I don't even know

zooropa my opinion is your therapist is trying to go with what you want. you told her

the next session she tells you starting the next session you wont be doing trauma work. Wich in my opinion is agreeing with you – you told her you didn’t want to do trauma work so she said no more trauma work.

You got upset by this so you called her. she called you back and told you not worry about it you can finish the trauma work.

Shes agreeing with you again you want to dot he trauma work so she says we’ll dothe trauma work.

now you are upset because she told you stop worrying about it you and she can do the trauma work.

My opinion You have your therapist going in a circle- You want trauma work she does it with you then you don’t want trauma work so she takes it out of sessions then you do want trauma work so she puts it back in there and now you are upset again because she said ok its back in so don’t worry about it. you can finish the trauma work..

You need to decide what you want and then tell your therapist your final decision on this issue. You cant keep bouncing your therapist back and forth, its not fair to her, when all she is trying to do is do what you want in therapy, and its not fair to yourself.

Im wondering if you having so much control where you can change things in your therapy is good for you right now. sometimes when clients have therapists that are flexible where they can tell the therapist what to do and the therapist agrees, its upsetting when the therapist agrees to do what they want. maybe what you need is a therapist that will set a boundary with you that half way through something you dont get to change the work. that way you wont get into a situation of going in circles again. Just a thought.

I appreciate your post, amanda. I can definitely see where it could look like I am just not being happy with whatever my T says. I think the problem, or part of it, started when I told her I didn't want to do trauma work. I didn't mean that I don't want to do it ever, I meant I didn't want to do it that day. I'm not sure if she understood that when we were talking, and certainly I wasn't clear about it when I was talking about it here.

Beyond that, I don't know. There are deeper things at play here. I have a fear that she is changing the way we do trauma work to focus more on triggers because she wants to teach me how to handle them before she fires me. It comes back to a basic insecurity and fear of abandonment. I wonder if she's moving away (she mentioned selling her house a few weeks ago) or if she's going to refer me to someone else or...all kinds of things. She's tired of me. She doesn't believe me. she doesn't believe me.

Therapy NEVER would have worked for me this way. I need to be able to work on things at a pace that's comfortable for me, and I especially needed that during the hardest parts of telling my story. Luckily, my therapist is flexible and trusts me to know what I need.

If I was really wavering back and forth, he would work with me to figure out what the wavering was about. We would take as long as we need to do that and then once things were clearer, we would keep moving forward in whatever direction felt right.

There is no "right" way to do therapy. We all find our own paths.

I think this is an example of how it has to be a balance. I need to feel like I'm in control in therapy in terms of knowing when too much is too much, but I also need my T to be in control, because she has the education and experience that I do not have.

There also has to be a balance between pushing for change (which I expect my T to do, because without change how can I get better?) and accepting me where I am, with the limitations that I have.

so, yes, I need my T to be directive and I need her to listen to me. It can be both. There are times I speak out of emotion mind, usually fear, and there are times I speak out of wise mind. I need my T to know the difference and push me beyond my fear but not beyond the limits I have set in wise mind. In the end I have to steer my own ship, but I need to T teach me how to do that.

zooropa all those thoughts about being abandoned, the therapist not believing you are natural. I have fallen into those same thought traps myself. talk to your therapist, let her know these things are worrying you. maybe she can clear things up a bit for you on what she is doing and why.

no this approach I suggested to zooropa doesnt work for everyone. I suggested it to zooropa based on my opinion that zooropa was upset because the therapist was agreeing every time they made a change. people dont always know why they are bouncing their therapist around. sometimes there is an underlieing problem that the cleint can talk about but most of the time when its happened around here we get the phrase "I don't know". so around here we dont dig for the uderlieing just to get told I dont know. first we look at the type of person it is. is this a type of person who needs more structure and stability to their sessions instead of our being so flexxible? then we approach the client like I did Zooropa suggesting maybe they need more rules and less flexability. that opens the door for discussion instead of asking why are you changing things back and forth and getting I dont know. suggesting the change of control during sessions the client can tell us how they feel about having control or not having control of the sessions. in the process sometimes if there is an underlieing issue it comes up during this time. why waste time with "I dont knows" when we can approach it from a different direction of suggesting a change and opening discussion.

this is great!!!!!

Zoo I guess I am having a hard time figuring out why yr T has to have ONE METHOD only and seems to have so little flexibility. Zooropa changes from day to day, partly just because of daily pressures; can't the two of you just agree on some types (plural) of therapy and use one or another as the need arises? Does it have to be the same approach every week in order to be a plan? That seems puzzling to me.

Of course, there may never be a day when you would say, oh goody, let's get into the trauma work today - but then again, if it were put off from session to session to session ,both of you would be very aware of that and you woudl need to do it sometime (and I have a feeling that at some point you will know you need to, and it will be easier. Not easy, yikes, but easier). ((((((((((((((((((( hugs ))))))))))))))))))

I don't know, SAWE. What she said was "we're going to do it different starting next week". Maybe what she meant was something less black and white.

