Quote:
Originally Posted by feralkittymom
Don't read this harshly, but I'm not going to say what I think you want to hear; I do understand how painful this sort of moment in therapy can be, and you can get through it and be stronger for it 
I don't see any evidence that your discomfort with her boundaries is a result of her problems. You've said she's been a good T and that you've made progress and have a good relationship.
When she refuses to tell me she cares about me even after I told her I need to hear it, this makes me doubt all of her caring gestures, and it makes me feel like maybe I can’t trust her or like I got “tricked”.
When she said she cares about all of her clients, instead of feeling comforted by that--because it is evidence of her caring nature--you feel it as a competition: that if she cares for others, then she can't care enough about you. Do you see the difference? The first is an adult perception; the second is how a child developmentally views a parent. It's what people call "sibling rivalry." It's a stage.
It's not healthy or functional to insist on "proof" of caring from someone. There's nothing wrong with the feeling of need--and your T validated that--but to then try to coerce or compel a demonstration from someone else is a violation of that person's right to their own expression of emotion (or their choice to not express an emotion). It's also fruitless because the demonstrations are never enough--they never fill the need. That's why she's holding the line and refusing to be manipulated.
It's a fine line between asking for what you need, which is a mature action, coupled with a willingness to explore what the need means, ending with an acceptance that the other person has the right and responsibility to respond as they see fit;-- and demanding a particular response, not examining the need, and then projecting one's frustration onto the other person and using it as a rationale for why they're wrong.
She's doing well by you. The hard work of therapy can be coming to terms with such needs in ourselves and learning how to meet them within ourselves in a healthy way. |
I actually think it was less about her caring about other clients (I am under no illusions that I am the "favorite" or "most cared about" client - honestly, genuinely, I couldn't care less) but more about feeling like part of a collective instead of an individual person, which is really the opposite of what our relationship feels like to me because I am actually an individual person with individual problems/issues/concerns/character traits.
I volunteer with kids, and if one of them came up to me and said, "Do you care about me?" I would never dream of saying, "I care about all my students," to that kid. I would instead say something like, "Of course I care about you. I also care about everyone in your class." Maybe it's a really tiny arbitrary thing, but to me there was just something about that particular wording that felt really wrong to me.
We did discuss where that need was coming from - for me it's just that to trust someone, to make myself vulnerable in front of someone, I need to know that person has even a little tiny bit of personal investment in me. And also just that I know for me, telling other people I care about them is a super vulnerable thing, so for me, her saying, "I care about you," would have been levelling the playing field slightly so I would have felt more comfortable and safe. And "I care about all my clients" is about the least vulnerable way a person could phrase a statement of caring.
Obviously she has the right to her own boundaries and obviously she has the right to express emotions the way she wants to express them. It just felt sort of like a wall to me that I don't really know how to navigate, since I don't know how comfortable I really am discussing super vulnerable things with her after that answer (which was probably my fault for bringing it up in the first place, because otherwise I could have just felt cared about and let it be). It's very difficult for me to be extremely vulnerable with someone who won't be even a little bit vulnerable with me in return. Maybe those are just my old issues (they probably are), but also, reality of how I'm feeling.