[sjkero]

how much you want to call him/her out of the blue during the week, for no reason, just to talk to them, almost as you would a friend?

how jealous you are that they have other clients, friends, and family who take up their time?

how upset it makes you to know they have a life outside of you?

how much you just want to be friends, and that your need for his/her affection is stressing you out even more than the issues you went into therapy for?

these are HUGE issues for me, and i don;t know how to bring them up in session. i feel i need to though. i'm so scared of the response to any/all of these. i'd love to know if anyone has ever told their t these things, and how the conversations unfolded. thanks in advance, PC peeps

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by sjkero

how much you want to call him/her out of the blue during the week, for no reason, just to talk to them, almost as you would a friend?

how jealous you are that they have other clients, friends, and family who take up their time?

how upset it makes you to know they have a life outside of you?

how much you just want to be friends, and that your need for his/her affection is stressing you out even more than the issues you went into therapy for?

these are HUGE issues for me, and i don;t know how to bring them up in session. i feel i need to though. i'm so scared of the response to any/all of these. i'd love to know if anyone has ever told their t these things, and how the conversations unfolded. thanks in advance, PC peeps

all my therapists have told me I could call them anytime. So I never worried about whether I should call them or not out of the blue. I have never been jealous of my therapists private life. my physicians have all had their own private lives so why not my therapists and psychiatrists.. its just something I have always assumed about my therapists and have never worried about it and have never been jealous about. the only influences/thoughts I got surrounding the topic of my therapists was.. maybe some day I will be a therapist too. and with many yrs of schooling and work...that become a reality.

There was one case where I became "attached" to a therapist. When she saw my "attachment" she made it clear to me she and I would never be a couple, someday when I wasnt her client anymore we could become friends because NY does allow treatment providers of any kind to become friends after there is no business client/ treatment provider relationship.

considering Im still seeing that therapist our becoming friends though a possibility will have to wait.

[rainbow8]

Yes, I've told my T most of what you asked.

how much you want to call him/her out of the blue during the week, for no reason, just to talk to them, almost as you would a friend?

I sometimes email her the way I would a friend and she doesn't object. I've told her that I wish she were my friend and that if she weren't my T, I'd want to invite her and her family to dinner! She thanked me and smiled, but I don't remember what else she said. I felt better telling her. She knows how much I like her and she's okay with it.

how jealous you are that they have other clients, friends, and family who take up their time?

It's easier to talk about these things with my T because I came to her with "attachment to my Ts" as my main problem, my pattern, that I wanted help with. So I've either emailed my feelings first, or just told her. Your T won't be shocked; it's expected that we have strong feelings for our Ts. I told my T that I wanted to break down the doors to her house, including she and her H's bedroom door. I said I didn't like to think about other clients, that I'm her "only one". I told her I was jealous of her because of her H's job. She lets me talk, accepts what I feel, and we usually end of talking about how I can get those things I want, in MY life.

how upset it makes you to know they have a life outside of you?

I don't know if I've said that, but I've told her that I hate the word "client" and that I'm "her job". She knows!

how much you just want to be friends, and that your need for his/her affection is stressing you out even more than the issues you went into therapy for?

I've told her that I wish we could be friends, but often the child parts want her to be Mommy, and that I hate this "transference stuff". Since it IS the main issue for me, it doesn't stress me out extra, if that makes sense.

I think you should grit your teeth, or write it or email it--all of your feelings because they are pretty normal for therapy, and it would be productive to discuss them with your T. It's not so bad, really, to talk to your T about your feelings for him/her (oops, I forgot which). I know you can do it!!!

[karebear1]

There have been days when I have called her to see how she is and to tell her I'm doing really well.

I've also told her that I feel like I have known her much longer than I've actually known her and that we were meant to be friends. She didn't seem to mind this at all. She may just be going along with me- I don't know, but it's honestly what I feel, and while I have hesitated in the past to be still about, I did finally decide to say something.

Yes
No
No
Yes.

I don't really have an issue with the middle two. In fact, when my best friend needed a therapist, I was kind of excited about introducing her and my T. My anxiety was that he would like her BETTER, because she is in fact much cooler and nicer than I am, but not that he just has other clients in general.

I got a little upset the first time I saw a photo of T and his wife on his facebook page (which I creep on, and am a bit ashamed about doing) because she was sitting on his lap in the photo. Because of the whole CSA thing, I am SO NOT a lap-sitter. I mentioned even once to my T that I don't even sit on my husband's lap unless I'm desperate to get . . .well, you know. I'm guessing the whole lap sitting thing doesn't mean the same thing to T's wife that it does to me, but still hated seeing a photo of her on his lap.

