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I love him/I hate him.

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Pink, I have seen you write that so many times, and some others here too. I don't know what the solution is. As someone who is studying to be a T, do you have any insights on how people/clients who feel that way eventually resolve it?

I do not feel I hate my T, nor have I ever, nor do I cycle between love and hate and wanting to swear at him or throw rotten vegetables at him. I have been angry at him a couple of times, and frustrated a few more than that. We worked it out, but it has not dominated our therapy and does not occur frequently.

I tend to see things in a thousand shades of gray and have always considered that somewhat of a flaw, because it can make decision-making difficult and at times impossible. (I can endlessly see all sides of a story, and am able to sympathize even with those who don't deserve sympathy, like husbands who are emotionally bereft, and abuse and cheat on their wives .)

I don't know why some people see too many nuances and some people tend to see in black and white. Somewhere there is a middle ground... I don't know if there are therapeutic techniques to get people to move to the middle ground. My T gets me to try to make judgments and stick up for myself and stop seeing the other person's point of view to the exclusion of my own. I don't know what T's do to try to get the sees-the-world-in-black-and-white person to come into the middle, but they must have some strategies!

I also see people here write sometimes that they don't know how to feel more than one emotion at a time about a person. I also tend not to experience that. Relationships are complex, and in keeping with my seeing the world in too many shades of gray, I can feel a dozen or more emotions about a person. I'm not sure that is really helpful, because then I often end up not knowing, "what do I really feel?" and have to sort through the many conflicting emotions and try to understand which ones dominate at any one moment.

Maybe the black/white world view is not so bad? Maybe it can be useful at times? Aid in decision making and knowing how one feels?

From reading your posts over the months, pinksoil, I find your T very insightful. Have you asked him what he thinks about the black and white world view and whether it is something that one should try to "fix"? I would be interested to know his answer! And also the love/hate thing? In his experience, do clients who love/hate him ever get over that and move toward middle ground? Do people who feel that way toward their therapists tend to experience the same love/hate toward other people in their lives? If so, maybe it is good for them to experience that love/hate toward the T, because then they can try to work out a general relational issue in therapy?