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Originally Posted by Elio
I find it interesting your T's stress around "doing it right". With everything that has happened in 2020, my T has opened up more. I have actually struggled a lot with having deep sessions. What has happened though is when I have those moments of deepness, my T goes pretty quiet.
In short, it seems she is following my lead, even when conversations are more like friends, she still has her T hat on and is ready for me to lead us into something deeper. When I make one of those more reflective statements or questions, she quiets down and changes how she interacts with me, it becomes more supportive, encouraging, and analytical.
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I think where my T is uncomfortable is that when our conversation are more like friends, T can't differentiate that with actual conversation of friends, because T acts very similar in therapy and outside of it. This closeness makes T significantly apprehensive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elio
She also subscribes to the belief that more causal sessions are there for a reason and does not discount the therapeutic value of them, even if the value is to strengthen our alliance.
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My T wasn't really aware of therapeutic alliance as a concept. I guess this accounts from T training are still kicking somewhere around the 1980s in the country I'm from.
Though T is very intuitive in providing excellent therapy, on the conceptual level makes professional boundaries - by which T means the Freudian trinity of anonymity-neutrality-confidentiality. In T's head any breach from anonymity/neutrality is a technical mistake. When I say it's useful to me, or bring up its uses in non-classical psychoanalysis, T says those are important in Gestalt and CBT as well. Usually we stop there, as both of us understand, theoretical debates are not quite suitable in the therapeutic relationship.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elio
Which leads me back to your T's stress around "doing it right". For a T, isn't "doing it right" all about focus and intent. If she feels you guys are simply talking like friends; isn't that more about her feelings and thoughts on your interactions, that she's losing that focus rather than what is being discussed or done in the moment?
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Yes. It's her feelings and thoughts. But there's a preference on my side that T self-discloses, because I'm not very comfortable with neutrality. Still, there was a gray area which we could work together just perfectly. Now T disclosed more than T is comfortable with and broke down.
I put that on the account of T being such conscientious that would go even that far. Which makes me think, in spite of T's opaqueness and hiding, I really do know T. Yet this makes T uncomfortable -- because it's not aligned with classical analytic thought. Even though T is not a classical Freudian, but thinks that is the only professional way of doing therapy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elio
The red flag I saw when I read your initial post and through the tread was how you might find yourself in the situation where the interaction start having moments of you being her therapist or supervisor rather than you being able/allowed to stay the client. It is a dance and it might be hard to see how things move through out the sessions and the relationship. I agree transparency and discussing what life might be once you have completed your therapy with her will be important since your community is small.
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Yes. Whenever I meet anyone with the classical/neoclassical analytic approach, I automatically assume that person is out of his mind and tend to act like a person centered therapist.
