[Chronic]

Im sure my T wouldnt intentionally hurt me but the fact is he does. I know a lot of it is transference but that doesnt stop it hurting so much. A small thing my T does or doesnt say sends me spiralling and causes me an intolerable amount of pain at times. I have brought this up with him in the past and he said he was really sorry I had been in so much pain but that he does not wish to cause me to hurt. But things dont seem to have resolved so Im going to have to bring it up again when I see him this week.

I wonder if Ts know how we will react (?over react) to their behaviours or something they have said. Sometimes I think T does it on purpose but then that seems cruel to me and I dont think T is cruel. A lot of threads are started in relation to something a T did or didnt say or did or didnt do that causes pain. Do they realise how much they can hurt us? Is this just a part of therapy that we need to go through in order to heal?

[Protoform]

Originally Posted by Chronic

Im sure my T wouldnt intentionally hurt me but the fact is he does. I know a lot of it is transference but that doesnt stop it hurting so much. A small thing my T does or doesnt say sends me spiralling and causes me an intolerable amount of pain at times. I have brought this up with him in the past and he said he was really sorry I had been in so much pain but that he does not wish to cause me to hurt. But things dont seem to have resolved so Im going to have to bring it up again when I see him this week.

I wonder if Ts know how we will react (?over react) to their behaviours or something they have said. Sometimes I think T does it on purpose but then that seems cruel to me and I dont think T is cruel. A lot of threads are started in relation to something a T did or didnt say or did or didnt do that causes pain. Do they realise how much they can hurt us? Is this just a part of therapy that we need to go through in order to heal?

You raise a lot of valid questions. Either this pain is necessary to help us heal or T's are ignorant and don't truly understand the amount of pain some of us feel. If they understood they would either be more sensitive or not take us as patients and refer us to somebody else.

[PTSDlovemycats]

I don't think that they intentionally cause us pain, however, it is a given that being in therapy and working on emotional stuff is going to be painful no matter what. I think that they are aware of what our triggers could be and will do what they can to try to help us from suffering anymore than we need to. They aren't out there to get us, they are out there to help us.

[Gently1]

Yes, sometimes I have felt a discomfort that I did not recognise until after the session. And each time this was my reaction to the T.

Once T moved close to me to demonstrate mindfulness using my coffee cup, and when I asked the next session if it was deliberate move of entering my space, he said no, and after that was VERY careful about moving around my comfort zone.

In my opinion if the T said yes he was testing my boundries without my consent it would be a cruel gesture. We deserve to be treated as a person.

If there is a mistake, that felt like a mistake, it is up to us to communicate what we feel.

My understanding of a healing relationship is that the T shows unconditional positive regard, or love in the spiritual sense. And we grow by being in a place of acceptance, as the T and client are equal with different roles.
Any pain we feel is worth noting and discussing. Assume the T does not read minds, or wishes to guess what you are feeling. We would not get better if T's told us what we were feeling.

All the best
G

[PreacherHeckler]

I think the only T's who actually cause our pain are those who, for various reasons, shouldn't be T's. The pain we experience in a relationship with a caring, competent T is our own pain, not something our T has caused. We may not have felt the depth of this pain until we were in therapy -- maybe we were numb, or self-medicated to avoid it, or we found other ways to keep from feeling it. But it was there all along, and a good T is skilled in helping us get in touch with it so we can finally deal with it.

[skeksi]

I firmly believe my T does not want to cause me pain, ever. However, he sometimes pushes me to do things that he knows will cause pain, in an effort to relieve it (I'm thinking of some of the trauma-processing techniques we've done). I imagine this must be hard for him to do, because I don't think he likes seeing me in pain.

More importantly, he doesn't structure all his interactions with me to try to avoid accidentally hurting me. When I get hurt, as anyone does in a relationship with someone else, he is there to help me figure it out and understand that someone can hurt you, but it's not always intentional, and they can still care. I never knew that before.

[learning1]

Originally Posted by Chronic

Im sure my T wouldnt intentionally hurt me but the fact is he does. I know a lot of it is transference but that doesnt stop it hurting so much. A small thing my T does or doesnt say sends me spiralling and causes me an intolerable amount of pain at times. I have brought this up with him in the past and he said he was really sorry I had been in so much pain but that he does not wish to cause me to hurt. But things dont seem to have resolved so Im going to have to bring it up again when I see him this week.

I wonder if Ts know how we will react (?over react) to their behaviours or something they have said. Sometimes I think T does it on purpose but then that seems cruel to me and I dont think T is cruel. A lot of threads are started in relation to something a T did or didnt say or did or didnt do that causes pain. Do they realise how much they can hurt us? Is this just a part of therapy that we need to go through in order to heal?

I think it's good you can bring it up with him again. I don't think Ts know exactly how we will react. I think they realize therapy can hurt a lot but they probably don't know how much it hurts in particular cases if we dont' tell them. I'm still struggling over this too.

No good therapist sets out to cause their client pain. Sometimes we must discuss painful things, go through painful processes, and set boundaries that feel painful. The pain is not felt on just the side of the client, I can assure you. We ache for our clients. We know that it's a hard, hard journey, that's why we're there. But sometimes we stumble into things, stick our foot in our mouth, and make a fool of ourselves as a T. That's why we push that communication is so important. We want our clients to say "You soooo messed up last week. This is what I heard/felt/perceived". So that we can talk through it. But some things, will be painful, no matter how hard we try to provide comfort for that hurt.

