Quote:
Originally Posted by Xynesthesia
I personally have hard time believing that someone who has been through all the psychological and therapy studies to get licensed as a T could be so completely blinded by "countertransference" that they genuinely fail to see how their behaviors in these situations are wrong. I do believe it can get blurry and fall out of awareness at times driven by own desires and wanting self-gratification, but for the long times many of these stories span? I just can't believe it, there must be clear moments for these Ts where they see their actions for what they are and how they got out of control. Of course there is also the fact that awareness is one thing - action and change often is entirely another. Obviously some Ts get stuck in the grey area of denial in between, just like clients or anyone can.
|
I think this is where they end up "overcorrecting," which can also be very painful and confusing for the client. Like, "I've gotten too close, now time to pull way back." But then they act like it's the client's fault, not their own. I think of my MC recently with the e-mail--he realizes he shouldn't have done so much outside contact with me, so decides to pull back on it and limit me--which is extremely painful to me. Yet he acts like there's nothing wrong with his doing it because he's "not abandoning me."
One thing to my ex-T's credit--at one point she did something like that. Went from being very compassionate toward me, then one session, right at the beginning, she was like, "Would hospitalization be so bad?" And I was like, "What??? Yes! You know how I feel about hospitals." Yet she kept going on and on about it. I told her next session how upset I was at her suddenly suggesting that and seeming very removed. She admitted that she felt she'd gotten too close to me and thought maybe she'd started to lose objectivity. And thought maybe she wasn't helping me. So she was suggesting something else. (Though when she said I had to cut back on e-mails, she put that blame on me...)