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Old May 03, 2018, 05:08 PM
Thalassophile Thalassophile is offline
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Member Since: Nov 2017
Location: Chicago
Posts: 183
Quote:
Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight View Post
I'm trying to figure out what to make of today's session. Parts of it were very helpful, the stuff around my being convinced that because I haven't heard back yet, I'm getting rejected for the PhD program. And my reactions to that--like, if it I hadn't been called to interview, would have just been about my credentials, or lack thereof. But because I spent hours interviewing, if they reject me now, it feels more about *me*, like as a person. Which T countered. And also some totally unrelated stuff about my mom.

But there was also some stuff where T seemed...weird. Like he's always been very evasive about his political beliefs, even as I've tried to get him to show his hand (like baiting him almost). But when some political stuff came up today, he seemed surprisingly open about his beliefs--from what I can tell, they're similar to mine (which isn't really a surprise, based on us both being from and living in the same state, which is quite consistently a particular color on the electoral map--at least for presidential elections).

And over the course of talking about my grad school application, GREs came up. He said what was on them when he took them, and I was saying how the one section was changed to something else (logic to written essay part) when I took them last year. He said to keep in mind that he'd taken them back in 1996. Then added, "I'm a lot older than you are, honey." To which I said, "Uh, no you're not. You're like 6 or 7 years older than me." (I wanted to be like, "honey?!?!") To which he said, "Are you about 40 then?" Me: "Yes, 41." T: "Oh, OK." I've seriously mentioned my age like every few sessions in there (In the sense of, "I'm 41, so blah blah blah"). I think he used "honey" again later in session, too, though I forget the context. And I don't recall him ever using that before. (And no, he's not from the South.)

He was also saying to text him when I hear from the program. I clarified, "You mean e-mail?" Because he'd said before how texting is just for scheduling, and even when I texted him a couple months ago requesting a phone call (because I thought he was going out of town and wouldn't have office hours) and explained why I wanted one, he'd said that was "intrusive." How if I'd just requested the call/session without saying why, it was fine, but not to explain why. But he said today it was fine to text him about that because it's big news about a topic we've discussed a lot in session. Which is just confusing. Think I'll just stick to e-mail to be safe. I think I'm just extra sensitive to inconsistent/unclear boundaries after the ex-MC stuff (though he was wildly inconsistent/unclear).

So...yeah, not sure what to make of all that. Again, some helpful stuff for sure, just...weird. I'd consider e-mailing him about it, but I know he's out tomorrow, and I see him Monday, so...will just discuss then, I think.
I obviously have no idea of what your T is really like except for my interpretation of what you write about him on here but that does seem unlike him from what you have written before.

Originally I though it does seem like he is being inconsistent with the boundaries but maybe he just realizes it's okay to be a little bit flexible with certain things.

I find some days my T seems much much 'warmer' than usual and more conversational and he is usually pretty warm. Whilst he never has really changed boundaries there are times he has perhaps said more than he usually would. I put it down to the fact that he was just more relaxed on that day for whatever reason and forgot to go into full 'therapy mode' lol. I think that most therapists even when being mostly themselves go into 'therapy mode' where they have to be more cautious about what they do or say. Not that they are are lying all the time or anything (although I know lots on here will disagree) but just being more 'careful. It must be hard to maintain this consistency and sometimes it drops possibly even more so with long term clients. Kind of like when teachers are in teacher mode in a classroom and on a rare occasion they let loose and make an unusual joke. That's obviously just my opinion and may be completely wrong and may not even be what is happening in your situation.
Thanks for this!
LonesomeTonight