Quote:
Originally Posted by Longingforhome
I think it's quite common in people who have had tough childhoods with parents who expected care, rather than giving it. They trained us well  a good, well boundaried T should be able to help you through this and make sure the focus stays on you and your needs, not theirs. I think the way to make sure it doesn't derail the therapy is to make it explicit. Not let it play out as an underlying theme
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Definitely @ the bold part. Parentification is so damaging and was my experience as well.
My problem generally has been that when I make it explicit, the reaction is either invalidating or absent. I think what works for me so far is just deliberately focusing only on my side of the story and not commenting much on T's reactions. It's like I can either push through and share the whole picture of my life and my experiences, or otherwise get caught up reacting to ways that T is adding extra meaning to that picture. Of course the trickiest part is handling the actual relationship with current T...
I think even in my really bad failures with therapy, if I had done that, it might have still worked out. Not totally sure. But I know when it did fail it was because I took responsibility for the meaning that T was adding to the picture, which they then added even more meaning to, and it was all just a bad feedback loop.