well... after a half hour of 'how was your week' my therapist said something about how he feels that i do a lot in order to try and pre-empt him being critical of me. i said that i think that sometimes he has this little speel on trying to qualify what he says and really it is unnecessary because i know that he doesn't mean what he says to be critical... but how when i'm sensitive about something i probably do try and do this, yes.

and i talked to him a bit about R. my first therapist. and about how she was mostly focused in on categorizing / classifying my thoughts as this or that variety of distortion and how if only i worked to change that (she thought) then my life would be much better. and about how it was hard for me to have treatment targets because i'd read the books and i understood that certain symptoms were considered 'legitimate' treatment targets with a particular course of education that was reccommended for them. only that... i had read the books too, and i didn't think that that was what was needed.

but that i went to therapy in hope... it was my only hope that things would improve...

and he said that 'at the risk of stating the obvious - i am not your mother'. and i said that i didn't think about my mother a great deal. didn't really think about my attachment to her. that i mostly thought about my father. but i guess that something must have happened with my mother in order for me to have turned to him.

and i said about how i didn't think that either my mother or my father saw me really (it was just that my father didn't actively hurt me).

and he talked a bit about winnicot and the notion that mother organizes the infants experiences... so i can read about that, i guess.

and i said that neither my mother nor my father saw me really... but that after that people did... and that no good came of that. and he said we should talk about that next time. but this time... our time was up.

but we did talk a bit about how scary it is for people to see you. and i said that therapy was scary for me... that i had trouble with past therapists because they categorized and classified but never really saw me as a person. but that people seeing me as a person is problematic too. scary. scary for me. and about how the only people who did see me as a person... hurt me. so much. and i'm scared of that. i am. scared.

so... kinda intense, i guess. 3 months... then i'm off...