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Originally Posted by seahorse
Why would a hug be inappropriate? I am surprised your therapist agreed with "inappropriate" and wonder if she is mirroring you to allow it to be explored in more depth, or if she really thinks it's inappropriate.
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Firstly, thank you so much for such a detailed reply!
I'm not sure why my therapist agreed that it would not be appropriate to hug. I didn't ask her because by that point I had kind of shut down and didn't want to talk about it anymore so T asked if I wanted to just put to the side for now and change the topic. I have read a few things just by googling about T's not hugging and intellectually it makes sense but emotionally it is hard to understand.
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Originally Posted by seahorse
I've told you before that your posts sound just like me when i first started psychodynamic therapy as I have very similar emotional and cognitive architecture and schemas as you do. So i want to share a little story from back when i was at the same time in therapy as you, just starting with a psychodynamic therapist.
After a couple months of therapy with a new therapist, i told him I had frequent strong urges to text him in between sessions. We explored the issue, and I told the reason I didn't text him was because "it was inappropriate". Unlike your therapist, he didn't agree with me. He had no judgement and was neutral about it. Well a week later, I simply texted him. Up until the text, i had horrible panic attacks at the thought of doing it (actually annihilation anxiety), but just did it. It was a huge relief! After that, I was able to be more intimate, experience more closeness, in therapy. After other episodes of increasing closeness, the annihilation anxiety type of panic attacks abated.
But I was wondering-this reminds me of your dream you posted about a while back. In that dream, the concept of the closeness avoidance conflict manifested in your wanting to be completely free to be yourself around her then shutting the door on her. I wonder if this is related?
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I have been feeling quite anxious since the session and I can't really put my finger on why. Also, I was wondering what does annihilation anxiety mean?
I've actually dreamt about T the past two nights. The first dream was pretty uneventful: I was at the bank depositing $89 (random I know) and I saw T there and she smiled and said "Hi, how's it going" I smiled back and said I was good then T left. The other dream which I had last night was more eventful. I dreamt I was in my next session and I asked her why she won't hug me. T gave me some rambling response that made no sense. Then I suddenly remembered I had an assignment due the next day that I completely forgot to start (i'm not in school or university anymore). I started crying and freaking out and T went with me to the school/uni (I'm not sure which one it was meant to be) to help me sort it out. I'm not quite sure what all that means...
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Originally Posted by seahorse
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I hope talking about the self hatred will help. I'm going to ask my T how exactly her not meeting my needs is supposed to help me because I genuinely do not understand how that is helpful. My T does meet some of my other needs such as being empathetic, understanding and non-judgmental. She is also consistent and reliable. I guess those things just aren't enough for me; I always crave more.