[KazzaX]

I am going back to this T in a few days so I'm trying to think up some stuff to discuss there.

One thing that she has said a number of times is that "we don't have a relationship" and we need to have one, and this is the reason we have made no progress in 4 months.

So what does "having a relationship" entail? (as far as a T goes, I mean). I go in there and we discuss stuff relating to my mental illness each week - I thought this was the type of relationship we are meant to have? Sort of like it's her job to be there and assist me to get to a certain goal. But apparently not. What else is there that we should be discussing in order to be having the proper relationship?

I am stumped, lol. I asked her but she replied with all this general stuff that didn't really relate to my question and just left me confused..lol.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Kazzax.... when you go to the consultation room and close the door, is there another person in there with you? If so, there is SOME kind of relationship between you; maybe you could examine what it is, and whether it has beneficial elements, or harmful ones.

Whenever we encounter another, we "experience" that other person at several levels... how do you experience yr T?

How do you feel that yr T experiences you? Who is it who comes in T's door? can you describe?

just thinkin

[elliemay]

The therapeutic relationship, IMO, can be also thought of as a therapeutic alliance.

When you think about your therapy, do you think in terms of "we" or "me"?

Often opening oneself up to the notion of "we are in this together" is a very powerful catalyst in therapy.

Just my opinion.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by KazzaX

So what does "having a relationship" entail? (as far as a T goes, I mean). I go in there and we discuss stuff relating to my mental illness each week - I thought this was the type of relationship we are meant to have? Sort of like it's her job to be there and assist me to get to a certain goal. But apparently not. What else is there that we should be discussing in order to be having the proper relationship?
I am stumped, lol. I asked her but she replied with all this general stuff that didn't really relate to my question and just left me confused..lol.

I cannot help you, but I do have the same situaion. I have no idea what to discuss to have the proper relationship and rhe t responses make no sense. The idea of therapeutic alliance remains a mystery to me. If you figure it out, please report back.

[Perna]

I was usually anxious and afraid in T sessions but knew I wanted to share myself and my problems with T and came up with using a mind picture to imagine her next to me like a friend would be instead of across from me like a teacher or business professional would be. One talks "to" the other person in the present tense instead of "about" one's stuff, what happened when you weren't in session or what someone else did.

Perhaps talking about yourself in terms of having a mental illness is a safe place for now? I spent the first year of my therapy talking about this person and that person and not about the feelings I was having in connection to T. Took me ayr or even 2 before I got into 'us'.

[unaluna]

many of us are reluctant to have a r/s w/T because it's not "real", it can't continue, blah blah blah. yet we let the dentist drill a hole in our bad tooth because we trust him to repair it before we leave. We don't just talk about the tooth. Those repeated repairs - experiencing actual pain or even just awkwardness in your dealing with T, TELLING THEM WHERE IT HURTS (it's scaring me just to write that!), and then letting them help you, even if they don't do it perfectly at first, or ever! really, just letting them in, and not feeling like YOU have to handle it on your own because no one else cares and no one else is coming to help. I guess to the point where your baseline attitude finally becomes I belong with people, rather than I have to be alone because people just hurt you.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by Perna

I was usually anxious and afraid in T sessions but knew I wanted to share myself and my problems with T and came up with using a mind picture to imagine her next to me like a friend would be instead of across from me like a teacher or business professional would be. One talks "to" the other person in the present tense instead of "about" one's stuff, what happened when you weren't in session or what someone else did.

I do not do this with my friends either - perhaps that is why the whole thing is so foreign to me.

[pbutton]

Originally Posted by hankster

many of us are reluctant to have a r/s w/T because it's not "real", it can't continue, blah blah blah. yet we let the dentist drill a hole in our bad tooth because we trust him to repair it before we leave. We don't just talk about the tooth. Those repeated repairs - experiencing actual pain or even just awkwardness in your dealing with T, TELLING THEM WHERE IT HURTS (it's scaring me just to write that!), and then letting them help you, even if they don't do it perfectly at first, or ever! really, just letting them in, and not feeling like YOU have to handle it on your own because no one else cares and no one else is coming to help. I guess to the point where your baseline attitude finally becomes I belong with people, rather than I have to be alone because people just hurt you.

