To Choreograph or Not

That would be really uncomfortable for me. My T is a real talker, and I like it that way. I'm a teacher too, but my mind is usually mush by the time I step into a session. I like someone else taking charge for a change I guess.

skyblue let us know how today goes.
Try clearing you mind after you go into the room. If you want to add to the experiment.

My T encouraged me to sit and focus on my breath if I needed time before we start, he said his other clients do this and tell him he can go work on his computer.
When I let him know when I am ready to start and he then moved from from behind his desk to his usual chair.

And I thought therapy was some kind of race. with rules of 'being productive'.
Alfred Adler, Austrian psychotherapist,
"Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events not of words. Trust movement."

G1

The trick is to have a conversation. To respond to the other person and be present in real time.

I always knew what I was going to talk about but after a few years we got to understanding that I was just "reporting" about what I had already thought, done, felt, etc.; I wasn't giving my T anything "new" for her? We weren't working together, I was telling her, more or less, what I thought and she was responding but it was about old actions and things that had happened "out there". If I felt anything while I was in session, I was oblivious to it?

When you leave session, do you ever feel disappointed or wish you'd said something or are all riled up and at sixes-and-sevens? That's because stuff wasn't dealt with when it came up in session. We take stuff with us instead of bringing it up right then and there, the only time it can get taken care of because it's the only time we have with T, in person.

It's the difference between listening to the news "live" and with a time delay. Yes the riots in London were scary to hear about but think how different the "scary" would be if you were actually one of the people there?

You don't have to be blank when you go in, by all means start talking about something you know is interesting/important to you, even about something that already happened but then see if you can switch to the situation "now" and how it makes you feel now and really listen to what T says and how what she says makes you feel and go on from there. If T doesn't "get it" can you tell her you feel frustrated that she doesn't? I often miss what I'm feeling when it's happening and that's the whole point of therapy, to get "current".

Gently1 - my T is good at trying to get me to focus on the body. And that's what I will practice today.

Perna- Yes, that's right about how it feels 'now'. And, I must say, my T is also good at that. I will bring in some random historical event and she will switch the conversation to how it made me feel and how it feels talking about it now.

What I'm going to attempt for the next 6 hours before session is mindfulness. T has talked to me about this and I've never really put it into practice unless I'm too emotionally wound up.

If I succeed in applying that method today, then it will be clear I don't need therapy anymore. So, whenever thoughts come up that I think I want to discuss in session, I will try to switch to the "here and now" and notice my physical surroundings OR if the thought produces some emotion, maybe I'll go 'sit' with the emotion and 'watch' it.

What I'll try to avoid is too much thinking. Then when I enter T's office, I will let come forth what comes forth.

This approach makes me feel exceedingly vulnerable. My instinct is to avoid feeling emotions and loosening the controls might lead to scary uncharted territory.

I wonder if I'll be able to pull this off.

Yay! Do it!!! And then come back and write about it.

It'll be a miracle if the Lions make it to the Superbowl this year. Glad to see I'm not the only one who has to talk about sports! J/K!

As I was leaving session, I told T everybody on psychOcentral (what else can I call it after how I acted on Monday?) was talking about what to talk about today, and I told him, I didn't think ANYBODY else did THIS, and I didn't think I was going to do this either!

We sat and listened to a new old jazz cd i brought in, of a favorite player of his, I got cheap on amazon. One of the tracks was Barnacle Bill the Sailor, and I remembered Olive Oyl singing "Who's that knocking on my door?" in the Popeye cartoons. It's music from the 1920's, I think.

I realized I had never sat and listened to music with anyone like this before, just calmly and - knowing what to expect, and what was expected of me, I think that's the ticket. That is something we have discussed, weird expectations in common interactions within my family (and with T).

At the end, he said he hadn't realized the session was over, but I had been keeping track, and keeping in the moment. Other stuff had happened earlier, it wasn't all this. Anyway, I said, Why does this music sound so comforting, is it the situation or what? He said he was wondering the same thing and was going to listen to it at dinner tonight.

I am just glad to see that my anxiety level is WAY down. A year or two ago, I wouldn't have known WHO I was, and wouldn't have been able to just there with him like that, or even sit with a girlfriend like that, or a family member, or my pdoc, or simple acquaintances.

It's weird how you can operate at so many levels - I have been on stage in the past and this high level of anxiety would have been my baseline, but I could be "calm" on stage, or so I thought.

Anyway, whoever posted they were gonna have coffee and CAAAAAAAKE!!!! okay, dinner, and journal after T, had a durn good idea. Is there an emoticon for cake?

Oh, I thought her conversation with T was about lions in the jungle. Much cooler than a sports team.

Maybe I'm a bit impatient. I guess I want to move the process along a bit quicker. And writing up the script seemed the way to do that. And, although I will hate when we finally reach the point of termination, I also would like to experience a sense of completion.

A different tack today though in 2 hours. Bringing script with me, just in case, but will try not to rely on it at all. Let be what is...

I can't help but believe that that will lead to a huge waste of time but I'll know shortly.

Client expectation is a fairly consistent predictor of treatment outcome.

Just sayin'.

uh oh.. ok, then - I will expect the best in 1 1/2 hours. But then, what if I'm disappointed? Hmmm - is it better to prepare for the worst or expect the best?

