[turquoisesea]

I've not seen my actual T for the summer. Now I'm back but she's on break. She's almost back, I think.

I REALLY want to get something out of therapy.
All this time I feel like I haven't so much... I dunno.


I have trouble talking in therapy. And I don't know about trusting someone like that... it scares me to death! Especially since the letter she will write to the university could determine the chances of me getting back to classes.

I don't know what to get out of therapy and I don't know how. I asked her once what I was supposed to be getting out of it, and she just said she was trying to get me to trust me. That's not enough... I want something to work on, I want to learn and get better! I've learned SO much from PC, I've learned so much from hurting myself and just going through things and my ever loving boyfriend. But T...

I don't even know where to begin...

[fallenangel337]

[Dr.Muffin]

why are you seeing her? why does she have the final say in your going back to classes?

[ECHOES]

Working on trust is a great thing to do in therapy.
I think you might just be having trouble naming what you want.
What I want is to feel better, to be able to take life as it comes, to feel good about myself, to enrich my life and enjoy life.
I want to be a coherent self, defined in a book I am reading as:
1. makes sense rather than being riddled with inconsistencies;
2. hangs together as an integrated whole rather than being fractured by dissociations and disavowals; and
3. is capable of collaboration with other selves.
Daniel Siegel defined a coherent self as one that is stable, adaptive, flexible, and energized.

Learning to trust this therapy relationship is something that takes time and keeps growing. When I began 2 1/2 years ago I could hardly talk because I was frightened of so many things. Things we've talked about: being 'exposed', saying the 'wrong' thing, being rejected, sounding stupid, and more. I think we are so convinced that we have undesirable traits that entering into therapy feels like setting ourselves up for being exposed as the person we think we are. Entering into therapy and staying with it takes courage. In time our hesitant hope grows, and we grow too.

Sometimes it is hard to define what a person gets out of therapy and they can only say they feel better but they can't pinpoint exactly why or how that happened.

Trust the process, my T advised me when we began and I struggled. I still rely on that when I'm struggling.

Begin...where you are, in each session, in each moment of the session. Say whatever comes to mind and trust the process.