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Old Jun 19, 2011, 10:57 AM
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elliemay elliemay is offline
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Member Since: Jun 2007
Posts: 3,555
Quote:
Originally Posted by Protoform View Post
Because it pisses me off that I went through all this unnecessary pain and nobody even cares to acknowledge it. Maybe my pain doesn't mean anything to anyone and that's okay. But what about the pain of other innocent people who go to therapy wanting to get better but end up going through this same type of torture? This happens very often in therapy. WHY CANT THERE BE A LINE IN THE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT SAYING THAT PAINFUL FEELINGS TOWARD THE THERAPIST CAN ARISE DURING THERAPY? Your argument would be that in that case doctors and anyone who offers a service to the public should have a similar line in their disclosure statement. Obviously it can happen that a patient can feel attracted to their doctor, but it's a lot more likely to happen during therapy. Why? Because the therapist treats you in a way that's designed to elicit positive emotions. That's how therapy works. There needs to be positive regard. And obviously the human brain is wired to respond positively to positive regard. When you go to see a doctor, they just do their job, they don't need to treat you like a princess. I don't care if it means that I am delusional (I know that I'm not) but I know that I would never, ever, treat a person that I have no romantic interest in the way my therapist treated me. My thoughts would be: "what if this person ends up feeling attracted to me?" "will I be able to requite her feelings?" "umm, no" "so perhaps I shouldn't act in a way that's likely to make this lady feel attracted towards me, because if I don't requite her feelings, which I am obviously not going to do, she might feel pain". That would have been my line of thinking. Your line of thinking seems to be more along the lines of "so what. I'll treat this person really nice and if he falls in love with me, whatever, I have no control over his feelings" "it's not my fault that he felt attracted to me" "I can act any way I want and if people don't respond well to my behavior, that's their problem, not mine". I disagree with your way of thinking. While it is true that we have some amount of control over our emotions, it is not true that we have 100% control over them. A religious monk does not have 100% control over his emotions, let alone a layperson.
I actually have no argument at all. I do think patients should be made aware of the feelings that may arise during psychotherapy. I absolutely do NOT think that therapists have free license to act in any manner they want. I have no idea where you got that idea.

I actually think that you feel the way you feel. We have some measure of control over how we act, but how we feel.... well that's a different story.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Protoform View Post
Probably true. The key is making them like a person with an autistic personality type who is uncommunicative and doesn't intuitively understand a lot of the give and take of social interaction that comes naturally to "normal" people. I don't need to be reminded that, because of my mental defects, I cannot have a cool and fun woman, or any type of woman, by my side.
Again, I actually think the key is to simply be yourself. What if I told you that you are more likely no more "mentally defective" than anyone else out there. yeah, right now you are hurt and angry. I think that's okay. I would be too.

I hope you can find some peace with what happened with your therapist. I'm really truly sorry that happened to you. We feel the way we feel.

I don't know.
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Thanks for this!
pachyderm