How to keep trying when t is pushing, not just supporting?

Sorry for so many posts yesterday and today. Sigh.

My last session was not as supportive as I wish. I kind of expected that since I had an immediate problem to discuss. T was not overwhelmingly critical, and he was somewhat supportive, but he told me to see the other person's side of the problem too. I knew it would be hard for me to tolerate much stepping back and being objective since it was an immediate problem where the other person could have been very hurtful to me, and the other person didn't have much to loose. I'm very lucky it turned out, later after my session, that the other person gave me much less of a problem than I had reason to think they were going to. But I'm left feeling a little hurt by t not fully supporting me.

I guess I'm wondering if other people experience sessions where you think the t is pushing you more than working on building trust? Objectively, I know the things t said about seeing the other person's side are reasonable. But it's hard not to just feel hurt and unaccepted by t, and to think about stopping therapy. Anyone know of ways to keep optimistic that a t cares more about trying to help than that s/he is indifferent, when s/he pushes you to think differently? Or, maybe the issue is that people in general care- or that it's worth trying to do the things t says if it's difficult. How do you hang on to believing that (if i'm making any sense)? Because I suppose eventually, when therapy gets finished, it shouldn't matter so much whether t cares, right?

It DOES matter whether T cares. If i were you i would bring this up next session. The T is your counselor not the other persons, and maybe you need more than just seeing things from the other persons perspective. Sometimes we have to tell our T's what we need. :-) they aren't always as smart/insightful as we'd like them to be.

thanks especially for replying at this hour!

well, idk, I'm right on the edge between thinking t is probably right and thinking I needed him to support me more. All he said is to be curious about the other person's perspective, and that he thinks there's usually some truth in it. If the other person had given me a hard time, being curious about her perspective instead of focusing on defending myself could have been a bad idea I guess though.

Since I only go every two weeks, I never have time to bring up all the stuff I could from previous sessions and the new things that come up. But I guess it's likely this will still be at the top of my agenda in 2 weeks.

It's such a fine line... on one hand, therapy is about the client's personal reality. But on the other, it's about exploring where that comes from, which sometimes means stepping outside of the client's mind for just little bit.

There are definitely sessions where things have been just too charged for me to step outside and I want to scream at T, "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ON MY SIDE!" Sometimes it's just too much -- maybe you can work out a way to deal with this with your T.... when your emotions are too big to step away from, maybe you can just say, "I'm sorry, I just can't think about that right now, I need to deal with the things that *I* am feeling." And then you can talk about that first.

In the end, I'm actually very happy that my T doesn't automatically take my side. I do think it means that he cares... because if he just goes only by my interpretation of a situation, he may be ignoring a really important aspect of that situation that could be helping me feel and do better.

The thing is, seeing something from someone else's perspective doesn't mean seeing them as RIGHT. Sometimes I'll talk about something my mom did that made me feel awful, and he'll say, "Do you have any idea where she might have been coming from?" And I know that he asks that not because he thinks she was right or could have been right, but to highlight to me that what she did was not my fault and not deserved, and was rather a result of her failing to deal with her own issues.

Another example: my current boss is kind of a jerk. And for a while he has been purposely impeding my progress in my career because it is advantageous for HIM if he does so (not specifically hurting ME, just not doing the things that will help me... it's a long story and I assure you it is very boring). Of course, he does not say these things to me explicitly. Rather, he offers bizarre excuses for not being helpful. However, because I can see it from his (unethical and most certainly WRONG) perspective, I can choose my battles wisely, and come up with strategies that will satisfy both my needs and his ego. It's a crummy situation, and his actions make me angry... but understanding them does help me, as there IS truth to his point of view (it's just that "true" is not the same as "ethical"). The advice I receive from people who ignore EITHER his point of view OR mine has been pretty useless so far. It's only when the people I go to consider both that they are able to be helpful.

I hope that's addressing what you're asking. Perhaps it would more in real time if you said, "I'll talk about this person's perspective, but I need to know that whatever you do or say with it, you're doing and saying it to support ME"?

T2 pushed me in our last session (we've only had 4 so far) and I went into a rage that night.

Now I have to go back and say, please try to keep in mind who you are dealing with, T, I don't know you and am starting out with a trust meter on zero. It's going to be very embarrassing and I can just foresee that I will apologize 98473763 times but ya know what, I don't think I should have to spend time saying it. just my $0.02.

