support here and in therapy

I also see a difference in threads where the OP writes something about themselves versus threads which are more general discussion. In threads where OP is like "my appointment or life or therapist is not going well" get a different response from "What do you see x as OR how do you do y".

... discussing this to the end of the session and my non-native therapist, after gently saying, "We have to stop now. . ." asked, "What is a weed whacker?" Visions in my head of not being "understood" but then I realized she had listened to me (I could see it in her posture and face and "attention" to me) and heard my fear and confusion and was "there" with me so I gave her "credit" for that

Further - in terms of support maybe there is a difference for those who gain strength or succor through outward showing of it in direct and effusive ways and those of us who seek less of it and in more prickly ways.

What is a prickly way to support you, Stoppy?
Teasing you about your name seems to work, but what else?

PC reminds me of one big dysfunctional family...

...a group of people trying to find authenticity, answers, and healing.

I am still with him and fell in love with him 7 years ago......I may have to love him forever (LOL) if I don't find another man and fall in love with....the t is "unavailable" as he states......I wanted to tell him that NO ONE is unavailable, LOL...grins

Do people really think that disagreeing with someone is being unsupportive? Can't you disagree with someone's behavior, while still supporting them emotionally? Sort of -- I feel for you, I understand you're in horrible pain and I'm sorry. Maybe it would hurt less if you did X instead of Y? Or, "can you see that if you keep doing X, Y is going to happen EVERY time? so maybe you should stop doing X." Isn't that support also?

In terms of knowing how it helps...the changes can be slow, insidious. On the outside I don't seem very different than I was 4 years ago. I'm way less irritable thanks to medication, but otherwise my life "looks" the same. If I think about it, I now can think more outside the box when I am upset by someone, that it isn't always my fault. I have gained greater coping skills in dealing with stress. All of 2011 was horrible for me, and I don't know how I couldn't have gotten through it if I didn't have my T there to be calm and rational. To be objective when I couldn't see past my own two feet. She has shown me that I can handle things better than I think I can. I have taken greater risks than I normally would have if I had not been in therapy.

Those aren't any big, great changes, but they are changes.

I've just about come to the conclusion, at least in my own therapy, that my therapist really doesn't actually do that much. I'm not even sure there is a technique at play at all, much less a manipulation. ....
Seems to me as though I go in and just tell him what's going on. If there is a problem, and I know what it is, he helps me to sort out fact from fiction in my head, from there, I go on.

.........It's nothing I couldn't really do for myself, it's just so much easier to see when there is someone on the outside pointing out what's in.

Um... yes. That's natural... isn't it?

If people say, "I'm upset", we assume they are asking for support and that's what we try to offer.

Send to the doghouse with examples of what bombed for you. the watch dog is a great observer ....and scavenges all techniques, good bad and indifferent. The Watch dog does better in real life where good deeds done anonymously (and dirty deeds, done dirt cheap) have more salience than on a virtual board or in the room where lots of strategies seem fake.

Am I terribly off base?