>That depends on what you mean by "take care of"

Sure it does. I don't mean that therapy is about taking care of your therapist in the sense of listening to them talk about their troubles and supporting them in that. I don't mean therapy is about taking care of your therapist in the sense of not talking about stuff because you are very concerned about how your therapist is going to feel about what you want to talk about.

If those things were happening... Then that wouldn't be so good. Therapy is supposed to be about helping the client rather than helping the therapist. I know that the above features arise as issues for some people. I don't mean to get people feeling worse about those things, that isn't what I meant by taking care of them.

What I had in mind... Was Linehan (the DBT lady) talking about how there are some clients who have a pattern of having burned out therapists. It isn't the clients fault that therapists burn out (therapists should see when they are starting to burn out and it is up to them to take steps to ensure that that does not happen). But still... Blame aside it is a fact that some clients are harder to see than others... And it is a fact that there are things on both the therapists and clients side that contributes to that process.

I have a pattern of burned out therapists. Why? Because I'm not very giving I suppose. Giving in what way? I don't express idealisations (I typically don't idealise or when I do I feel a little embarrased about it so I take pains to conceal it). I don't express liking for my therapist (I worry that that gives them the power to hurt me). I don't say 'gee wow I've gotten so much better in the time I've seen you' because typically I haven't and also because I worry that if I say that then they will stop trying to help / they will terminate me 'cause they will think I'm all better.

So... I guess that makes it hard for them to see me... They don't know if I like them. They don't know if they are helping me. They don't know if I feel like I'm making progress. And those things... Make burn out more likely I guess.

I don't think I'll ever change to being more expressive... But maybe I need to be a little more expressive. Little things to take care of them in the sense of expressing my liking and appreciation. Don't get me wrong I am polite and I say 'thanks' after sessions but maybe that comes across more as mere politeness than anything...

Transference can also be about... Past people in ones life. For example... If one feels like one was abandoned by ones father then one might start to feel like ones t is going to abandon one. The fears about abandonment are present / intensified because the client transfers the feelings from the father situation to the therapist situation. Emotions that are out of keeping with present circumstances or are out of keeping with respect to intensity with the present circumstances can be clues that there is a transference response.

The converse is counter-transference when the therapist relates to the client on the basis of their past interactions / relationships with people. If the therapist feels that the client is ungrateful, for example then the therapists therapist might ask 'when do you remember feeling that someone was ungrateful before?'

The phenomenon goes both ways.

I find it hard to seperate responses appropriate (in form and intensity) to the present, from responses appropriate (in form and intensity) to the past. The present and the past merge kind of and I can't tease them apart. Hard for me to know whether my responses to the present are justified in the present or not... And hard for me to know whether my t's responses are justified (in form and intensity) to the present or whether they are having a counter-transference response.

Yay isn't therapy fun.

Hrm.

It reminds me of a song by this NZ band 'the headless chickens' (since disbanded)

'if i had vision who would i see?
maybe its you and maybe its me'

maybe thats why therapy with me is such hard work...
it isn't about giving me a mirror...
there can be a hall of mirrors...
and reactions model reactions
and many t's think...
therapy isn't supposed to work that way.

sigh.

i don't think it is.
i don't think it is just defensiveness on my part...
maybe also, but never just ;-)