Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightlight
I'm sure that email would have upset me too, and I do understand why it's upset you. I wonder if you understand why your therapist feels that she has to tip toe around you? What happens if she doesn't? If it's just because you're not ready to be pushed, then I think it would have been kinder to word it in another way. I'd prefer to know that my therapist feels the need to be gentle and patient with me as we work towards something, if that's what it takes. So personally I'd feel upset about the walking on eggshells comment because I push myself pretty hard and try my best and sometimes I just need support.
That said, I was very, very hard to help initially. I think therapists work their way forwards as they lean what best helps us in the same way we learn what best helps us. They can guide the way forwards because they've seen what helps others, but we all react so differently. My therapist definitely worked slowly towards what helped me. There were many times I didn't know what I needed. There were times when she didn't know and she told me she was stuck, she told me she didn't know what to do to help me or where to go from there. I felt awful when she said things like that. I felt like she'd given up on me and wasn't going to help me any more. The truth was that there were times when we were stuck and she didn't know how to help me or what to do. It didn't mean that she gave up on me or stopped trying...and she helped me a lot in the end.
Only you will know if you have faith in your therapist's ability to help you or if you feel she is competent enough. I've found it's been really helpful when therapists are upfront like yours has just been (now), as much as it can hurt. Sometimes it really gets things out on the table and from there you can openly discuss what hasn't helped and what needs to change and whether it's possible to find a way forwards.
Standing from a distance, it sounds like your therapist feels that every approach she's taken hasn't worked for you, however, she's willing to keep working towards finding what works (if that's what you want). You're definitely not unfixable. To me her apology sounded genuine. It sounded like she's acknowledged that many of her efforts haven't helped you and that if the thing that really didn't help this time was saying too much, then she really was sorry for not helping you by doing that.
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Thanks so much NL for empathizing and for pointing out all the ways in which my T might be actually being positive. What she's written really is just words on a page isn't it, yet I'm interpreting it in a certain way that you are seeing completely differently. It's very helpful to have these different perspectives, thankyou.
Ow I can't believe how painful this whole thing is, I'd kind of hoped that by now I'd have gotten on top of the awful rug pulled feelings, but it all seems to be settled in for the duration.
In answer to some of your comments, see the thing is, I absolutely know what I need – I haven’t been in and out of therapy for years, read every psychology and therapy book going, done so much intensive self awareness work not to have a very clear idea of the sorts of things I need from a therapist. And I’m not reticent about spelling out for Ts what I think I need from them. Only none of them ever seem to take on board what I tell them – partially perhaps because I come across as so apparently together and in control that what I’m telling them about me doesn’t match with what they’re seeing and so they just dismiss what I say… my constant refrain in ALL therapy is that I’m just not being heard.
So with this T, who had a completely different approach from all others – she’s CBT oriented for a start, which normally is absolute anathema to me – I thought that maybe she could lead the therapy, she could do her stuff, seeing as how her approach is much more interventionist and directional. And I’d stop having to dictate to her what I needed or how I thought the therapy should work. Well bugger me but here we are x amount of time down the track and it’s just a repetition of every therapy I’ve ever done, me talking round and round the houses, nothing actually getting done, and the T looking more and more useless and lost with each passing session. She’s not supposed to be like that, she’s one of these endless talking Ts, no silences or blank spaces, no focus on feelings, she’s banged on forever about her box of tricks, all the different types and variations of therapeutic approaches she could work with, yet I’ve not seen any of them. I’ve heard her talk ABOUT them, but I have yet to see her actually DO any of them with me. We’ve had the odd abortive attempt at starting EMDR, something I’d be quite happy to work at, but because I can’t do it (????) she just gives up after one attempt. Where’s the confidence inspiring in that?
Sorry I just went off on a rant. It’s obvious there’s a major issue in my therapy not just an isolated thing sparked by her ****** email response.
I'm still fence sitting right now, I really really want to believe the best about my T because the alternative is just not tolerable (which is why I'm spinning so badly
). My inclination right now is to send off my email and be done with it, probably quit come Thursday, because if I make 'I don't think this is working' noises, SHE gets hooked into it and isn't going to go out of her way to convince me she is trustworthy and worth staying with...
Ack ack ack
