Originally Posted by mcl6136
...But now, I am doing something called Life Coaching, which doesn't really include these concepts.

I find myself drawn to my "coach." She is helping me help myself. I have feelings of warmth, ....I glow as I leave her office. I don't want to f her...I'm getting attention, assistance -- things in my life are getting better! I glow!

... For me, the big analysis of transference in the therapy, in the relationship...on and on -- it all prevented me from taking the steps in my life that we necessary for me to actually LIVE.


mcl, I hope it's ok that I've copied some of your post from the romantic feelings page (and also not reproduced it in its entirety)- let me know if not.

I've been thinking a lot about focusing on the past vs.working towards the future, about being process vs. goal directed- about a whole lot of things since mcl started posting about life coaching. Most of my desperation at the moment is about my current situation, and my imagined rubbish future, rather than about the past. There are several areas (work, social, lifestyle, financial, relationships) where with concentrated effort and accountability and encouragement and a big confidence boost, I could be doing much better than I am, and I believe I would feel correspondingly happier. I have tried working on these areas myself, and also tried setting up informal 'working groups' with friends, but I find it hard to be focused and tend to get overwhelmed. T and I also work on these areas on and off, but again because it's not focused and followed up it doesn't go far.

I think the other thing that's inspired this is the tampon thing- T and I spent less than one hour having a very practical discussion about that. But I did it (I did it guys! ). Do I feel less confused or sick or afraid with regards to the penetration phobia? No. Neither do I understand why I have this phobia in the first place. But heck, how important is that when I can use a tampon and go swimming, rather than losing a week of exercise each month.

I'm wondering whether life coaching would fit the bill- though I'm also wondering whether it's directive enough- I do want some advice, and wonder if I want a cross between a life coach and a mentor. But not instead of therapy. For me, the therapeutic relationship is not a strange by-product of therapy. It's a fundamental pattern in my life, and if I weren't experiencing it with T I would start reproducing it in my real life, which I know from the past is much more painful and uncontained. I do believe that I need to keep working on my schemas (patterns of experiencing and relating) and my emotion regulation and my past in order to be happy in any fundamental way- unlike mcl, I don't find that therapy is preventing me from building a life. But I'm frustrated that in the meantime, years are passing and I am not living the way I would like to. I'm constantly terrified it will be too late by the time I am 'healed' enough to make those changes. I'm wondering whether these are complementary processes which can take place alongside each other.

I'm going to ask T about this today, but I wondered what you guys think: what is the balance in your therapy on fundamentally healing yourself vs. working towards concrete goals? Are you 'waiting' to heal before you start the life you want? What would your T say if you brought this up?

[WikidPissah]

I found that comment by MCL interesting as well (THANKS MCL!). I wonder if this is more what I need. I crave guidance, ie: what am I doing wrong and how do I do it right? The whole blank slate thing isn't working well for me. I really need help communicating first though, as I hold back so much.

[PreacherHeckler]

No, I am not waiting to heal before starting the life I want because therapy has taught me that I can't heal without starting the life I want.

[pbutton]

I am healing because I am starting the life that I want.

The way my T does therapy/counselling, it seems to be all inclusive. She says she's going to help me make the most of who I am. That involves working through issues from the past, my situation in the present, and looking at future goals too. In my case it's all a big tangle - mixed in with depression, anxiety, and maybe some kind of personality disorder - so I'm glad of my T's flexible and eclectic approach.

just_some_girl, that sounds very similar to my T- she is very flexible and we are theoretically addressing all the areas you describe. It's just *so much* and I suppose I'm feeling a bit frustrated and like we're trying to do everything, and as a result doing nothing properly.

To those that are building the lives that they want and doing therapy hand in hand- are you doing the 'building' part independently? Or is this what you're using your therapy for?

[mcl6136]

Originally Posted by Improving

Originally Posted by mcl6136
...But now, I am doing something called Life Coaching, which doesn't really include these concepts.

I find myself drawn to my "coach." She is helping me help myself. I have feelings of warmth, ....I glow as I leave her office. I don't want to f her...I'm getting attention, assistance -- things in my life are getting better! I glow!