Going into this second therapy I had resolved to try harder to give T2 the benefit of the doubt, guess it's time to work on that.

My T admits he is pretty pushy. He is really supportive as well, and I was in a deep, dark hole when I started, so I needed someone who would keep pushing me to get me out of that hole. I'm not sure we have had a session since the first few where there was not some combination of supporting AND pushing.

Sally is dead on. There has to be a balance. Therapy, IMO, can't just be about supporting us in our decisions, but helping us understand why we make them. Sometimes that involves taking a very very hard look at ourselves.

It happens occasionally that we don't care much for what we see and some of our choices. It's okay. That's why we do it. To improve ourselves.

All in all, when I think of the people that have helped me the most, it's those that have the ability to push me to be better, AND, help me to love myself right where I am.

If it's all one or the other, believe me, I would run.

My T is often very pushy. No, it's not easy, but if he just agrees with me all the time when my thinking is truly not clear, then I don't learn anything. I guess for me the trust building is I trust my T to be completely straightforward and honest with me, even when I don't really want to hear it.

Yesterday he pushed -- HARD -- about this depression I've slipped into. I was unwilling to see where it is coming from. He could have left me to continue to suppress my thinking and talked about something else or told me I was right, there is no reason for me to feel this way. But he knew that wasn't the reality and pushed me to look at what was really going on. It wasn't fun. It was incredibly anxiety making, but today I DO have a clearer idea of what is happening to me.

My T has been pushy lately. I need it, and I often remind him to keep at it. if he doesn't push me I will never get better. He did cause me to yell once yesterday, and made me pretty rageful the rest of the day. BUT he is equally supportive and caring. He balances its all well.

I think this is the perpetual balancing act for Ts: finding a place between validating and challenging. Constant validation might feel nice but we'd be in therapy forever licking our wounds. Too much challenge and we're out of there, never to return.

T and I used to argue about this quite a lot, and there were times when I'd tell her to slide back down the see saw (towards validation). Sometimes she listened, sometimes the impasse lasted for weeks. We already had a trusting relationship though. I think if you're seeing T's pushing as the opposite of building trust, that's more of a problem. I think that challenge/pushing can only be effective from within a trusting relationship, and that Ts should always prioritise building trust, since we know it's the therapeutic relationship which accounts for the bulk of therapy's effects.

I'm not mature enough yet to sit still for this kind of thing.

And as far as I can see, my T only does this when she thinks I am in the wrong.

I think it's good to know your bias. If you tend to be soft hearted or tend to take the blame, a therapist who wants to look at everything as you, the individual's, fault is not going to be helpful (I don't mean you here- I mean like, anybody). Like in psychoanalysis (and I'm not dissing it, or at least not trying to, I love the theory behind it) I've noticed that everything is attributed to the individual. If you have a conflict, it's ultimately related to an aspect of your character or functioning. But there are other schools of therapy that say social realities shape our experiences. Sometimes an annoying person is just an annoying person. So there are therapists and schools of therapy that would have a completely different explanation for the event. Who is to say which one is right or wrong. You can put your trust in them as you choose.

Yes, a balance between pushing and support is important. Yes, every relationship requires both.

But pushing and support also depend on how you understand the event, and how the T conceives of the intervention. A T can be one hundred percent validating of your feelings and reactions. The "challenging" or "pushing" part doesn't have to necessarily center on "seeing it from the other person's perspective." I mean, if someone tends to lack empathy, that would probably be a useful exercise to try in therapy. But "pushing" can be pushing one to brainstorm solutions to the conflict and implement them, or suggesting behavioral exercises (or breathing exercises, or whatever) that feel uncomfortable because it's the first time trying. At least that is my take on how to build trust. I would way way prefer that kind of balance, between being validating and trying to fix the problem.

Yes Yes Yes!!!!! He has been pushing me to live healthier and he has been a hard@$$ about it too. I think the T gauges if you are in a stable place and then chooses to strike!

I know I need to be pushed but I despise it.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. It is helpful. I've meant to reply more individually, but I'm at least going to reply to some posts here.

gc, em and mkc, it's a help to read I'm not the only one who is tolerating some pushing and "not liking what I see" sometimes. When I wonder if I'm weird for putting up with it, or thinking I should, it helps to know other people are doing it too.

Improving, could you explain what you mean by therapeutic relationship here? Could you explain how to know when the trust building is enough? I don't suppose there are easy answers to those questions, but if you see this and can think of any response, I appreciate it.