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Old Mar 12, 2013, 01:49 AM
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Perna Perna is offline
Pandita-in-training
 
Member Since: Sep 2006
Location: Maryland
Posts: 27,289
Quote:
Originally Posted by Readytostop View Post
So fast forward to later in therapy... after having a rough time of it and emailing T (which he said I could do but should not expect emails in return) while feeling low and missing weeks of therapy due to vacations, my T said things like "he had to have boundaries with clients in order to stand working with them" and "if a person doesn't have anything to offer to me, then I wouldn't spend time with them"...
I do not see anything indirect there. It is a fact that one has to have boundaries, everyone does, to live/love/work with someone. If someone, you know, uses "you know" all the time, you know? eventually you say, "Hey look, I'm having trouble with the "you knows", can you work to not say it as much?" but, that does not happen instantly so we have to come up with other ways to keep ourselves sane, like perhaps not asking that person as many questions or (if we're a teacher) not calling on them in class to explain something as often, etc. Likewise, when we are emailing our T's a lot, that may be fine but they may not respond a great deal; the emailing might make us feel better but having one's email box constantly filled by someone else is not always so great on the other person's side. The T allows it though because we need it.

The second comment is literal; T enjoys working with you, is learning from working with you, or he wouldn't at all. There's no shortcut there or veiled message. If he did not think working with you were worth while for himself, he would not work with you at all, period. But while you are emailing a whole lot, instead of talking to him in session and working on your stuff as it arises in session with him, he sets a boundary for himself. It's like parents putting up with a 2 year old's tantrums, or teenagers as they go through a particular growing up phase?

Think of it like the airplane oxygen instructions; put the oxygen on your own face before helping children and other passengers; if you can't breathe, you can't help someone else, keep yourself centered/good first. You need to email and your T knows, encourages, respects that but your T does not need your emails. It's sort of like that.
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