This post had a giant impact on me. I can't even comment on it, other than to say thank you.

[KazzaX]

Hi guys, ty for your responses!

Originally Posted by sittingatwatersedge

Kazzax.... when you go to the consultation room and close the door, is there another person in there with you? If so, there is SOME kind of relationship between you; maybe you could examine what it is, and whether it has beneficial elements, or harmful ones.

Whenever we encounter another, we "experience" that other person at several levels... how do you experience yr T?

How do you feel that yr T experiences you? Who is it who comes in T's door? can you describe?

I don't think there are many beneficial or harmful elements. I experience my T as a neutral third party sort of thing. She isn't good or bad, she's just a person who is there to help me.

I'd say that the T experiences me as one of those frustrating clients who nothing works with. Other than that I have no idea. She can't think im too bad otherwise she wouldn't keep booking me appointments. I don't really think much about how she sees me because I know that T's personal opinion on a client is not important, only their professional opinion and so her personal opinion about me is irrelevent.

[KazzaX]

Originally Posted by elliemay

The therapeutic relationship, IMO, can be also thought of as a therapeutic alliance.

When you think about your therapy, do you think in terms of "we" or "me"?

Often opening oneself up to the notion of "we are in this together" is a very powerful catalyst in therapy.

Just my opinion.

Yeah I have always thought of it as we, even though the reality of it is that all of this treatment depends more on me to work, rather than her. I need to be doing the work otherwise nothing is going to work. I just think of her as someone I have recruited to help me with certain problems, because she has knowledge of dealing with these problems.

[KazzaX]

Originally Posted by hankster

many of us are reluctant to have a r/s w/T because it's not "real", it can't continue, blah blah blah. yet we let the dentist drill a hole in our bad tooth because we trust him to repair it before we leave. We don't just talk about the tooth. Those repeated repairs - experiencing actual pain or even just awkwardness in your dealing with T, TELLING THEM WHERE IT HURTS (it's scaring me just to write that!), and then letting them help you, even if they don't do it perfectly at first, or ever! really, just letting them in, and not feeling like YOU have to handle it on your own because no one else cares and no one else is coming to help. I guess to the point where your baseline attitude finally becomes I belong with people, rather than I have to be alone because people just hurt you.

The bit i dont understand is this. She tells me to "let her in" yet I have told her all about myself for the last 4 months. She knows everything about me and my mental illness. So how is this not "letting her in"??? I don't go around telling people on the street about my mental illness - just her. She is the only one.

How can I explain to her that she is already "IN" and theres nothing else she doesn't know? I think she believes that there is more I'm hiding and doesn't believe me when I tell her im an open book in therapy. Just because there isn't much to me doesn't mean that I'm hiding things.

Sounds like we already have an appropriate relationship and she just doesn't see it.

[Chopin99]

Description of my therapeutic relationship lately:

Me: "I was diagnosed BPD and OCPD in 2004."

T: "You are not BPD or OCPD."

Me: "I fear abandonment, lack self-identity, vacillate between love and hate, and obsess about all of the above."

T: "You are not BPD or OCPD."

Me: *Freaks out and obsesses about perceived abandonment by T.*

T:

Me: "So what do you think about BPD or OCPD now? How about now? And now?"

Me:

[KazzaX]

Originally Posted by earthmamma

Perhaps talking about yourself in terms of having a mental illness is a safe place for now? I spent the first year of my therapy talking about this person and that person and not about the feelings I was having in connection to T. Took me ayr or even 2 before I got into 'us'.

I'm there for treatment for my mental illness. So its what we should be talking about all the time i'm pretty sure.

[KazzaX]

Originally Posted by Chopin99

Description of my therapeutic relationship lately:

Me: "I was diagnosed BPD and OCPD in 2004."

T: "You are not BPD or OCPD."

Me: "I fear abandonment, lack self-identity, vacillate between love and hate, and obsess about all of the above."

T: "You are not BPD or OCPD."

Me: *Freaks out and obsesses about perceived abandonment by T.*

T:

Me: "So what do you think about BPD or OCPD now? How about now? And now?"

