practice. My T is a trauma specialist and has always looked for therapies to help his clients quickly. He thinks straight talk therapy takes too long with trauma. He has used psychodrama, EMDR, and now is trying Lifespan Integration. He says these therapies are faster and he wants to give his clients relief as quickly as possible. I think this may be why he says he doesn't see clients longer than 3 years--because the techniques he uses tend to be effective within that time span for most of his clients. Maybe your T also is very effective in the short term with most clients. But there are always exceptions.
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One response was where did that come from, that had nothing to do with what we were talking about
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That's kind of like free association, and you and the T might learn a lot by exploring the connection. She did ask where it came from, so could it be she wanted to discuss or discover the link?
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We talked about me emailing her as well. I use to do it once after every session. She told me in the beginning that I could but that face to face would get easier in time. This time ... she said, you can do it but we really want you to get to the place where you can tell me here and not depend on email. Again, in my head, I thought ok, its wrong to do it, so I am not going to do it anymore, because I could tell she was not impressed with it.
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It is not "wrong" to email, just one way of communicating and one that your T hopes you will not depend on over much. Did your T say it was "wrong"? Also, you shouldn't need to worry about whether she is impressed or not. You just "are", and doing the best you can. It is not up to the therapist to be impressed or not impressed. I think working toward full expression in therapy instead of using extensive email for difficult topics is not a bad goal to work toward. It sounds like at this session you were very expressive and talked about a lot of hard stuff, so it sounds like you are doing good face to face!
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I just want to make sure I am doing the right thing, with the right person and not going to end up worse off in the end.
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This is an important fear and I hope you can discuss it with your T.
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Now I have this huge need to control everything about it so as not to be hurt again. I am hoping therapy can help me balance this out.
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That is a great goal too. Maybe by not letting you control everything (e.g. the email policy), your T is helping you experience that uncertainty and see that you can tolerate and deal with it.
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Do you ever find yourself analyzing everything your T says and does? I feel like I am looking for something to say see I told you so. I hate doing that which is another reason why I am in therapy.
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Another great goal for therapy. Does your T know all your goals?
Your session sounds like a very difficult but important one, HangingOn. Good work.
