I was just PMing with someone and wrote something about my session which really sums up what is happening, and why I haven't had the energy to post in IST lately so I'm just going to copy and paste it into here
Quote:
I have figured out what the problem is with T at the moment, which is good because I can go and tell him next week. I was getting more and more frustrated with him without being able to articulate why I was so annoyed.
He is really transparent and honest with me, which is fine and really helpful at times, but recently, he's putting so much effort into being super open with me that he's forgetting to be curious about what I am thinking. I spent most of yesterday's session trying to get him to ask me about how I felt about a previous session, but everytime I asked him what he was thinking (hoping he would be like "I'm curious about what that was like for you?") he instead literally told me what he was thinking, which was often tenuously related and made me feel like he wasnt interested.
|
There have been a few examples like this recently. Like he is presuming that I want to know about his process all the time and isn't really listening to what I am asking him for. I'm glad I've figured it out and can tell him.
At one point yesterday I said "I am trying to tell you about my feelings about that session [ET related] and I need you to help me" he said "I'm cautious about taking the lead because I dont know if the parts that stand out for me are the same parts that stand out for you". I said "So when I say I am struggling with everything, why dont you ask what?" And he said "Okay, what?". I was so annoyed. 45 minutes of trying to get him to be curious and he asks just because I have told him I want him to, and using literally the same words I used. Ugh.
We patched up enough by the end of the session for me to leave feeling okay, but I need to get this through his head. It's been happening a lot lately. We had a conversation before he went away where I said it is good to know where he is when he is away because i like to place him in the world. He told me the country he was going to on holiday which was plenty of information. Then he was like "I'm going to be travelling round the country a bit so I will write you an itinerary". I was like "you don't need to" and he said "I will do it anyway". Its a nice gesture and all but I explicitly told him I didn't need that level of detail but he gave me it anyway. It's like he's lost sight of the purpose of being transparent. It's supposed to be for my benefit.