I did tell him that I am totally creepy about him. He wanted to know in what way. I told him about wanting to call him EVERY day. He said I cannot call him every day, but I can call him more than I do. So, I said, "It's okay to have creepy thoughts, just not to act on them, got it." He then insisted it wasn't creepy to want to call him every day, it was just a sign I was starved for emotional intimacy. I then puked a little in my mouth over the intimacy word and got really ticked at him.

I also told him about wanting to be friends and being stressed by it. He told me he could picture us being friends down the road and to stop worrying about it. Some folks on the board were a little concerned about how open he was about wanting to be friends also, but I found it enormously helpful and was able to just put those stresses out of my head then and concentrate on therapy. I know that others have had the opposite reaction.

[unaluna]

funny you should bring this up just now. I asked T a couple of weeks ago, is the reason we all want to join T's family because our families are so cruddy? (He goes, oh, do you all? idjit. YES!) Then I felt a sign of healing was when we felt WE had something to give to T, enough to share, something of value, and that we good enough that someone else WOULD want something from us - that we don't have cooties.

I'm gonna have to start a thread on cooties one of these days.

anyway, T texted me last night at the end of the game (super bowl). we talk about sports a lot, he knows I love Eli. Still, we RARELY text, and it's always been initiated by me. I was like, this doesn't mean anything. Then I thought, as he always says, is he texting me as my T or as my boyfriend? The answer obviously is, as my T. So it DOES have meaning, it's not nothing, as my mother always insisted everything was - "that doesn't mean anything." You get all A's, your brother teases you, nobody plays with you, you feel bad, you threw up at school, you're full, you can't breathe? None of that means anything. There is nothing to be done about it.

Whereas with T - everything means something. Something can be done about everything, even if it's just talking about it.

[wheeler]

Yes to all your questions and more! This therapy-relationship stuff is really, really hard, and can be very draining. But, and I hate to admit it, talking about it with her has helped. Everytime this kind of stuff happens, or I have 'crazy thoughts' and I eventually find a way to talk to her about it, I feel better, and the relationship seems stronger.

It's hard, but for me if I'm able to get out some stuff, she can usually help with the rest. Like 'What About Bob?' take baby steps, and hopefully your T can guide you.

[sjkero]

Originally Posted by wheeler

Yes to all your questions and more! This therapy-relationship stuff is really, really hard, and can be very draining. But, and I hate to admit it, talking about it with her has helped. Everytime this kind of stuff happens, or I have 'crazy thoughts' and I eventually find a way to talk to her about it, I feel better, and the relationship seems stronger.

It's hard, but for me if I'm able to get out some stuff, she can usually help with the rest. Like 'What About Bob?' take baby steps, and hopefully your T can guide you.

you're right... it's all about baby steps... but the first baby step is so so so hard... and i don't know how to do it. i KNOW i need to talk to her about it, but i am so nervous and uncomfortable about this topic, more so than ANYTHING else! i don't know how to take the first step, i don't know what words should leave my lips. i know people will suggest to just start talking and see what happens, but i am SUCH a planner... and i need to figure out a way to bring this up without sounding crazy. word choice is such a big deal for me. especially because i want to ease into this, not come out with everything. god why is this so hard... i have session tonight, in a few hours actually, so any advice is greatly appreciated because i DO want to mention this, but i don't know HOW

[unaluna]

I often start sessions nowadays with, "this person on psychocentral wrote in about blah blah blah..." then I say how the person is similar and different to me. It's the same trick as, "my 'friend' has this problem..." The first time I did this, saying it was PC, I really did not realize it was really also MY issue until I was more than half-way through it - then we both realized what I was doing and we started laughing so hard - and I am as big a perfectionist as the next neurotic, so...

[karebear1]

No..... WAIT!

Are you saying I'm neurotic???

[rainbow8]

You're probably in your session already. I was going to say to give her a note with some of it written out, to get started if you can't any other way.

I hope you got some of it out today. I'm thinking of you!

[likelife]

I haven't said any of those things, but I have SO wanted to! I go back and forth between trying to believe that all of those things are a natural extension of the kind of caring relationship that I have with my therapist and beating myself up for even wanting/thinking/feeling such things in the first place.

I hope that you're able to find a way to talk with your therapist about them.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by karebear1

No..... WAIT!

Are you saying I'm neurotic???

I said, as the NEXT neurotic - weren't you the PREVIOUS neurotic?? (i knew SOMEONE was gonna git me for that!) Actually, didn't they delete neurotic from the DSM way back when, like they are gonna do with narcissist? So everybody's neurotic, everybody's narcissistic? The new normal? What's next, bipolar?