Me:

lol

Gotta love that "you are not your disability" line

[Chopin99]

Originally Posted by KazzaX

lol

Gotta love that "you are not your disability" line

No, what you gotta love is the fact that my T really doesn't see me as either one. She's diagnosed me with adjustment disorder.

I am not my disability because I don't have a disability. I'm thinking that might change soon. I plan to ask her tomorrow. That oughta be fun!

[skysblue]

I think that possibly your T was talking about the therapeutic relationship in regards to attachment to the T. David Wallin in his excellent study "Attachment in Psychotherapy" explains how important the relationship between client and T are for growth and healing.

All of us have attachment patterns that stem from our earliest caregivers. If we did not experience secure attachment with them, we suffer from anxious or avoidant behavior patterns. Attaching to our therapists gives us the opportunity to 'earn' secure attachment.

Some excerpts:

"Therapy is transformative through relationship. The patient's attachment relationship to the therapist is foundational and primary. It supplies the secure base that is the sine qua non for exploration, development and change. This sense of a secure base arises from the attuned therapist's effectiveness in helping the patient to tolerate, modulate, and communicate difficult feelings. By virtue of the felt security generated through such affect-regulating interactions, the therapeutic relationship can provide a context for accessing disavowed or dissociated experiences within the patient that have not - and perhaps cannot- be put into words.

"The relationship is also a context within which the therapist and the patient, having made room for these experiences, can attempt to make sense of them. Accessing, articulating, and reflecting upon dissociated and unverbalized feelings, thoughts, and impulses strengthens the patient's 'narrative competence' and help to shift in a more reflective direction the patient's stance toward experience. Overall, the relational/emotional/reflective process at the heart of an attachment-focused therapy facilitates the integration of disowned experience, thus fostering in the patient a more coherent and secure sense of self.

"Very much as the original attachment relationship(s) allowed the child to develop, it is ultimately the new relationship of attachment with the therapist that allows the patient to change. Such a relationship provides a secure base that enables the patient to take the risk of feeling what he is not supposed to feel and knowing what he is not supposed to know.

"The therapist's role here is to help the patient both to deconstruct the attachment patterns of the past and to construct new ones in the present.

"The patterns played out in our first attachments are reflected subsequently not only in the ways we relate to others, but also in our habits of feeling and thinking.

"Correspondingly, the patient's relationship with the therapist has the potential to generate fresh patterns of affect regulation and thought, as well as attachment.

"Put differently, the therapeutic relationship is a developmental crucible within which the patient's relation to his own experience of internal and external reality can be fundamentally transformed."

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by KazzaX

The bit i dont understand is this. She tells me to "let her in" yet I have told her all about myself for the last 4 months.

This phrase, 'let them in', in my whole epic poem here!, was the one expression I felt the worst about, the one that felt most like jargon, least like me, the one that I should have edited out, except that I never edit, except for the occasional typo. Did that make it the safest for you? It's like the rest of my post is in a huge blindspot.

I realize this is the 2nd time in 2 days I am "complaining" that the OP seems to not be reading my post. I'm sure I have an overinflated opinion of myself. And yes a lot of times my posts are just bs. But sometimes the response from an OP is SO not what you expect, that you kinda hafta ask, is this resistance, or did you just lightly skim-read my post? Again, composing replies helps me integrate my stuff, so I REALLY appreciate everything OPs do in putting stuff out there, as I seem to be functionally incapable of OP'ing.

[elliemay]

Originally Posted by hankster

many of us are reluctant to have a r/s w/T because it's not "real", it can't continue, blah blah blah. yet we let the dentist drill a hole in our bad tooth because we trust him to repair it before we leave. We don't just talk about the tooth. Those repeated repairs - experiencing actual pain or even just awkwardness in your dealing with T, TELLING THEM WHERE IT HURTS (it's scaring me just to write that!), and then letting them help you, even if they don't do it perfectly at first, or ever! really, just letting them in, and not feeling like YOU have to handle it on your own because no one else cares and no one else is coming to help. I guess to the point where your baseline attitude finally becomes I belong with people, rather than I have to be alone because people just hurt you.

That's it. That's exactly how I experienced it. Hankster you rock.

