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Originally Posted by Rect0pathic
Just hugs 
I've been the recipient of the same advice from T. I have to say I finally managed to move out and my relationship with parents changed dramatically. I remember my T was forceful also and I was frustrated she couldn't see how it upset me and how it wasn't that easy. My t used the 'co dependancy' buzzword all those years ago to. Xx |
My T also used this word in relation to all of my realtions with others and she also brings up the karpman triangle to this situation with my mother.
I am sorry you experienced the same situation, it sucks. Did your relationship change for the better?
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Originally Posted by feralkittymom
I simply don't understand your T. It seems she has a pattern of trying to run your life and make your decisions for you, rather than explore your decisions and support you in making your choices--whether she agrees with them or not.
She also has very odd boundaries with you, her treating you as a friend, a potential colleague, a daughter, etc.
The two together seem very off to me. When she says right well we have done enough work on your mom there is nothing more we can do about it. I can't help but hear this as cutting off exploration, and in a way, punishing you. A kind of--well, you won't see reason, so I'm not going to waste my time.
There was a time when I was dead broke, getting my rent money from my father which complicated the whole abuse history, enmeshment, and power/control issue between us. So I took a job that I was scared to take, and certainly not one in a field I wanted, simply because it involved a paid training period for the first 2 months. I couldn't see any other way out.
Of course, I discussed it with my T, and he explored the idea with me, helping me to imagine what the near future would look like--very neutrally. He told me years later, long after I couldn't make the job work (it involved direct sales and the pressure and rejection was crushing to me at the time), that he had thought I never should have taken the job to begin with. I was exasperated, and I asked him why the **** he hadn't told me that???? He said it wasn't his place to tell me what to do, but to make sure my decision was as enlightened as possible, and then to support me in its execution as best he could.
In other words, he respected me as an adult. Your T doesn't seem to see you as an adult. If she doesn't, how can you get confidence in yourself as an adult?
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Thanks for your reply ferral,
I am sorry you had to learn the hard way but I admire your t for letting you chose you path and for respecting your decisions even though he knew they were wrong.
the two things you pointed out were the things that have been bothering me most about my therapy and t lately- her boundaries(lack of) and her cutting me off and controlling my therapy and deciding what is best for me. I am trying to empower myself and make my own decisions and I don't think t likes that, this is why I think she wants me to be dependant on her but I have stud my ground here and not called her when she offers and not contacted her out of session for a long time, beside an email last week.
I felt like she did punish me or try to punish me by deciding not to talk about my mother anymore, it was because I was defending her and feeling sorry for her and t didn't seem to want us to get along, now maybe it was an act of kindness and she was trying to protect me from getting hurt but it didn't feel like that.
I know that t is lonely, she is seperated and her children are all abroad and her family live a long way away and I think she wants to be close to me but I dont want it because I can't allow myself to be close to a therapist when it is all under their terms and the relationship would never be equal. I think this is the reason for her loose boundaries is she wants a substitute daughter and I want a mom who cares about me and maybe these two needs are drawing us together but in an unhealthy way.
T is pushing me to go to t meetings and events and I don't want that right now. I want to go when I am ready and not be told to go or forced. I think sometimes she doesn't really understand whaat i am going through or she doesn't want to, since I started to train as a t the dynamics changed because before I started my training she was kind and understanding and the best t ever. I also think she doesn't know what to do with me because she is a cbt therapist and works with only short term clients and I have been her longest client. maybe this is the problem.
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Originally Posted by growlithing
Yeah, when your T said that, it made me nervous that my T would eventually get sick of me and completely shut me down like that. I don't know. I just feel like a T shouldn't ever just refuse to talk about something (especially something as painful as being still around an abusive person) because she feels like you aren't doing everything you can to fix the situation. I'm kinda in a similar place. I'm not ready to be financially independent so I can't completely cut my parents out of the picture yet. I have to cooperate with them and listen to their crap until I am old enough and financially stable enough to pay my own bills. While it would be psychologically beneficial for me to cut ties with them, I would screw myself over because I couldn't afford to pay my rent, water, and electricity. If a T just refused to talk about my issues with my mom because I have been sacrificing a little but of my sanity to avoid being shoulders deep in debt, I dunno. That just seems wrong to me. You have to make your practice fit your client a little better and be willing to work through things ESPECIALLY if she feels they are self destructive in nature.
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Sorry you are in a similar place
Sometimes i think that ts expect our lives to change in the week that we have between sessions, they are very impatient sometimes and have to realise that change takes time and that clients can change but only when we are ready.