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Originally Posted by BudFox
It does seem that therapy relationships can bring out infantile longings and unmet needs and early caretaker patterns, but i think the extent that it does this in a predictable, meaningful way is vastly overstated. I also think the idea that this can somehow be managed and parlayed into healing by the therapist is way way oversold and borders on the absurd. It probably ends in disaster quite often. With my last one we did talk about the relationship, almost exclusively for a while. I can certainly speculate in a very vague way in terms of what I was projecting. Did this help in my life? Nope. It wrecked me.
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I admit that I've yet to see any benefit in my life whatsoever from having these needs brought out by means of therapy and I'm now in a bad place mentally for knowing about them. However, for me this is not a WORSE place than I was before, just a different kind. Personally I have always had a sense of something being amiss. I just know what it is now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BudFox
That is a terrible bind you are in. Becoming vulnerable and then ending up in a no-win situation like you describe, that is horrible. Hope you can end things in some way that leaves you with a measure of dignity and autonomy. If she did want to terminate you, do you think you'd be able to call her on the hypocrisy and deception?
I was in a no-win situation also. And in fact my therapist said explicitly that I had formed an unhealthy attachment to her. The way she said this was very telling, because it put the blame squarely on me. She should have acknowledged that the dependency was a direct result of her lavishing attention on me, and her emotional entanglement with me, and many other aspects of her behavior and of therapy. If you love bomb people who are love deprived or in a desperate situation or crisis, what in god's name do you think is going to happen?
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I'm sorry your therapist blamed you. It sounds like you had a bad experience with an incompetent therapist. If she had been any use, she would have been able to see you through the dependency. I've had some bad therapists myself and believe me, I have learned from it.
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Originally Posted by KitKatKazoo
I've been mulling over the idea of making a final appointment and asking T outright if she's going to terminate me. If she is, I'm not going to give her the satisfaction of telling her what I know about her and how I know it. Let her wonder and worry--it's only fair!
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I think I would be the same and again it comes from the nature of therapy. The T always has the upper hand and if they are unethical about it, you end up in a power struggle which always ends in a no-win situation for the client. Sometimes, you feel forced to hold onto the tiniest bit of control you have and end up saying and doing petty things you regret just to spite them (Well at least I have anyway
) Then they pathologize and tell you it's just part of your problem.