Man, I knew I should have majored in psychology instead of philosophy.

This sounds a bit like a Pascal's Wager moment, no?

"Even if the existence of God could not be determined through reason, a rational person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose"

my old pdoc couldn't spell, he stood in the wrong line, he thought he was signing up to be a physicist.

What do you hope to accomplish in therapy, as an overall goal, sky? Now that you've been in a while, have your ideas on that changed, as you've accomplished some interim goals and gained insight into yourself and what is possible with the process?
You have so much energy, so much to offer the world. It's exciting to watch this growth. Thanks for sharing your journey with us.

Well, my T has told me that my goal is unattainable - To Be Perfect. So, now I have to figure out other possible goals. But, it's such a blow to learn my initial goal is unreasonable.

Okay - so that means for my session in an hour I should, uh, well, hmmmm... There are like an infinite number of options. geeez...

Part of me just wants to have fun talking about psychology. One of the books I'm reading now discusses consciousness, self and emotions. All about the neurological basis for feelings. Of course, such a cool conversation could better be done in a coffee shop with the blues playing.

Another part of me wants to share with her (because no one I know is crazy enough to listen to me) the delight I take in grammatical constructions in foreign languages. Now, the reason I want to talk to T about this is that since she's being paid, she can't run away like everyone else I know.

Or, I'd love to talk about the absolute joy I feel when I play with my little grandsons. It would be great for T to see another side of myself more often.

Or, I'd like to discuss how my philosophical approach to life has affected me so strongly. But even so it didn't keep me from dancing all night at the wedding last weekend.

T told me a few months ago that she knows a lot about the creative process. I would love to pick her brain but we just haven't had time. I mean, how do you use those metaphors??

I want to know how likely it is that I can at least hover around the perfection target but I know she won't answer that question (as if she knows. _)

But probably more than anything I would like to get in touch with my deepest feelings but I don't know how to do that.

So, 45 minutes from now - we'll see what comes up.

As my T would say: Interesting...

"But probably more than anything I would like to get in touch with my deepest feelings but I don't know how to do that."

And I believe that once that is accomplished there will be harmony. And that harmony will naturally lead to a profound peace and contentment -the deepest awareness possible of the REAL & TRUE SELF.

Sounds like you do have therapy goals:

To get in touch with deep feelings.
To achieve a deep awareness of true self.
To find peace.

Good stuff.

"... and then a mob of furious women appeared at the door and they dragged my friend out. I could see the look of terror on my friend's face as she realized she would be dead in a few moments. I screamed at the mob -'why is she being executed? what did she do wrong?'. And a woman from the crowd answered, '....'"

I got to this portion of the dream and I told T I had to go. T said, "what are you doing? You're bringing me to the edge of the story and leaving me hanging here wondering what happened? Am I being punished?"

And I replied, "Well, time's up". And then I left.

What. Why.

And now you're doing it to us?

So... how did it go before that?

Skysblue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In total agreement!

Sky with the book part of what you said earlier, maybe sharing in the book section on PC would be worth trying since you can't do everything you want with T in 50 minutes ... I'd like to hear more about what you are reading and learning

Same here!

Perna, what you wrote about reporting is exactly why my T doesn't like when I read an email. It's not current. It's old news, even if from the day before. She wants me to interact with her and experience how I feel right there, in the session. It's much harder, but it's real!

skysblue: Not sure how you so sending you some hugs.

Well, if that ^ isn't an example of passive-aggression, I don't know what is.

I had about 3 minutes left when I began to tell T about a dream I had a couple of weeks ago. I wasn't able to tell her last week because, "time's up." So, I guess I did want to punish her. I wasn't even realizing I had that motive until she said it.

btw, I did end up telling her the end instead of continuing walking out. It was only 7 more words.

The unscripted session was very weird. I was in a strange bizarre mood. We kept jumping around with topics because I would get bored with one or feel we weren't going anywhere with another. I was quite animated and felt free to express whatever came to mind.

We spent the most time talking about depression and explored how maybe I should think of it as a 'familiar' feeling instead of one of 'depth'. Too complicated to explain here.

Anyways, the session was random and open and somewhat scattered UNTIL, UNTIL the last 10 minutes.

See, T has a light over the door that comes on when her client arrives in the waiting room. We flip a light switch in the waiting room that alerts her that we've arrived.

Well, this guy/gal was 20 minutes early to his session and the light going on where I could see it just triggered some intense anger in me. T apologized for his/her actions and I said sarcastically, "Well, just employ your boundaries. You're good at that."

Man, can you believe I was so rude? I guess having an unscripted session broke down some of the walls holding in my emotions.

T said, "Skysblue, I have never seen you like this." And I said, "Like what, please tell me so I can write it down (said sarcastically again)."

So, what they say (who? - well you know - them) is that stuff will leak out whether you intend to or not.

I hadn't realized that I was holding such anger towards T and now I know and she knows. We only had a couple of minutes to discuss it and then I switched topic to dream.

But the thing is, I doubt if my T will bring this up again and so I can pretend it never happened and we can all live happily ever after (as long as jerko doesn't flip the switch again while I'm in session)

I wouldn't know which forum to post about consciousness, mind, brain stuff. Maybe I'll just send PM to those who are interested in such a discussion.