[sunrise]

At my last session, T said to me, "I am your guide, I am your mentor, I am your therapist." I keep coming back to this. It makes me feel good for him to call himself my mentor. He's never done that before. Yes, he's referred to himself as my guide--I am on a journey, after all--and of course as my therapist. But never my mentor. I like that. A lot!

I feel like our relationship expanded some with that word. And I like that T considers himself to be that to me.

The word came up when we were talking about facing death, facing suffering, facing the depths of pain of both self and others deep inside. I was expressing doubt I could even do this--it is coming up in my new career, as I work with dying and suffering individuals, and coming up in my own life with my father near the end of life. In fact, I think I am mucking it up and not handling it well at all. T thinks I am too concerned with how I perceive myself to be handling things. He said if I need to be sad, then that is what I need to do. It won't do any good to avoid the sadness, as it will not go away until felt. I was upset because I had cried one day in class and been unable to stop--it wasn't just a couple of tears. He said it was OK to cry then. He didn't want to work with me on ways I could learn to stop crying. I guess I had kind of wanted him to give me a simple and magic technique for how to stop crying, like count backwards from ten, think of your favorite Laurel&Hardy moment, and voila, your sadness will be gone! He had ZERO interest in this. But he said I can also come to therapy more frequently so I can cry there and share my sadness with him, if I need to.

Anyway, it was somewhere in there that he used the word mentor, when he was talking about his role in helping me face sadness, suffering, pain, death. He has done this before himself, with deliberate intention, because he wanted to be a different sort of therapist from how he was, and said he wasn't able to go really, really deep with clients until he had been there himself. I am glad to have someone in my life who has done this before and knows what the h*ll they are doing and where we are going. I expressed that I am not sure I am capable of this, and he said "you are." I guess he is going to show me how to do this, or at least not let go of me until I am through. He made me feel not alone. But I'm still scared. And I don't want to be sad. I hate struggling against trying not to be sad when I am. Ugggh.

[granite1]

he sounds awsome sunrise and he wont let you be alone and so sad without direction and help.sorry things are being so sad for you i hope you are ok

[WePow]

((((((Sunrise))))))))

It is wonderful when we see that we do have a real person inside of the relationship of the T.

[SpiritRunner]

Sunrise, that sounds so nice that your T would say that! I'm glad he has been there before and can help you come through, too.

[Sweetlove]

((((((((Sunrise))))))))

Your T sounds fantastic and the fact that he made that comment to you shows how invested he is in your time together. He really believes in your relationship and journey together...that is the key to having a secure connection with a T.

So happy for you

[PTSDlovemycats]

That sounds wonderful Sunrise.

[Melbadaze]

yes I think of T has a spritual guide..sprituality is never talked about in my therapy but the way she is reminds me of every buddism article I have read..