Ohh my gosh, deli!

First of all, if austin-T thinks you have a hard time opening up, this session should have changed his mind because although this session was very difficult, I am seeing a wide-open deli right here! Look how much you can talk about when he lets you take the lead! I think it is SO brave of you to talk to him about the "making stuff up" part. I know for me this was SO SO SO hard to talk about (and I didn't tell ANY of the T's I worked with before my current T) because I was SO afraid I'd be labeled right then and there as a liar! I love austin-T's response to what you said so far.

As far as that weird gap in the session, is there any way you can ask austin-T what happened? It sounds to me like a dissoc moment where there is true amnesia.. I wonder if you talked about something that was too hard to remember? I know it would drive me crazy to feel that I lost part of a session in this way. I've never had total memory gaps, just "faraway" dissociating.

Next time, is there any way you can start out by saying, "Can I take the lead again today?" I know this is a super-assertive (and therefore difficult!) thing to say, but if you could say it, maybe you could get out of therapy what YOU want instead of what austin-T wants. And, maybe then, in the process, you could give austin-T what he wants, if he wants so much a wide-open deli.