Quote:
Originally Posted by missbella
I found the therapy relationship had little connection to how interacted outside it. As a supplicant seeking some kind of vague enlightenment the therapist seemed to dose in tiny drops, it left me enfeebled, infantilized and adulating. They made the rules, owned the narrative and identified me as the defective in the presence of their powerful omniscience. I disrobed emotionally, they concealed. I thought I needed "something"; they pretended to sell it. They pretended to understand me--but didn't. There was no mutual flow or give and take. Every exchange was within the time-limited framework of an engineered structure. Whatever affection shown stopped when the money did.
My outside relationships were by no means perfect. I had many changes I needed to make. But nothing was as delusional, exploitative and unbalanced as this.
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I know that the dynamic you describe is incredibly difficult, because I have been in therapeutic relationships like this. And while there was an inherent power differential between T and me, there was also a deep understanding on his part of me and he shared quite a bit with me as well. Too much at times, actually. One of his pitfalls. H also never owned the narrative. That's contrary to his practicing modality.
This is why I said in my initial post that I was looking for support. I'm terminating with a therapist who at one time was a wonderful match for me and I was able with him to do some good work. That's why I'm so heartbroken that it needed to end. It's different now, and we don't have enough time to fix it. I don't want to continue to try to invest time to fix it.