[KazzaX]

Originally Posted by hankster

I realize this is the 2nd time in 2 days I am "complaining" that the OP seems to not be reading my post. I'm sure I have an overinflated opinion of myself. And yes a lot of times my posts are just bs. But sometimes the response from an OP is SO not what you expect, that you kinda hafta ask, is this resistance, or did you just lightly skim-read my post? Again, composing replies helps me integrate my stuff, so I REALLY appreciate everything OPs do in putting stuff out there, as I seem to be functionally incapable of OP'ing.

I'm sorry but most of what you say goes wayyy over my head. You use a lot of words and concepts that I have no comprehension of, and so I have to sort of guess what you mean. And I must be guessing wrong.. lol. There is not much point me trying to respond to the bits that I don't understand so I just leave them and pick out the bits I do understand and go with that.

[KazzaX]

I think you're right Skysblue. T is talking about attachment probably. I think she doesn't realise that I am attached to her - if i wasn't I wouldnt be going back there each week. I am attached to her in that she is my therapist and I am her client and we need to work together to achieve a goal. We have a therepeautic attachment going on here and have done the whole time.

Should i ask her why she doesn't see this attachment? Or is that a rude question? I am not sure... seems it might be a bit rude but is there some other way I could word it so that its not considered rude.

[skysblue]

Originally Posted by KazzaX

I think you're right Skysblue. T is talking about attachment probably. I think she doesn't realise that I am attached to her - if i wasn't I wouldnt be going back there each week. I am attached to her in that she is my therapist and I am her client and we need to work together to achieve a goal. We have a therepeautic attachment going on here and have done the whole time.

Should i ask her why she doesn't see this attachment? Or is that a rude question? I am not sure... seems it might be a bit rude but is there some other way I could word it so that its not considered rude.

In your attachment do you find yourself working out issues with your T? Some of my fears have been stimulated by T's actions or words. I've been hurt by T and I've been scared of T and I've felt real panic when she's gone on vacation. All of these emotions have been directed at my T. But their foundation and their origins are from my history. They are dysfunctional reactions not based on reality.

So, have you experienced intense emotions towards your T? That's when the real work begins.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by KazzaX

I'm sorry but most of what you say goes wayyy over my head. You use a lot of words and concepts that I have no comprehension of

Oh no, that's not me, that's my buddy sky who uses the big words! i'm the one who spent half my childhood in the dentist's chair, hence all the dentist metaphors... and toothy smilies...

[KazzaX]

Originally Posted by skysblue

In your attachment do you find yourself working out issues with your T? Some of my fears have been stimulated by T's actions or words. I've been hurt by T and I've been scared of T and I've felt real panic when she's gone on vacation. All of these emotions have been directed at my T. But their foundation and their origins are from my history. They are dysfunctional reactions not based on reality.

So, have you experienced intense emotions towards your T? That's when the real work begins.

Intense.. no. I try to keep my opinions to myself because I don't like to judge people. I was pretty irritated that she took a month and a half off for christmas but that was just because it means that my recovery will be delayed even further. It's nothing to do with her as a person... people have christmas holidays. It's life. I get irritated with things she says quite often. But these irritations are just because of my impatience and tendency to demand respect.

So in relation to her herself.. no nothing really. She is neutral so I don't really have an opinion about her. Same with all the other T's ive had. They are there to help me so I can't really complain about that!

[skysblue]

Originally Posted by KazzaX

So in relation to her herself.. no nothing really. She is neutral so I don't really have an opinion about her. Same with all the other T's ive had. They are there to help me so I can't really complain about that!

You wrote: "One thing that she has said a number of times is that "we don't have a relationship" and we need to have one, and this is the reason we have made no progress in 4 months."


I could say that my T is 'neutral' too. But even so, I have reacted to things she's said to me. She is very kind and gentle and empathic but my issues have gotten triggered by her.

So when your T says you don't have a relationship with her, it might be that it is YOU who is seeing everything neutral. She might be wanting you to respond/react to her.

At the beginning of therapy my T said to me to tell her how I feel about anything, even about her. I had wondered what she could possibly mean by that statement. Why would I have any feelings associated with her? Well, bam! - it happened.