Thread: Therapy failure
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Old Sep 14, 2018, 06:18 PM
Anonymous55498
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I do understand that dissociation may be one of the more difficult issues to work with as it's not easy to imagine and relate to for those that have not experienced it. Not something like anxiety or depression that most people have experienced at least to a certain extent. But if a T claims to have an interest in it, especially if they claim it to be part of their specialty, then they should be prepared for surprises and potentially highly uncomfortable reactions, there is obviously a reason why some things get dissociated in the first place.

Maybe one thing that can be challenging is knowing you the way you are most of the time, the "regular you" as you described - then suddenly experiencing something unexpected and very very different. If your style interacting with the Ts was anywhere similar to how you interact on this forum, they probably get used to someone very polite, respectful and thoughtful and are then surprised when that less controlled and raw part appears, and they don't know what to do with it. Then, if this happens repeatedly, they may feel incompetent (which they are!) and the reaction is to avoid feeling that way by rejecting what triggers it.

I was not particularly interested in working with anger in my therapy as I don't think I have problems around it, but was quite astonished at the reactions my first T's behaviors brought out of me. So out of character relative to my regular self, extreme. What made things worse for me was his refusal of taking any responsibility or apparently even recognizing the repetitive mistakes and sloppiness, interpreting it as transference. I am absolutely not against the concept of transference and I like to analyze my feelings and behavior that way even on my own, but in that case, those criticisms and reactions of mine were not transference, I am 100% sure. They were strong but normal reactions to his sloppiness, to being manipulated, gaslighted and misunderstood. I get that you do have relevant early life experiences in your history but perhaps part of your anger and aggressive reactions in therapy were perfectly valid and healthy reactions to what the T did and little else? And they just did not want to take responsibility at all and felt ashamed in front of someone who comes across as very respectful and responsible in general.
Thanks for this!
Anonymous45127, here today, koru_kiwi