freaky t dream

1. Why the need to reinvent the wheel? You don't do that in your occupation. 2. Aren't you setting yourself up for failure, if the only way a person can understand attachment is by doing it, but you set yourself a pre-condition of understanding attachment before you will even attempt it?
"Leap and the net will appear." What will it take for a person to cross the threshold from stranger to helper? Usually it's the approach / rupture / repair process inherent in therapy, but you don't report any repair resulting in a closer r/s. You said you asked her to tell you what to say to make therapy work, and she just started asking you misc questions. Did you take that as an answer, or as her ignoring your original question?

1. I do not understand this.

2. i don't believe the only to understand attachment is to do it with a stranger. I am attached some to some other people and it is okay.
3. Madness
4. I can take in information from a stranger. No as far as I know there has been little to no repair and certainly none that results in an interaction I would refer as a relationship. I don't want a
relationship with the woman, I want her knowledge.
5. It could have been either, but the end result is the same.


On the plus side, i just had regular nightmares last night, but with no therapist in sight.

I wonder of your "stranger" and my "blank slate" could be the same thing?

But my gut feeling is they are different.

I think they are different. The t I have seen insists she is not a stranger. No denial of the strange.

You want her knowledge but not a relationship with your T. I don't think that's how therapy works! When I saw my first T, I thought I was supposed to ask her questions like "Dear Abby", and she would answer. That was what I thought therapy was.

If you want her knowledge, just ask someone, could be any T online, the questions you want answered and then read them. Or do you want something more?

You can't turn an apple into an orange. Therapy is the way it is. My T told me, in fact 3 of them told me, that the most important criteria for therapy working is the relationship between T and client. No matter what orientation the T is.

By knowledge, I do not mean dear abby sort of advice. I have heard over and over about the relationship. I did not say I would not have to have one, just I do not want one. If it is required to have some sort of make shift relationship to have therapy work, then I suppose what I have could be labelled a relationship if using the term very loosely. The therapist calls it one. I don't have to like it. And I am able to keep it to a minimum.

I have tried asking other therapists. Some are better at it than others..

As much as I hate my regular nightmares, it was a relief to have the therapist no place around in them last night.

Yeah, I think they are saying you DO have to like it! Hey, I spent almost 30 years not liking my therapists, I think I get where you're coming from, stopdog, seriously. I wish I could communicate it better.

You know, there is kind of a slogan: Therapy - it's the relationship that heals. Where should the emphasis be placed for proper interpretation - on "heals" or "r/s"? Do you see the difference in meaning when you emphasize r/s? That's the point we're trying to get across - it's not having the information that heals, it's having the r/s.

It's like having dinner at a restaurant - no, that chef isn't always going to cook for you, but you do still get nourished, don't you? Your body will still use all the vitamins and calories from that meal. And maybe you can try to cook like that.

The odd part is I don't actually dislike the therapist. She is reasonably non objectionable for the most part.

Normally, because of my meds (Lexapro and Wellbutrin) I have crazy-on-an-acid-trip-soap-opera-like dreams. Not only do I have these wacky dreams, but I remember every. single. detail. I wake up feeling mentally drained because of them. This is the reason why I feel like I want to back to sleep so badly....but I digress.

I had a T dream once too, and it FREAKED me out. I just want some peace in my life and now he's invading my dreams. I'm like you Stopdog, in that I don't understand how the therapist/client "relationship" is supposed to help me. I understand that it needs to happen but I don't know HOW it helps. If anything, it seems to be messing me up MORE. More heartache, more confusion, more of a head ache (that's for sure). More. Of. The. Same. Crap. I don't like the idea of saying what I have with my therapist is a "relationship" because it doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, fit into the very definition of what a relationship is to me. Then again, it's been suggested that I have a very skewed idea of what an actual relationship with someone really means. See, this is the confusion **** is that I'm talking about...

I swear, at least once a month I say I'm quitting. It's gotten to the point where my dh is like, "yeah, whatever you say" when I tell him I'm not going back there.

