From here today: "From this definition, feelings are an essential part of what makes up abandonment. It's not just an "objective"/intellectual thing. Not just a feeling state either, though. People can, in reality, be undesired, left behind, insecure, or discarded. That can be a social reality, not just a feeling state. I would argue that we get clued into the fact of that state by our feelings. And, as the Wikipedia article say, it can have a biological impact on the person."

I studied social science in school, so I don't see that there is much that is "objective" or a definition that is only "intellectual" when defining something like abandonment in therapy or elsewhere.

I don't have any problem with any person saying that their T abandoned them. But I also think there's a cost to that. To that person. Looking at what you bring to the party, what you see as abandonment or not, has consequences for the future. I think self understanding is a good thing, and it has nothing to do with blame, unless all you care about is attaching blame to someone else. Understanding how I am sensitive to abandonment in general has helped me be more realistic in my social relationships, in the sense that being worried about being abandoned caused me to cling to people more tightly and to feel hurt if someone didn't want to or couldn't have coffee the third Sunday. I used to pressure others more because of my abandonment worries. When my first T abandoned me by taking a job at the place where I worked and I learned about it when it was announced in a meeting (had no idea he had applied for the job), that event really helped me to bring my feelings about my expectations for other people to the surface. I would not call that abandonment now, as I understand he like other people are allowed to look for jobs that would be better for them, even if that affected me.

More importantly, I am now alert that feeling hurt by other people because I wasn't invited to this or someone blew me off for that or whatever twinges of the traces of abandonment feelings set off in my daily life-- I can examine these feelings in a cooler way, I can hold them up to the light and scrutinize them. I am better able to see that what people do, blow off or whatever, is about them and not about me. My relationships are better because my anxiety that people are going to abandon me is reduced.

I do think it's important for people to see bad behavior by a T or anyone else for what it is, and to not blame themselves for how that person has treated them. I have seen people on this board post about successful ethics complaints where T's were found to have abandoned them or mistreated them. But I also think that nuance and context and being more reflective about the majority of situations where people *feel* abandoned might be helpful to people.

I appreciate understanding how I see things differs from other people. It's one of the main reasons why I read and post here. Considering other ways to see things doesn't mean you have to feel differently about it, or think differently about it. You can try on differing interpretations like you try on outfits, see if it fits. Giving oneself the opportunity to see things differently, considering the possibility of changing, I don't think those things are bad. Experimenting with seeing and doing things differently has been helpful for me.