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Old Jan 21, 2018, 06:58 PM
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Sheffield Sheffield is offline
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Member Since: Mar 2017
Location: United kingdom
Posts: 137
Quote:
Originally Posted by Anne2.0 View Post
That was my interpretation too, FWIW. I think it's perfectly acceptable for a T to give feedback about how one's words impact him. I mean, he didn't start sobbing with his distress or criticize her for being a terrible person. I don't see it as him making things about him. He just said, "this is what I took from what you said." I don't see that as a big deal, nor do I think the OP needs to apologize.

If it's not helpful to you to hear how your words impact your T, then tell him you don't want to hear it. But part of human connection is having an understanding of how we impact other people. Sometimes that has been an important part of my family, learning that some of my ways of being may not be creating the connection with people that I want. No problem if you don't want it to be a part of your therapy.

As an aside on the topic of therapy-- it did me more good to cut out my family of origin from my life for the better part of 10 years, than anything else. I learned I was worth caring about, other people showed up to care for me, and I stood on my own 2 feet. When I decided to re-connect, after my mother reached out, I went back on my own terms.

I may be completely alone on this one but ultimately he's only human and if therapists never revealed their own emotions/feelings we might as well interact with a robot-and what would that teach us ? Surely one of the main challenges in therapy is to help us "normalise" our interactions with others -if he's generally been a good fit for you I just don't get it-sorry-Its your choice to actually apologise or not for what you said but I apologise to my t quite regularly without retracting my words and it's quite empowering as I'm taking responsibility for how my words may have impacted him

As an aside I am a veterinary surgeon for a charity and see a lot of abject cruelty similar to way a therapist hears truly awful things many many times a day-I pride myself on being calm polite and professional at all times but very occasionally I might "softly" bite back-