Thanks. I can relate very much to what you say about meeting with a friend and afterwards situations during that meeting, a dinner or similar, pop up in my head and I feel I acted stupid in one way or another. Probably without the other person thinking that I actually did act stupid.
I think itīs very good to ask a therapist directly if he or she hesitates about seeing you if thatīs a question you often ruminate about. I wonder about this as well as I have experiences with health care staff/counsellors that let me see them but at the same time thought negative about me.
I also think thereīs a big difference between therapists where some look upon therapy more like coaching or just enhancing life a bit, not being aware how the client feels about the therapeutic relationship. Then there are therapists who realise that many clients have fear about being abandoned, ridiculed and such and who understand it can be important to the client with reassurance around the relationship. My experience is that the latter ones are a minority.
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Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight
I ruminate both about T sessions and also just about general conversations with people. Like if I have lunch with a friend, later I'm often thinking, "Oh no, did I talk about myself too much? Did I dwell on a certain topic for too long? Ugh, I forgot to ask her about her upcoming vacation. Did I bore her? Is that why she only stayed an hour and a half?" The joys of anxiety and OCD...
With T (or MC), I tend to think about what I meant to bring up but didn't, or that I should have mentioned something while we were talking about a particular topic. Or I worry I said too much or seemed too needy--this was particularly an issue for me in my third session with new T. I really opened up to him about some stuff (mostly involving the transference for my marriage counselor and things related to that) and I cried for the first time in front of him. Afterward, I was thinking, "Oh no, he's going to be freaked out by me, worried I'll attach to him in that way, think I shared too much too soon." I e-mailed him about it, and his response didn't seem to really address what was bothering me. But I explained next session, and then he seemed to get it. At the end of that session, he said, "Nothing you said today makes me not want to keep working with you. Unless I'm hit by a bus or trapped under something heavy in the basement, I'll be here for our appointment next week." And he's said similar things after other appointments, or when he opted not to shake my hand because I was getting over a cold, he said, "That's the only reason I'm not shaking your hand." So he realizes now that I sometimes need what MC has called "preemptive reassurance." Especially important with T because he has restrictions around e-mailing, like he charges for ones over a certain length--which I think is helping me better learn to sit with the anxiety, just telling myself "He still scheduled me for next week and shook my hand. It's OK. He's not trying to get rid of me."
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