Quote:
Originally Posted by toomanycats
The promise is not to learn to tolerate abandonment -- it's to learn that not every separation is abandonment.
It's not abandonment when you don't get a text or email back.
It's not abandonment when your therapist goes on vacation.
It's not abandonment when your therapist doesn't see you every day and isn't always there.
Just because it feels like you're being abandoned does not mean that you are being abandoned. The person feels abandoned because of things that happened in their early developmental years. The idea is to experience a healthy human relationship where the therapist, unlike the person's parents, is not abusive and holds steady boundaries that are predictable. You experience -- many times, over time, that a person's not being right there all the time doesn't lead to abandonment.
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If the client
feels they are being abandoned, then by defintion they are experiencing something like an abandonment or separation crisis. It doesn't have to be literal to evoke the same harmful patterns.
If they have a history that predicts such a response, that does not make the re-encactment of it in therapy justified. In fact common sense suggests it might be damaging and a horrible idea.
Basically, the client is put in a hazardous situation FIRST, then must attempt to find a way back to safety or equilibrium SECOND. This is the opposite of a prudent approach to healthcare or healing, which puts client safety first.
ps: I said premise not promise.