why is rescue so taboo

i have been thinking why is your T rescuing you from whatever pain,behavior,horrible thoughts,so taboo.how can it be so harmful

sometimes i think this is what i want from my T a lot.to tell me how to talk and give me words,a clue in how to use T to help me,to trust her,to feel OK about things.how can this be wrong. just wondering.i know it is and all but why???

if my T knows what will help,what i can say,what i need to work on why not tell me.

I know how this is. I KNOW that there are those who know, who even say, "why no, it's only that ..." and then they stop. It makes me scream.

But Granite....
allowing for the fact that everyanalogy has its limitations, imagine a mother who is trying to get her little one to walk. She will encourage, she will correct posture, she will support and help, but in the end, it's the child who has to put one foot in front of the other. No one is going to walk for him.

still...therapy... it's a **** of a system, if you ask me.

First off, you don't teach children by doing things for them....they have to learn by doing & trying things themselves. A therapist can coach & provide suggestions.....but it's impossible for them to rescue you in the first place.

They can't take the pain away....they can't make you feel differently about things than how you really feel....if something hurts you....all they can suggest is different ways of looking at something that could possible cause less pain....but they can't force you to think that way.

They can't change your behavior....that is something ONLY YOU CAN DO. It takes repetition & repetition over & over that YOU have to do to make the change.....they can only suggest what possible changes might help with the things in your behavior that are causing problems.

Horrible thoughts.....only you have control over your thoughts.....only thing they can do is try to teach you skills that can help you change your horrible thoughts....but they can't change them for you.

Growing up as children.....these are skills that we should have acquired as children....but most parents & many times our own inabilities growing up keep us from learning these skills....maybe not anyone' fault in reality. No one can tell us how to take or give us words.....we can just observe as to what works in the world around us & what doesn't & what we really would like to emulate & what we don't want to be like at all. Know that many of these thoughts were what I had in my mind observing the world around me when I was growing up. Sadly, when we are surrounded by dysfunctional lives that don't give us good examples.....we have nothing good to base our learning on.......only later on in our lives do we even realize that what we learned doesn't work well....it's harder to make the changes the older we get....but it's still possible....only then, we still can only get suggestions & then work on our thinking & then practice to make the changes by being comletely aware of ourselves & our surroundings & how we are relating to them.....it's just not something that anyone can do for us or rescue us from.....they can only help teach us what we need to know & help point out when we aren't quite getting is so that we can continue to work on the changes we need to work on to practice, repeat, & become more aware of ourselves in relation to others.

That was the one thing I liked about DBT...is that it helps make us aware of our relationships with others & how we relate to our surroundings & provides us with thoughts & skills to help get through those difficult issues.....maybe DBT might be a good thing for you.....

The thing is that there is no way that rescuing works because no one can do the work we need to do or make us learn what we need to learn for us....it's something we have to become aware of & learn for ourselves so that we really KNOW. Many times people tell me things & if I don't understand what they are talking about, it just sounds like blah, blah, blah.......one reason who rescuing doesn't work....because most of the time the rescue sounds like blah, blah, blah, & the next time we end up in the a similar situation, we still don't really KNOW for ourselves what we need to do.

Hope this makes some level of sense

If the therapist started rescuing clients this would unbalance her. A therapist can't want something for the client more then a client does because this would be crossing a boundary. If the therapist was doing the work for all 20 or 30 of her clients she would go crazy. That boundary is healthy for all involved.

And granite, you doing the work is what is going to heal you.

hm. I would think that it's often, even very often the case, that the T wants something for client more, even a lot more, than client does.

The T just by being authentic I could see giving an up-close-and-personal image of health, strength, stability, love of life, love for life, well-adjusted outlook... so many things that come very hard to therapy clients, and may not even look all that desirable to them at times.

my T has said this exact thing to me about me not wanting to talk and her helping me to do this

No I mean emotionally want it for the clients too much not intellectually.

My T has said she can't/won't rescue me.......it would be boundary crossing, becoming too emotionally involved, not good for her or me. It would end up not rescuing me, but putting me AND her into greater danger in the therapeutic relationship. She can help me find ways to rescue myself as it were, she can even show me the lifeline, the anchors, as it were, but I need to choose to take hold of what will help me. No one can choose it for me......

I guess wanting it for your client intellectually is one thing but if you cross over and start doing the work then you are emotionally invested and you don't want your T emotionally invested in your outcome because this would feel icky. There have been people here who get too tied up in the outcome for other people here and it isn't good. People who are emotionally invested in your outcome can become controlling.

the controlling part is certainly true, I have seen it.......and probably have done it, too.

Because rescuing is unhelpful in the long run, and the long run is why we are there and where the growth we experience shows up.

Far be it from me to quote or refer to scripture but it is like..'Give a man a fish and you have fed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime'.

I often wonder if it is rescue I want. It seems like it. But I wonder if it is that, exactly. Or relief? Or comfort? Or answers to question/s I don't know how to verbalize yet, or fully understand, but the emerging awareness is creating some fear, discomfort, panic.

echos wow well said i think i want all these things

Yeah, very well said, and in addition to that I think you can rescue someone by just encouraging them to be themselves...

Granite,

I can pretty much agree with what a lot of the people said here. Our therapist teach us self-care in every aspect that they can...which means putting it back on us to push for change, but I do know what it feels like to want to be rescued and how frustrating it can feel when T wont do it.