Quote:
Originally Posted by Syntactic
No, my T doesn't try to get closer than a professional distance; it's more like my 'comfortable distance away' is all the way across the room. She's a very visual person, and her whiteboard is (to me) too close to her for comfort, so if there's a complicated problem, I can't draw/write it out for her without it being incredibly awkward. I also have an insane startle response, so if she moves too quickly, I jump and assume a 'threat evaluation' mindset, and end up dissociated for the rest of the session.
She's been magnificent about it, and hasn't violated any professional boundaries; it's just severely hampering our progress, on top of me being worried she'll take it to heart.
To be clearer, it isn't -her- that I'm scared of; in my mind, anybody in a position of power over me is dangerous. I would normally compensate for it by getting to know the person so I can manipulate them/our relationship if need be, but that's something I'm trying to overcome (and it would be extremely unhelpful in this case).
Pennster: I can't get over being scared of her, which is negatively affecting our work together.
Argonaut: I might try asking her to keep the door open, that may help - thanks! :-) I've been seeing her for four months now, and this is the primary roadblock.
Blurred: thanks :-)
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This all sounds pretty familiar to me--and it sucks! I'm sorry you're having this problem, but I think it's awesome that you have a good working relationship anyway. A couple ideas--
It took me about 6 months to be comfortable in session with the door closed. So, you know, I think time could still help. Part of this is getting familiar with the other person, and I think the other part is just straight-up exposure. If you wanted to approach it that way, you could directly confront this fear via exposure--sit closer than is comfortable (but nothing unprofessional, obviously) and work on grounding instead of dissociating. My T and I go on walks around the clinic sometimes (exposure therapy for fear of medical settings) and, while it's not fun, it's helped enormously. Maybe try a walk? You'll be closer to T than is comfortable, but be mobile so you don't dissociate and feel less trapped.
Speaking of movement, I found that doing something like yardwork before a session tired me out enough to not be so flighty and anxious during session, which made it easier to do work.
As for startle response...This was another thing I was much too embarrassed to say anything about but my T picked up on anyway...He used to announce and ask permission before doing anything. ("I'm going to roll my chair over to the computer, if that's okay?") Which sort of made me feel like a crazy person, but I never had the chance to freak out about a sudden, unexpected movement, either. It helped.
Finally, I got better at setting my crazy-person boundaries in therapy. And it's sort of nice to be assertive in an environment where you don't have to worry about being rude or offending the other person. Therapy is the one place where it is 100% socially acceptable to say, "Dude, can you move your chair back about three feet?" so, you know, take advantage of that.