Quote:
Originally Posted by Calilady
But what she said elicited shame and guilt. I felt two inches tall. It didn't inspire improvement. And then I'm attached. For an avoidant to allow that to happen and then detach. Painful.
I'm trying to do the right thing. I really am. I have enough guilt and shame to last a lifetime. Hence, coming out at 35.
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My understanding is that therapy work can happen when painful feelings come out. Your feelings of shame and guilt came out and they cause you pain. I don't think she elicited them on purpose (as of having an agenda to purposefully say things that would make you feel that way) but the whole point of therapy is to draw out your painful feelings so they can be worked with. For some people these feelings are about anger and rage, for someone else they are related to fear of abandonment, for you right now they seem to be about shame and guilt. Therapy is not about feeling well (unless the goal is to build more defences on top of everything), therapy is about facing and addressing your painful feelings that the therapy relationship draws out. So, this has happened, you have your painful feelings. The question is now what you are going to do with them. Are you trying to get rid of them and cover them with something or are you willing to process them?
There is no right thing to do in therapy. This means that you can't do the wrong thing anyway. You don't have to please your therapist, you don't have to try to be nice to her, you only have to be the way you are, bring yourself there the way you are, talk about your feelings, which I think currently means that you feel hurt by your therapist, and that's it. That's all you have to do. There is no right thing to do that would keep you from feeling difficult feelings because the therapy is about bringing out the difficult feelings so that they could be worked with. If you have had lifelong problems with guilt and shame then it means that these feelings must come to your therapy in order to work with them. And they have already come. This is the therapy work.
Sure, not everyone wants or should want this type of therapy. Some people just want support and that's very reasonable too, in which case the goal of the therapist is to help you build extra defences against painful feelings that lurk below the surface. I've understood from your previous posts that you would like to work with attachment problems and other more deep things. Unfortunately this work means addressing and tolerating your painful feelings, it's far from the peaceful bliss where you feel nice and fuzzy with your therapist and the goal of your therapist is not to make you feel good but help you face and work through these painful feelings you have in yourself.