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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
Whoa. That must have felt pretty bad. I’m so sorry.
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It's ok. It didn't feel bad per se, but it felt pretty weird. I mean personally for me the tears meant that we're now pretty deep and T could trust me enough that I wouldn't break and T can get honest about things and show what's inside. I know T does the best not to intrude. If anything T tends overdoing is distance, coldness, isolation and a professional wall of disguise. At times it was bothersome actually that T thought I wouldn't see through...perhaps an empathic failure in T's part? But usually I could handle that as my side of the contract of keeping boundaries. I know I am hypersensitive picking up cues from people, and T is no superman nor would I want T to be.
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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
Humour me here, but let‘s try to imagine a best-case T-speak intervention for that situation:
“Client, I am noticing that lately it seems to me that we’ve gotten into a pattern of more informal-type chat and further from a therapeutic style of interacting. Is that an observation that you share? What do you think about that? […]”
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Yes, we've gotten into that pattern, but I disagree on our sessions having less therapeutic effect. This more informal-type chats have been of immense help for me. In my perception we still have those basic boundaries in which I can grow. Our sessions are still about myself. It actually helps me to be honestly myself, by having you being real I can be real myself, I can get closer into what I am really feeling if you're human in this relationship. I can nurture a deeper connection with myself, with my emotions, my needs, my wants, how I actually work if I really let myself be, instead of pleasing whatever conditions I am imposed upon."
Not actual words, but we've had exchanges like this.
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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
”[…] As much as I enjoy chatting with you, and recognize the value of having some lighter sessions, I’d like to be more conscious of the fact that this is your therapy time.”
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I appreciate your concern. We're good on my part." - is something I would have replied, but we did never had this part of the talk. T would have known my answer.
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Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans
To me, it seems reasonable that a good T could get a bit derailed from time to time. Crying to YOU that THEY aren’t being professional? I’m not sure if the relationship can come back from that. Or if you want it to. As excruciatingly sad as it would be to let go of someone you care for so much, this relationship may have run its course.
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It sort of has and sort of hasn't. I appreciate your concerns, but I am not sad at all. I feel warm and genuinely cared for when I think about that relationship.
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Originally Posted by Shotokan
I don't know if you are in the U.S. But, here we have a lot of psychiatrists that do psychotherapy. I mean I have tried out many psychiatrists for therapy and medication. If you need further help, I wonder if you could seek therapy from a psychiatrist and not a fellow therapist.
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I haven't thought of this... But I think I would be less comfortable with a psychiatrist than a psychologist. I just don't believe we would be a good match. I don't have any pathologies, I'm there for self-development and self-knowledge I can use and fall back to in my own work.
Thinking about it, it would feel pretty bad for me to have a relationship which offers medication to fall back to, no matter how professional it may be. I never had serious mental health issues unless you could say alienation and low self-esteem is such... No one in my family ever took an alprazolam pill, not parents, not siblings, not cousins. Don't get me wrong, I have multiple psychiatrist friends in my social circle, and I do read the books of MD's but there's something feels off visiting one. Maybe if the psychiatrist is humanistic-existentialist. I don't know. I don't like labels anyway.