acceptance.

one of my therapists terminated me. she said she was getting sick worrying worrying worrying about how to change me. i said 'maybe you don't need to change me, maybe you could just accept me'. she said 'i can't do that'.

i'm not sure what that was about. pressure from her supervisors to have documented progress no doubt. i don't think that was all there was to it, however. what did she mean she couldn't accept me? i think it was partly that she couldn't just sit there while i felt guilt or shame or fear or something without her trying to change that emotion. how come? because she couldn't tolerate the emotion. how is she going to teach me that emotions are tolerable if she can't tolerate my emotions? i have no earthly idea...

limitations. but her limitations, yeah.

i really think that people who are secure in their attachments (because they have had adequate positive experiences with an attachment figure) develop skills around emotion regulation and the like. they are able to regulate their emotions. and they are also... able to help regulate our emotions. not in an avoidant way (quick let me change it because i can't cope!) but they are able to feel it: to really really feel the intense negative emotion... and to regulate themselves (and the client) out of that gently... so gently... but only AFTER the feeling has been appropriately acknowledged and felt.

there aren't many clinicians with secure attachment (with ability to do that) methinks.

there is such a thing as 'earned secure attachment' where people come to develop secure attachments later in life even though they had insecure attachments as infants. but... that is fairly rare. most often people just seem to get stuck in repeating the cycle...

and i think that more therapists become therapists due to issues with 'rescuing' others (or themselves) than from the sublimation kind of altruism / beneficence... but still...

it wasn't your fault. thats what i meant to convey. the situation was really unfortunate with your past t but it wasn't your fault. it wasn't that you were unacceptable. it was that she had her own %#@&#! going on.

it hurts though. when the people who are supposed to help kind of play their part in repeating the cycle... i have had a lot of bad experiences with the health system. i transfer those onto my therapist too in the form of expectations that he will judge me or try and shame me or reject me or whatever. but to be fair i probably transfered those early experiences onto past clinicians too... projective identification... i had a role to play in eliciting that.

that being said... one needs to find a clinician who can help one break the cycle instead of falling into enabling a repetition compulsion kind of thing.

it is hard... oh so hard... little tiny baby steps then see what happens. gently does it.