Something I've realized since starting my therapy break is that WAY MORE of what went on between me and T was "transference" than I thought. Our relationship was rupture, repair, rupture, repair, on and on and it FELT like it was about us, him and me....and in a lot of ways it was. But now that I don't have T, I see the same fears bubbling up with my friends that would bubble up with my T and create the ruptures. I guess I took all of the things that are scary for me in the "real world" and experienced them, in a big, big way, in my relationship with T.

I am positive T never purposely caused me pain. And I am positive that he doesn't like to see me in pain...but pain is part of learning and healing and growing sometimes. Now that I am navigating some of the same things with my friends and H that I have navigated with T, I can see that the pain was worth it in a way...because now I can see and name the fear, and can step back and try to figure out how to deal with it, instead of getting lost in it and just isolating myself to protect myself. It's still a clumsy process, but I'm learning, slowly.

I learned that in my relationship with T, I have to do just what stormyangels said...I have to be brave and open up and tell him if he does something and it hurts. He is a person and he makes mistakes...and I am a person and misinterpret things...and if we don't talk about stuff, it can get bigger and bigger. Bringing things into the light makes them something we can look at, and deal with.

I SO get the pain of therapy. It hurts and it's scary and it doesn't feel fair. But I really do believe that a good T never intentionally hurts us.

to you

[dizgirl2011]

Originally Posted by Chronic

Im sure my T wouldnt intentionally hurt me but the fact is he does. I know a lot of it is transference but that doesnt stop it hurting so much. A small thing my T does or doesnt say sends me spiralling and causes me an intolerable amount of pain at times. I have brought this up with him in the past and he said he was really sorry I had been in so much pain but that he does not wish to cause me to hurt. But things dont seem to have resolved so Im going to have to bring it up again when I see him this week.

I wonder if Ts know how we will react (?over react) to their behaviours or something they have said. Sometimes I think T does it on purpose but then that seems cruel to me and I dont think T is cruel. A lot of threads are started in relation to something a T did or didnt say or did or didnt do that causes pain. Do they realise how much they can hurt us? Is this just a part of therapy that we need to go through in order to heal?

Hey,

I think they realise that clients can easily misinterpret or read into things too much because they are vulnerable and that they need to consider how to phrase things and how to approach clients in the least harming way, although I guess they are still human and can accidently put ther foot in it at times lol. I think most of the time they don't intend to say the wrong thing at all, in fact the message they were trying to get across may have been very valid but they worded it in the wrong way and clients easily pick up any hint of negative reaction from their T and often turn it in on themselves which is painful.

I think it's really positive that you are able to tell your T when you feel hurt by what he has said and then cn discuss it. I know I have done it with my T also and some of the times when I have refered to something said in the previous session or perhaps how I felt a session went bad..my T didn't sense that at all at the time and finds it interesting how I have a different view on things.

I dont think it was ever set out to be part of therapy initially however learning to cope with people we either dont get along with or who say things to us in our day to day lives which we dont like, can perhaps be dealt with better when we practice doing it in therapy which is a "safe environment" (most of the time at least)

I hope you get some comfort from talking things over with your T

Diz xxx

[rainbow8]

My former T told me she didn't realize how I would react negatively to some of the things she said to me. She was often surprised by my reaction. Maybe because of borderline reactions.

I think that my current T is aware of the pain she's caused me by not answering all my emails anymore, and by not responding when I write about my feelings for her. She knows how it hurts when she says what's important is how I respond to my parts, not her, and when I want HER to make me feel better, not my Self. She knows because I keep telling her.

She doesn't know automatically, though. When I was afraid to mention death early in the therapy, she said "I do this all day." She was trying to reassure me it was okay to talk about it with her, but instead, I felt really hurt by her comment and told her. She hadn't understand why that comment would bother me, but said she was glad I explained it.

[SpiritRunner]

My T understands that she has caused me pain.....not that she always meant to cause it, and not that she hasn't been sorry for it, too. Sometimes, though, some things are simply going to hurt......therapy hurts sometimes, healing hurts sometimes.
Sometimes Ts are aware something will hurt, sometimes they are not aware something that they have said or done hurts. Whatever the situation, whatever the cause of the hurt, communication about it helps! Ts can't always know that something caused hurt, or how much hurt it caused, or do anything to help the hurt, unless they're told! Just like sometimes I don't know something I said hurt and can't apologize for it unless the other person tells me.....
I've learned to just tell T when something hurts, so I know she knows and we can talk it out!

[Protoform]

Originally Posted by stormyangels

No good therapist sets out to cause their client pain. Sometimes we must discuss painful things, go through painful processes, and set boundaries that feel painful. The pain is not felt on just the side of the client, I can assure you. We ache for our clients. We know that it's a hard, hard journey, that's why we're there. But sometimes we stumble into things, stick our foot in our mouth, and make a fool of ourselves as a T. That's why we push that communication is so important. We want our clients to say "You soooo messed up last week. This is what I heard/felt/perceived". So that we can talk through it. But some things, will be painful, no matter how hard we try to provide comfort for that hurt.

Nobody is accusing you of setting out to cause pain to your clients. I simply accuse some therapists of being careless of and insensitive to the emotions of their clients.

[lastyearisblank]

Hey Chronic, I would err on the side of definitely bringing this up with him. It is too much uncertainty for you if you're not sure if he's doing it on purpose. It is painful enough when we open up to someone and they tread on a sensitive area. To be so stoic if you're not sure it's on purpose... that's a really difficult conversation to have but I am pretty sure just bringing it up will help you get to an answer.
Sorry it's painful!