I actually told my T not that long ago that having a relationship with him is like having an imaginary friend. No one really knows about him (except for dh of course, and 2 of my friends), I never talk about him, I don't "chat" with him about the movie I saw last night, or the great restaurant I found, or where I get my hair cut, etc. I see him once a week, we are intensely focused because we don't have a lot of time, and then POOF! he's gone until next week. In between sessions, he lives in my mind for the most part. And I "talk" to him in my mind; thinking about what he would say if I told him this or that; thinking about what we talked about in the past. When I told him all of this he was all like

This is freaking maddening.

I am very cranky today. Could not sleep for fear of nightmares (i know that sounds crazy) with the therapist in them. I don' t go today because i cancelled when I got home last week from the appointment. I am back to the cure being a lot worse than the disease.

I'm sorry to hear that. When my family calls, I get nightmares, and that makes me very angry. I feel like I don't have a choice when they call me. I hope you will be able to find a place of respite.

I am frustrated because not going used to quell this unpleasant feeling of fear and so forth (I do not have the proper vocabulary to describe it) around the therapist. Now I seem to have it regardless.

I seem like Sir Robin when faced with the rabbit. Would it help to confuse it if I run away more?

This reminds me of the threads that are all cerebral - which I avoid. It always reminds me of what I believe - that healing only occurs when you use your emotions to get there.

I did not really think of this as all that cerebral.
I don't even understand the second part. It seems like all I am these days is a ball of gooey emotion. If my brain were functioning correctly I would be fine.

Emotions that aren't dealt with affect your thinking. After I got most of mine figured/straightened out my thinking improved quite a bit.

Figuring/straightening them out requires focusing/working on them. You can't think your way through it.

I do not know how one would do this without the brain. It does not matter. I cannot figure it out the point of feelings and emotion and therapy and must accept it. I believe my brain will take back over and I will eventually make this emotional crap go away.

I have been told that I need to learn to first identify the emotion and then learn how to productively deal with it. Right now I don't identify, I just stuff it down and ignore and hope it goes away. This is why I have anxiety issues. I'm trying to keep an open mind and work on this but I won't act like it's fun.

Some of the time I feel like an idiot with all of this emotional crap. If anything good comes from my attempts I will let you know. Tonight I feel crazier than ever, so I have nothing positive to report. This does not mean that nothing good will happen... maybe I am just not there yet.

Sorry you are having a bad night too.

I seriously have no idea what most of the talk around this means. How does one look at them or whatever. I thought that was what I was doing. And all there seems to be are these meaningingless repeated phrases about feeling or emotion that make no effing sense.

It's my understanding that it is supposed to work like this (I am sure some emotion-loving person will come correct me if I am wrong. And I mean that in a serious way because this isn't the type of thing I should be explaining to anyone. )

Step 1: I am supposed to notice "Oh, I feel frightened." Or sad. Or mad. Or attached to T. Or attached to the bird sitting on the telephone pole outside my office for all I effing know.

Step 2: I determine why I feel that way. I am frightened because something is reminding me of my childhood. Or I am having a distorted thought. Or I am being chased by a bear. Or I am angry because talking about feelings seems like a waste of time.

Step 3: I determine what steps to take to react to the emotion. Ignoring it because it is pointless is not an option. I decide to acknowledge it and do nothing, talk to a friend, work out, run away from the bear, go make out with that bird sitting on the telephone pole, etc.

The end result is that I am now managing my emotions in a healthy adult manner. I also learn to depend upon others and form healthy attachments. And this means I will be more mentally healthy and feel better. Or so I am told.

I would like to be chased by a bear. That would at least be real and emotion around it would be a rational response.

Courtroom = judgement! I would want to get away too.

You are trying to get the body to do something that it was not designed to do. Geez, you fight nature like crazy.

pbutton, this is pretty close to what my T has been telling me, and what my first T told me. Although my first T wasn't as good at it as my second. My first T would talk about just "feeling the feeling." Great. Fine. NO WAIT, that sucks! What do I DO??? My second T will actually give me practical advice, when you feel X, do Y. Whew. Ok. What if I do Y and it doesn't help? Try A, B, or C. And then what? "Well, then you just have to sit with it." Damnit.

And for what's it's worth, I do feel better managing my emotions in this way. Even with everything that's been going on with me, I am sad and angry, but not in the throes of a huge depression.

It keeps me off of the streets and out of bars.