Quote:
Originally Posted by FallingFreely
To be fair, I think the point of therapy is to acknowledge those needs and channel them outside of therapy. For example try to build more intimate friendships, find a partner to fulfill physical needs, and so on.
What I'll call the 'Big Problem' is when clients become fixated on the therapist and assume the therapist is the only person who can meet those needs. A therapist needs to be really skilled and really patient to help a client through it. Otherwise, there is a wide potential for damage.
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Looking back on my last therapy, there was the implicit promise of something like you describe. But nothing was ever said about
how this would happen. The mechanism of therapy was never revealed or discussed. Turns out there was no mechanism, no real plan. This notion of "working though it" seems to be rarely flushed out.
A risky game. Activating deepest needs, then hoping this will somehow magically translate to something in the real world, rather than heartbreak and grief, possibly abandonment. And it's even a bit absurd to think that a paid professional is going to guide one in their relationships, as if someone can be paid to dispense that sort of wisdom.
Most helpful thing for me, and I hope the OP can take something from this, was realizing that I was responding in a very natural way to what was unfolding, whereas the process was not natural. Was a big weight off my shoulders.