hey. sounds like a productive session even though i understand that it didn't feel like a good session because the emotional connection was lacking.

> So instead of going in and acting out my anger, I decide to explain the whole thing.

thats great!

> I told him about how much I like to be comforted and babied. I told him about my gay friend who I feel so safe with. Because he calls me "babygirl" and he will just sit with me and play with my hair and we can talk. I told him how my husband doesn't do that kind of stuff so much anymore.

(does your husband know how much you like this? could you tell him and then be able to cue him in with "i need some attention"?)

> "Fine. I wanted you to comfort me and baby me over the phone. And instead all you did while I was feeling totally disconnected, was state the obvious." And he said, "So basically there was no sympathy or caring or empathy from my message." DUH. Then he said I had every right to be mad at him.

Anger is an understandable response to needs (including emotional needs / needs for emotional intimacy) being frustrated.

> Then he says, "You don't think I feel anything?" And I said no.

> Then I waited... expecting him to explain that of course he felt something. But he didn't.

There is meant to be this tricky thing... About when and how much a therapist should fulfill / indulge the clients desires and how much a therapist should retain neutrality and not make a move to fulfill / indulge them.

> So then I really got going.

lol. i bet you did. i would have as well.

> Told him I wanted to destroy him.

> I said.... the point is, is that I have to feel all this emotion towards you... the engulfment of attachment, the heartbreak of disconnection, and I don't care if it's true or not that you don't feel anything... i feel like you don't.... you just sit there, then you go home, and you don't have to %#@&#! feel one thing.

> Then I talked a little bit about McWilliams- about how in the borderline character, she cited Masterson, who said that anger is autonomy. Should be encouraged by the therapist. It's a wonderful theory, the 1st I have ever read in which it states that the mother was loving and attached to the child-- but the separation-individuation did not happen properly. So I said that I understood why the anger was encouraged.

What does it say about anger and autonomy? I'd be interested to know if you felt like sharing more.

> ...except that I am not getting the comfort and safety from him that one looks for in the McWilliams theory.

> Then I told him that lately, I was irritated by him all of the time.

> He said that this was wonderful progress.

%#@&#!. he is reinforcing your anger / autonomy rather than your helplesness / playing the sick role.

> He said, "What can I say to you that's right?"

> For the 1st time, he sounded like he was reading empathy statements off of a list or something... lik some of my classmates at school. You know, when you are 1st learning how to do therapy, they teach you some crappy empathy statements... and they always sound so fake. That's what his sounded like.

yeah.

> I wanted so badly, for him to say something... something that would matter... like how last week he said that thing about how I would never lose my uniqueness... it was so striking...

could you tell him that?

i read something once about how the moments in therapy that are striking to the therapist are often quite different from the moments in therapy that are striking to the client. the therapist tends to think the most significant moments are when they make some insight they are all proud of. the client tends to think the most significant moment is when they got some sense of emotional connection. sometimes therapists don't know precisely what they do that we get so much out of...

> Maybe we lost something today. I don't know. ..

maybe... you do need to tell him what you need. find something that does help you feel connected. maybe some kind of visualisation exercise or something like that. not sure.