... For me, the big analysis of transference in the therapy, in the relationship...on and on -- it all prevented me from taking the steps in my life that we necessary for me to actually LIVE.


mcl, I hope it's ok that I've copied some of your post from the romantic feelings page (and also not reproduced it in its entirety)- let me know if not.

No problemo!

I've been thinking a lot about focusing on the past vs.working towards the future, about being process vs. goal directed- about a whole lot of things since mcl started posting about life coaching. Most of my desperation at the moment is about my current situation, and my imagined rubbish future, rather than about the past. There are several areas (work, social, lifestyle, financial, relationships) where with concentrated effort and accountability and encouragement and a big confidence boost, I could be doing much better than I am, and I believe I would feel correspondingly happier. I have tried working on these areas myself, and also tried setting up informal 'working groups' with friends, but I find it hard to be focused and tend to get overwhelmed. T and I also work on these areas on and off, but again because it's not focused and followed up it doesn't go far.

I think the other thing that's inspired this is the tampon thing- T and I spent less than one hour having a very practical discussion about that. But I did it (I did it guys! ). Do I feel less confused or sick or afraid with regards to the penetration phobia? No. Neither do I understand why I have this phobia in the first place. But heck, how important is that when I can use a tampon and go swimming, rather than losing a week of exercise each month.

I'm wondering whether life coaching would fit the bill- though I'm also wondering whether it's directive enough- I do want some advice, and wonder if I want a cross between a life coach and a mentor. But not instead of therapy. For me, the therapeutic relationship is not a strange by-product of therapy. It's a fundamental pattern in my life, and if I weren't experiencing it with T I would start reproducing it in my real life, which I know from the past is much more painful and uncontained. I do believe that I need to keep working on my schemas (patterns of experiencing and relating) and my emotion regulation and my past in order to be happy in any fundamental way- unlike mcl, I don't find that therapy is preventing me from building a life. But I'm frustrated that in the meantime, years are passing and I am not living the way I would like to. I'm constantly terrified it will be too late by the time I am 'healed' enough to make those changes. I'm wondering whether these are complementary processes which can take place alongside each other.

I'm going to ask T about this today, but I wondered what you guys think: what is the balance in your therapy on fundamentally healing yourself vs. working towards concrete goals? Are you 'waiting' to heal before you start the life you want? What would your T say if you brought this up?

For me, right now, a life coaching relationship is feeling like a good fit. As some of you know, I worked with a traditional "analytical" therapist, and it was pretty much a disaster.

I simply could not stand the "blank slate." I read somewhere that family members who had loved ones with Parkinson's disease....characterized by a muting and eventual absence of facial emotion...had a REALLY difficult time staying connected to the patients. They simply appear to be behind an expressionless mask. It's very difficult to have a relationship with someone who has NO facial expression. Many people eventually turn away in despair. This is how I felt with my cold, distant T...I was done!

An analytical therapy simply didn't work for me. If you experience traditional analytical therapy as healing, great! If you've found a good T who mixes approaches, even better. But for me, traditional therapy was a train wreck. It stalled my life. It left me with way less money than I need. It deepened my depression. It was fascinating, theoretically....but it simply didn't help. My problems remained, and in some ways got worse.

That's why I am trying something different. And although I find the coach is helping me and I feel good about that, I don't feel the ickiness of the obsessive transference or what-have-you (which I did NOT experience as therapeutic or healing and I hung in there for a long time...) and I'm happier than I have been in years.

Which is all the evidence I need.

[Perna]

If you have specific project(s) you want help working on, I say go for both; I know I had therapy and hired a personal organizer to help me figure out how to clean up my home after 20 years so I could sell it and move (and not repeat the mess again). I had so much "stuff" and it was such a mess I didn't know where/how to start and was overwhelmed.

That I had gotten into the mess was what my therapist and I were working on, my response to my stepmother and her training in my first 20 years but I needed someone to help with a specific, "immediate" cleanup and did a couple months worth of work with the personal organizer as well. After I moved (2005), I had her come to my new house once and then, just a couple years ago (2009) I hired a new organizer http://www.absolutely-organized.com/ to come a couple times, help me catch up on some stuff in my new house.

