Quote:
Originally Posted by ElectricManatee
One of the most helpful realizations in therapy has been that there aren't any "rules" for me. I don't have to worry about whether I am "acting on the desire to take care of the therapist" or whatever. I let her be the therapist and uphold the boundaries and make it all therapeutic, and I say exactly what I want to say for whatever reason I want to say it. It's really freeing.
In these situations, I probably would ask if she was okay, and she would usually thank me for my concern and say something that reassures me that she has plenty of support in her life. I think it's also fine like other people suggested to just say that you've been thinking of her and hoping she's doing okay.
Maybe this isn't really therapy fodder since you may be terminating with her anyway, but I do think your desire to be a "good" client and to monitor/modify your behavior so that she can have the right response might be worth looking into. I don't say this in a judgmental way at all. It's just that for me personally, putting pressure on myself to "perform" correctly, even in therapy, was but one slippery tentacle of the huge thing inside that kept me depressed.
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*mic drop*
Holy heck EM, this is some powerful wisdom. Thank you for sharing this perspective--you are right on the money here.
I've always felt the pressure to analyze my actions and words prior to expressing them. I feel this pressure especially intensely in therapy because I assume (rightly or wrongly) that therapists have more interpretive acumen than the average bear. I think some of it has to do with my parents teaching me about psychoanalytic ideas at a relatively young age, and feeling like I was constantly being analyzed and "found out" by people older and smarter than myself (i.e. my parents). It felt like I couldn't keep anything private even if I tried -- an old joke around my childhood home was "your unconscious is showing." (I can also remember a time as a teenager when I was telling my dad about a dream I'd had in which a minor plot point was a bag of carrots ripping open... he couldn't keep his horror at the phallic implications off his face.)
Along with the psychoanalytic thoughts and readings, my parents transmitted a sliver of that smug superiority that some therapists have, that "I know what you are thinking and feeling even if you don't" thing. I learned to feel scorn when other people were not aware of what they were communicating unconsciously... which is a) gross and b) makes my approach to communicating my own thoughts and feelings super problematic.
So... I think it's some combination of fear-of-being-found-out, fear-of-closeness, wanting-to-have-control, heaven-only-knows what else? All of which are things that can get in the way of a good therapeutic relationship, obviously -- makes it hard to be close to a T, makes it so that the things I say/do are subjected to this weird filter of mine (which I imagine makes it difficult for the T to figure out what the heck is going on in my head).
Thanks, EM
