Wow, Tree, you totally get me!
Yes, I do this -- stick with people who don't love me. But not because I'm masochistic or love abuse -- I do it because it's familiar, feels like my parents, feels like normal. And there is that ancient need, as you said, to try to extract love from a source that doesn't have it, but I keep trying -- that's what children do, and so do adults obviously!
I always think of those hideous unethical experiments on baby monkeys in the fifties and sixties, have you ever seen those films? (shudder) I still think of my mother as having been a sort of mother-shaped object constructed of wire, with no heart. But what else was there to cling to?
Great insight.
Yeah, I think I'm going to schedule an appointment with a different person -- I've been looking at possibilities. Thanks again!
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Originally Posted by treehouse
((((((((kitten)))))))))
I'm wondering if your T can give you what you need. Maybe he really just IS like this with all of his clients, you know? Maybe this is his "therapeutic stance", or maybe he can't keep his own stuff out of the room. If this is just how he is, it seems unlikely that he'll be willing to change.
I don't know your history, but I could imagine myself staying with someone who wasn't meeting my needs for a long time as a way to kind of "redo" the past where people were mean to me and my needs weren't met. I tend to do that in real life - try to attach to really aloof people and work really hard to win them over - and I can imagine how much more compelling it would be to do that within a therapy relationship.
I wonder if you could just meet with another T, to see what it feels like, or even to discuss what is going on with your current T? Sometimes it helps to have an objective outside point of view on this kind of stuff.
I hope you are able to find a way to get what you need.
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