what to do?

Some of you know that two days ago I had a very vivid & upsetting dream which was quite literally about therapy and my T. There were many, and very obvious, indications of disconnect, abandonment fear, and mistrust.

I am so afraid to tell T about this dream. My own reading of it is that even after 3 yrs I still have huge trust issues about therapy. My fear is that it will come across as a BIG vote of no-confidence in her, which will adversely affect - or even derail - the work. My T is very well adjusted, and very experienced, but she has put 3 yrs of work into my case; everyone is vulnerable to frustration and discouragement, and I'm scared of that.

Our last hour was almost entirely about the long gaps that keep coming between sessions (something always seems to get in the way), how hard that is, and how it makes me go into just-slug-it-out-yourself mode, and I think about quitting. T said, people might take a break, or even quit, when they get to a happy place - when the pain isn't affecting them very much any more. Is that where you are? And we both know it's not.

Before this week, if you'd asked me how it's going, I would have said pretty well. I know there is a ways to go yet but I felt I do have a reasonable trust in T and I am feeling some positive changes. For 3 yrs I have really tried hard to do this work, even when it was so painful, even when I didn't understand where it was going. But this dream came from inside me, it's not something I made up, nor can I say, I didn't mean it; somewhere inside it seems that I do mean it. And to me that says, you have failed at therapy, you may as well give it up.

If the weather forecast holds, I won't see T again untl Feb 2 (another 4 week gap). What am I going to do.

Go and talk it out. Not everyone is as vulnerable as you fear.

How you feel about and interpret the dream and how T will isn't necessarily the same; there are always two "sides" to everything, even "disconnect, abandonment fear, and mistrust"; the opposites of heads/tails on a coin doesn't mean that "tails" is necessarily "bad". Interpreting our unconscious/dream states isn't as straightforward as it looks or they wouldn't be unconscious in the first place.

swe did you post about your dream i'm sorry i must have missed it and i cant find it.it seems like you feel you are moving backwards a bit with having this dream.i hope you will get up the strength to talk to T about it and help you see just how far you have come in the three years.i dont know about you but the statement do you think you are in that olace about taking a break would scare me so much it may cause me to jump back a few paces,because i know how much work i need to do.i know you are at a far differnt place with your T then me but it can still be scarey

I wouldn't interpret it as failure at therapy but that you just aren't done with therapy yet. It seems this dream sent you a message as to where you are right now. It is info on what you still need to work on.

I hope you can tell her the dream, SAWE. You can preface the telling with some of the thoughts you have expressed here--that you worry the dream will come across as a vote of no confidence and that she will be hurt or want to terminate therapy (or whatever your fears are). You can also lead with why you are still in therapy with her--there must be a lot of positive to hold you with her so long--so as to give a more balanced picture. I guess what I'm saying is to try to alleviate some of your anxiety about sharing the dream by providing a tempering "frame" around your telling. I learned the "sandwich" technique for giving a person bad news or criticism (good to use with employees in the workplace when trying to improve performance). Say something good about the person, then tell them the criticism, then end with something good. It's easier to take the "bad" if sandwiched between two goods. Good luck.

I didn't interpret your dream to mean that you have failed at therapy.

Phone session? Would she do that? Not ideal, but might help keep the connection.

-Far

I didn't interpret it as 'therapy failure' either....just that there are deeper places to go yet in therapy, and with that, perhaps a deeper trust is necessary to go there. Doesn't mean you haven't had success in learning to trust your T or that you haven't done good work.....just that there is more to do. I don't think your T will take it personally (I don't think a good T would do that!), think it means she has 'failed' with you or that you think she has failed.....she will most likely take it as a sign showing deeper things to work on.

Oh lord, I've dreamt that my therapist turned into a snake, that he was trying to poison me, that he was stealing my underwear, and once that he was even trying to drown me.

(Like a said, it's very unruly in there).

None of them have been fodder fueling a failure in therapy, but each, in it's own way revealed something about how I was feeling about the therapy and my therapist's role in it. In fact, after the drowning dream, things really began to clip along.

I think they like to know what going on with us good and bad. Maybe you just miss her and this is your brains way of defending yourself from that sadness. I would talk to her about it.

It likely took longer than 3 years to get you to this place, it may take a bit more time to get you out of it.

It can take a long time to forge a strong connection with your therapist. I'm also not sure it's the path that everyone's therapy has to take.

This winter has been terrible hasn't it?

((((((((((((sawe)))))))))))))

I have had SO many dreams about T...

In my most recent dream, his office was filled with other people (Ts and clients) who were also doing therapy. It was totally distracting, and I couldn't concentrate. I got a call that one of my kids was missing and I ran out to find him and when I came back, T was sleeping on the couch, totally unconcerned.

That was a GOOD dream about T @_@

While I do think that my T dreams tell me SOMETHING about what's going on, I don't think it's "bad". It might mean I'm feeling distrustful, or threatened, or ignored, or whatever....but that doesn't unravel the relationship or all of the work we've done so far. In the BEST of relationships we'll have times when we have feelings that aren't "good"....that's just part of being in a relationship. And I feel like in the T relationship, all of those feelings are multiplied by about 578295298572, because it's so intense, and so intimate.

And your reading of the dream - that you still have trust issues after three years of therapy - may be spot on, and totally okay. *I* still have trust issues after three years of therapy...like elliemay said, it took me WAY longer than three years to get to where I am now....it's going to take a while to heal.

Be gentle with you, sawe. You are not doing ANYTHING wrong.

thank you all for sharing your various viewpoints; that is very helpful. ((( everyone )))

Dreams ... who knows.
Last night I dreamed of The Big Alien Invasion, with skies full of strange crafts, weird creatures coming in at the doors and windows, and people (including me) being hunted down by hovercraft with blinding white searchlights.

I've had a very similar dream.

I go back to see T tomorrow.

Good luck.