Quote:
Originally Posted by lucky2001
I’ve been seeing the same therapist for almost two years. I really like her but i feel like i can’t open up in therapy. There’s so much i want to tell her but i have a really hard time trusting people in general. I feel like she will leave me if i don’t open up. She’s usually the one initiating the conversation in therapy and she told me that sometimes she’s hesitant of asking questions because she feels like if she forces me, I will withdraw even more. But the truth is i want her to push a little bit more so maybe i can open up. After the therapy session today, I just feel like she will leave me. I couldn’t even tell her about how hard last week was and how bad the voices and the delusions were. I just want to be a better client for her. She asked me how i would describe myself and i couldn’t tell her because i don’t want her to know how much i hate myself. I just got out of therapy wanting to hurt myself because I feel like my therapist hates me for not being able to open up. Anyway, what should I do to open up more? Does anyone have any suggestions?
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I thought that is what I needed too....to be sort of talked into talking. Honestly, it worked out terribly. My T was pushing pushing and I withdrew more and more. Sometimes we'd talk about stuff, but because it wasn't of my own volition, I'd have severe anxiety and was unable to stay with the conversation. I wasn't ready and forcing it made it worse.
My new T refuses to pick a topic to talk about. I choose what we talk about. It is difficult to get going, it's more meaningful and I do find a way to get to the hard topics eventually.
Something that helps me, is if I backdoor a conversation by starting out with some other topic or pre-empt it by asking T how he would respond to certain conversations or what he thinks about certain topics.
In other conversations, I talk around the subject because I can't use some of the language associated with the topic.
I wasted 3 years with the whole push-me-into-talking scenario.
Your T should be able to meet you where you are and help you through this.