My Attachment to T Makes No Sense

And you've reached that state of no ambiguity and much clarity? So, it's in the attention to 'feelings'? No, you also state that you're still in utter confusion.

Yeah, it's almost a year now that I've been doing this. I'm just not sure that this whole attachment thing to T really helps resolve my other issues. I keep going back and forth in my assessment.

On the up side - I think she's flying back into the country today. Even though I won't see her for days, there's a real sense of security knowing she's close by again. Why? I haven't the slightest...

No, absolutely no clarity and much ambiguity remain even after 20 months - that post is only todays theory, I am sure my brain will work on another one overnight ...watch this space.

I don't think there is ever going to be "no ambiguity". I remember once hearing that one aspect of mental health is the ability to tolerate ambiguity. There is so much ambiguity in therapy--do I really like my T or is it just transference, is it just the safe place I like and not really him/her, etc. + umpteen other therapy examples. This is a mirror for the ambiguity in all of our relationships and life. Heck, I'm a scientist, and what we come to know is that we can never really know much with absolute certainty, and we get really comfortable with knowing that because we deal with it every day. We have models and ideas of how things work and approximations but we don't have certainty. (People who aren't scientists often don't get that about science because they have a vision of science as being about facts and absolute certainties.) I think this background has actually helped me tolerate the ambiguity of therapy. My T is from the humanist tradition, like Carl Rogers. We have been on a journey and there has been so much positive there. There are warm and strong feelings we share together that help me on my exploration. I don't have a need to look too directly at all of this right in its eye. I can just bask in it and not have to examine it too closely. It feels really good and it helps me make progress and move closer to achieving my potential. If I looked too directly at it, maybe it would all melt away, or maybe I would be blinded--like staring straight into the sun. So I'd rather just feel the warmth on my skin and benefit from it--and not hurt my eyes.

That's just my way of looking at it. You are casting about to find your own way. Good!

That's very interesting, sunrise. I also would have thought, as a scientist, you would want to be more like skysblue and me, wanting to "figure it all out" and not have any ambiguity. I like your attitude.

I'm so eager to talk to my T about this. But I also have other stuff I want to talk to her about when she returns. Oh my - how to best use the 50 minutes.

But, when I imagine my conversation with T, I can imagine what she'd say. She'd say, 'trust the process'. She has said when I've asked her if she's seen people who really make changes and become authentic to themselves she has replied (and I have this saved on a voicemail to replay as often as I can)

"Yes, I have seen people make amazing changes and become authentic to themselves. But it's not a linear path. The mind likes us to be on a linear path so that we can see progress that we can measure and we could see ourselves progress from one level to the next.

"But it's a mysterious and roundabout process and there comes a shift eventually without us even knowing it's shifted. So, yes, people do make progress."

And, to be honest, I have experienced that myself. Some issues I've addressed in session have just, like she has said, mysteriously shifted in their importance or meaning to me. The facts have not changed but my perceptions or my ability to handle them have changed dramatically. And I cannot explain why. So, she's right - it is not linear nor easily understood.

Very good point. Maybe I'm scared of trusting it too much. Or maybe I'm worried about a dependency that will go too far. Or maybe I can't believe it's real. Or maybe I think I'll fall apart if I give in to it. Or maybe I'm employing a survival instinct. Or maybe I think I'll want more than is possible. Or maybe ...

aarrrgghhhhhh!!!!!

I think it's all of those things, and probably more skysblue! And it probably won't help you feel any better, but I think your t maybe right, it is a process. I'm only starting to see that now, although by tomorrow I may feel something totally different!

From one crazy person to another, it sounds like your doing, and thinking, and feeling all the right stuff. Keep talking.

My brain is on overdrive trying to figure this out. It seems like I need to understand it before I see my T again after her (long) absence.

The attachment is fantasy-based. It has nothing to do with reality. See, there's a hint of something in session that is recognizable. It's a hint of pure safety and pure love. This hint is only a small signpost of what we must have experienced at one time (in the womb?). Or what we know is a possibility of an experience? A deepest yearning.

The fantasy part of it is that pure safety and pure love will not be possible with T. T is a human being like any other. But, since she has been trained to provide what looks like safety and love, of course my emotions respond strongly to that pull.

The goal is to know how to access the safety and love that exists inside of us and T has shown a bit what that looks like. But it is not her as a person that I'm attached to, it's that promise, that invitation to find it within.

Now, of course, I'm talking only about my own feelings and my own experience. I'm not suggesting that T's don't provide much needed help with serious emotional problems. It's just that since I don't think I suffer from serious problems, I need to understand this attachment. Thanks for listening.

Sorry to all for continually bringing this topic up but it helps me to 'think out loud' and that's accomplished by putting my thoughts out there/here into cyberspace.

This is what I believe - everyone is on a journey- a journey to find their true selves/core selves. Now, some people don't know they're on a journey or that they could be on that journey. I envision a dirt pathway with lots of people walking on it. Some are racing forth - in sprints or in a steady run; others are ambling and just noticing their surroundings and hardly aware that they might consider moving forward; some have stopped completely and have made camp by the side of the road. They have forgotten that they're on a journey and either don't notice that people are passing by or don't understand where they're going.

So, those of us in therapy, it seems to me, are the people who are moving on this pathway. We are determined to continue on and although many times we have forgotten the purpose of our journey, there is something that compels us to move forward.

And, of course, this journey is like any other journey. There sometimes is confusion about the direction to be going; there are setbacks for one reason or another; there is disillusionment when the going gets tough.

So, I'm seeing now that attachment to T is attachment to the journey to one's True Self. Life, with all its distractions and all its commotion tends to get us off the path. And the path is forgotten so easily. Routine sets in, daily tasks to be attended to, inherent drama to maneuver, and on and on. "What path?", we may ask.

And then we go to T and we're reminded. "Oh yes, that path."

But the allure of struggling to make progress on the path ebbs and flows. Trying to cross the flooded walkway, attempting to climb over the slide, terrible storms to withstand and on and on. Wouldn't it just be better to stop and make camp? Who ever said we have to be on this journey? Isn't comfort - even relatively 'uncomfortable' comfort better than this pain of keeping on keeping on?

So, with T we go into session with the goal of finding ourselves. I believe that no matter what our particular challenge is psychologically, in the end if we can touch and meet our core selves, our goal will have been reached.

There is a huge attraction to being on this path. So, therefore a huge attraction to meeting with T. It is in session that we are given the invitation to strip away our outer coverings and dig deeply. This offers an almost euphoric response in us.

But, it also arouses the terror - the terror of really finding out about ourselves. As T has pointed out to me, we must bring out into the open the unacknowledged and unresolved parts of ourselves. We must face the shadow. And that is grueling and that is painful. We fear what will happen when we allow those 'unacceptable' parts of ourselves to be seen.

And, thus is the ongoing internal conflict between loving/hating T. But, for me now, I see that she is essential for me so that I will continue walking on the path of self-discovery. Without her the veil of forgetfulness drops too easily over me. I need her now and that's o.k.

The world is full of people who judge but don't listen.

Is it silly to have feelings for those rare people who listen but don't judge? I don't think so.

Ts are generally warm, dedicated, caring, gentle, honest people. What's not to love?