Thread: trust/pacing
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Old Oct 19, 2008, 01:32 AM
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ECHOES ECHOES is offline
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Member Since: Aug 2007
Location: West of Tampa Bay, East of the Gulf of Mexico
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I admire your honesty in telling T that you had evaded a topic you aren't ready for, and for his response that you will tell him more when you are ready.

Pacing is personal. It's about what you need and want, so it's personal. I like a slow pace and that's fine with my T. Even though I like it, I found it hard to do at first and hard to feel comfortable with. Like you I worried about wasting T's time. I think most of us have feelings of unworthiness that make us have the wasting time thought at some point.
Mabye you won't be ready for a very long time and that's okay.
Like you, my T know about something but it isn't anything I've felt I can talk more about yet and I have no idea when I will be able to. I have been in therapy for 1 year and 7 months. Not my first time in therapy either, I have been in and out for over 10 years, but this time I found someone just right for me.

Still, it takes time for trust to build, for the T to earn it. It takes some time just being there, for T to get to know you more, for therapy to become a routine part of your life.

Recently I had a very uncommunicative session and I've had other sessions like that here and there. T said the best thing she could have, that I may need to do that for a while, for a long time. It's what I need at the moment. That's where I was at the moment.

I wonder if you feel that since you have presented to T to 'hold on to' until you are ready to say more, there is a pressure to talk about it, as if T expects that of you even though he has acknowledged that he isn't pressuring you and that you will be able to talk about it when you are able to, and that's okay.

It's good to have you here at PC and I hope you visit the psychotherapy forum too. There is a lot of sharing and support about therapy there.