Maybe she meant, we're going to try another way and see how it works.

Maybe she meant, we're going to back off on the retelling of the story for now because you're not doing so great and I'm worried about you but I don't want to tell you that because I don't want to undermine what self-confidence you have.

Maybe she meant, I can't stand listening to it any more so I'm not going to.

It's confusing, but I guess I just don't care that much right this moment. I'll show up next week for my session and see what happens. Beyond that, I have no freaking idea.

((((((((Zoo)))))))

(((((Zoo))))),

I think you are leaving too many questions up in the air & then when you left the message for your T, you sort of didn't directly ask about what was bothering you....you put a lot of the other stuff in first about the what was going on in the therapy which clouded your real question which dealt with abandonment (your real concern here).

It seems to me that she got caught on the comments about the changes in the therapy which you had been so worried about that it clouded her from really answering about whether the same rules applied. Sometimes when we beat around the bush & try to word what we are saying carefully, we end up NOT saying what we really want to be said. Think you should have just come out & said it like you did here. Worried that you were only allowed 2 years like she had originally said for therapy & was wondering if the change in technique was going to effect that time frame & you need to know that if it takes longer than the 2 years, whether you will have to end therapy with her & find another therapist or if she will stick with you until the end?

Sometimes we just have to be straight forward in what we ask & need to know rather than trying to word it in "the right way" because we don't want be so direct....problem when we aren't direct with our questions, then the other party usually isn't direct in their answer & only assumes what you are really saying.

She already told you that she felt that by telling your story that you were being re-traumatized by it in a worse way than she felt you needed to be. We need to know how to handle triggers when we are going over past traumas in our own life just as much as we need to know how to handle triggers that other people say when they are talking about their stuff. This is probably why she felt it was a good time to work on how you handle triggers so that you will be able to handle more trauma work better in the future & won't end up triggering yourself so badly & end up in so much pain in the future when continuing on with the trauma work. While working on the trigger work, issues from your past trauma will come up as information on triggers you need to learn how to handle which will continue to bring out your trauma work....& not really stop it, but it will work though your trigger work in a logical way.

It was good that you voiced your fear over the change in methods for your therapy, but you haven't been good at really speaking clearly about what the abandonment issues actually are. Life itself let alone therapy doesn't work well when our communication leaves so much unsaid with so many questions & "what do they really mean by this" wordings.

In looking at all of your "maybe's", it really seems like all you really want to know is that at the end of the 2 years your T originally specified, she won't end therapy just because the 2 years is up (no matter how she approached the trauma). That is really all you need to ask her & let her know that is what your real fear is......don't have to mention anything about the therapy method or anything else, but just the fact that you need to know if handling the trauma takes more than the 2 years that she originally anticipated, will she continue with you as long as it takes?

Interesting, I have been in therapy since 1994 when my anxiety first hit (when I was 41). It was really all about loosing my career which was the start of my problems.....then so many other things have come along in my life along those years.....honestly, I don't think I will ever end up without therapy. I went 2 years without therapy when I left my husband in California & moved to KY, but now that I am back in therapy, not only about the trauma I went through 5 years ago (along the way), but it's just about having someone to talk to & work through things that are bothering me (alot is stuff surrounding the trauma 5 years ago) but there are so many issues that I'm dealing with in life, it's just wonderful to have someone to be able to talk life through with when I don't have anyone in my life & don't want to bog down my friends with the things that are bothering me. For me, everything gets thrown together in therapy without specific work on the trauma which is a no where close to the serious trauma's that most of you have gone through......but I can't imagine ever not being in therapy especially now that I have a good psychologist that I am seeing.....so much different than the psychologist I was seeing in California who never participated in the therapy but just sat there & listened.....ugh.

Most people I have known in therapy have it as a life long process because there are always things that come up in life along the way that it's important to have that professional support to get through it.....a never ending process......jmo.

I would directly ask your T about the 2 year mark & that is what really has you worried. When you get through that stress, I am sure you will breath a huge sigh of relief & will be more than ready to deal with therapy. When we have a huge fear that keep underlying everything, it's too distracting to even focus on the issues that we really need to be focused on......I am sure that your T will stick with you indefinitely & is really something you don't have to worry about, but it's good to hear it from her specifically. After that is resolved, you can explain that is why you were really worried about the change in therapy method because you were afraid it was going to make it much longer than 2 years, even though in reality, the way you were going was probably going to take longer than the 2 years also & she never thought about that as an issue.

Hope you get this resolved so that you can finally feel peaceful with your therapy & your T again. Sometimes we end up with these rough communication spots with our T in order to teach us how to better communicate between each other our thoughts in a more straight forward way (on both parts), so that both end up not assuming what the other is actually saying.....it's sort of a growth process in the relationship & is really a good thing even though it doesn't feel that way at the time.

Sorry to go on & on so much....just seemed like when I got started, the thoughts just kept coming on this topic & hope that some of it will make sense.


Debbie

wow, eskie, thank you for your long response! I am sleep deprived right now so won't try to read it all until later, but thank you. I'll come back and respond more later