Quote:
Originally Posted by Salmon77
Regarding how one can be invested in something and not suffer a tremendous sense of loss when it ends: I think of therapy as being kind of like a class, a situation in which I am there to learn. I am invested in it, I want to learn. But I think at a certain point I'll be ready to end it, and maybe it will be kind of bittersweet and all, but it'll be okay to move on.
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But what if you were not ready to move on but it ended anyway? The disparity in terms of need means the client (assuming again emotional investment) walks away in greater distress (maybe much greater). You can see all over this forum people talking about fear of termination coming suddenly like a thief in the night, or being destabilized by some abrupt change imposed by the T, or going into a spiral because the T is on vacation, or just because the T looked at them funny. That is power.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Salmon77
When I read threads on here I always feel like some people focus so much on the therapist, trying to read them and figure out what they're up to and what they think or feel or whatever... and it just seems like the wrong focus. Therapy is not about the therapist.
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Thats what my exT used to say and I accepted it, squashing my own instincts that were saying this is not healthy. To sit in a room with someone for months or years having an intimate and personal relationship, and being expected to suppress the natural need for mutuality is insane. It is a bizarre fabrication of the therapy biz and a form of gaslighting to suggest that the client need not wonder who the hell is sitting across from them, whether they can be trusted, what needs and wounds are driving them… while simultaneously expecting the client to reveal all. Especially if the client is experiencing intense transference or other feelings toward the T. For me the secrecy and obfuscation and withholding was psychological torture. I mean that literally.