How do you know?

How do you know when you are talking about serious things that need to be talked about (IE related to the relationship) and when you are just avoiding (and possibly causing problems to avoid) difficult issues? My T said that she will call me on it when she thinks it is happening, but I'm not sure now. I'm not sure of what is happening. I'm not sure when or if I am creating drama to avoid topics. We have so many different irons in the fire it seems like none of them get done. We skip around from session to session. I really try not to, but my T lets me pick the topic and it ends up happening. So I dip my toe into one topic, and then next week I can't get myself to go back to it. So it waits around awhile before we get back to it. I feel like I'm never going to be done.

I have no idea. I find myself as confused as you. I think T's believe that whatever comes up is the most important at that moment in some way or another.

I am fairly new to therapy but, after reading multipe posts I have decided to journal my thought, memories and feeleings and then use that as a starting point for my sessions.

I think, in this you may just have to trust your T to call you on avoidance behaviors if she sees them happening.

With my T, I told her upfront that some topics are especially hard for me, and I know I will avoid them. I asked her not to let me avoid them, and she's managed to bring them up even if it's just for 5 minutes in every session. Maybe you could ask your T to do something similar. Or, maybe you could ask your T to help guide you in to discussing some of the topics you think you might be avoiding.

I too am experiencing the many irons in the fire feeling, and I do wonder sometimes if I'll ever manage to fully address everything and if I'll ever be "done." It's something I've decided I need to bring up with my T.

good advice BR, thanks

My T said that she would look out for my avoidance, and brings these things up in session. She wouldn't allow my to keep avoiding. But I still feel like it is my responsibility that I don't avoid these things. I don't know how to keep myself from avoiding things. They are SO hard to talk about. I feel like I'm failing in T.

That's a good description of how I am and my therapy is. I definitely work on some topics in order to avoid others that are harder and more painful. I think that is human nature to avoid pain, so be easy on yourself, googley. If I really want to work on something that is lurking but I can't bring myself to, I ask for T's help in bringing up "a topic I want to work on" at the next session. He always remembers. If I don't say that to him, he will let me bring up whatever I want to work on. I don't create drama or talk about our relationship, but I have plenty of other ways to avoid the painful issues! I suggest telling your T what you have said here and also enlisting her help in sticking on a particular topic from one session to the next if you need that. My T is very patient and won't push me to work on something as he thinks I will bring it up when it is right for me. But he will help me raise a topic if I ask. He also trusts me to tell him to stop if it gets too painful and I really can't continue. There is always another session.

Can you tell your therapist what you wrote in your first post here?

My therapist never does that. She always waits for me to speak first. If I want to talk about something, I have to bring it up. She never even reminds me what happened last week.

I believe all things are connected in a way and if you are over in this corner working on this problem for a bit/session, what you learn will transfer to the other corner and another problem. At first, when it seems there are so many different areas and problems it is hard to imagine that any will get solved/go away but over time they do get smaller or gather themselves together and relate better to one another so you can see there are actually fewer problems.

Our brains/psyches/unconscious know how to help heal us and giving them their head so they can discuss what they choose is a good tactic; it's like studying dreams or other unconscious phenomenon to see what they tell us. Learning to trust our minds and bodies to show how to heal us instead of letting our intellect get in there and boss things around like it knows what it's doing :-) worked well for me.

Healing is a sprial event not an A-B type of thing. The confusion inside does express itself like this for a long while. Its a way of getting the therapist to feel how tide up inside we feel too.