Anywhere I feel overwhelmed these days, I know to hire an expert in that field to help me; I hired a landscaper in 2010 and he had to rip out my old stuff (which was overwhelming me; the previous people had used mulch with thistle seeds in it and that grew and overtook my yard and blew into and overtook the neighbors' yard and created a very embarrassing and anxiety-provoking situation for me) and put in new and now takes care of it all and I couldn't be feeling better.

Originally Posted by Improving

just_some_girl, that sounds very similar to my T- she is very flexible and we are theoretically addressing all the areas you describe. It's just *so much* and I suppose I'm feeling a bit frustrated and like we're trying to do everything, and as a result doing nothing properly.

To those that are building the lives that they want and doing therapy hand in hand- are you doing the 'building' part independently? Or is this what you're using your therapy for?

I suppose for me, all the problems feel interlinked... so while we're working on a lot of stuff, it's all coming together I think. We seem to go through phases, and T will 'change tactics' as and when We've talked about a lot of things, and for a while at times it did seem a little like we were skimming the surface, but I think we're really getting to the roots of the problems now. I think that was more to do with me and the 'process' and being ready to dig deeper and accept things though, my 'taking a leap of faith' and learning to trust as well. I'm hoping therapy will help me to build my life, and that my T will work with me on that.. (I don't feel like any area of my life is/should be left out of the therapy room) but currently it's more like we have to rebuild me first

I agree, it can all seem like it's *so much* - sometimes I get frustrated, not with the therapy itself but with myself for not progressing faster, and with the passing of time and everyone around me moving on with their lives while mine feels like it's on hold. But, Rome wasn't built in a day, as they say...

[critterlady]

This is kind of the definition of the "eclectic approach" T uses. He's helping me heal the wounds of the past and helping me get through the present turmoil. We tend to switch it up, depending on what's happening.

I agree that the therapeutic relationship is the cornerstone of it, at least for me. Like you, Improving, if I wasn't working it out with T, I'd be experiencing it with others in my life, with less than favorable outcomes.

I've tried solution-based approaches in the past and they've been great at handling very specific situations. They were short-term (a few weeks to a few months, depending on the issue I was working on) and successful at what they were intended to fix.

But after doing that a few times, I may have had solutions to specific problems, but I still felt fundamentally flawed. Then depression hit, my mom got very sick, my CSA memories got severely triggered by finding out about the death of the perp and grad school pressures whapped me upside the head all at once. I decided to deal with all those things, especially the CSA, in a holistic way. Past, present and future kind of all rolled up in one process. So far, it's working really well for me. T is awesome at it. It's going to take me a while, but I think I'll come out of it in much better mental shape than I've ever been.

[PreacherHeckler]

Originally Posted by Improving

To those that are building the lives that they want and doing therapy hand in hand- are you doing the 'building' part independently? Or is this what you're using your therapy for?

Right now I'm using therapy mostly to explore and manage my reactions and feelings as I'm becoming more involved in "real life" experiences, building new relationships and slowly lessening my dependence on my therapist. We still make connections between the past and the present in therapy, using those connections to understand and help me learn to change my behavior in these new relationships so that I don't continue to repeat the unhealthy patterns I learned as a child and young adult. But we focus far less on my relationship with my therapist now because I'm secure in that relationship and the ultimate goal is to feel fulfilled in real life, not to get that fulfillment in a very limited relationship with one person. The relationship with my therapist was and still is very important, but its purpose has changed over the years, and now I use what I learned about myself in our therapy relationship to help me recognize problem areas in my new relationships, and my therapist supports and encourages me to continue to move out of my comfort zone and take relationship risks that would have been disastrous in the past.

[lostmyway21]

Mine seems pretty all inclusive as well. We work on past issues, current problems and future goals. He's very goal orientated. I guess that's the CBT shining through. BUT he also lists life coaching on his site, and it feels like he does a ton of that as well. He takes a eclectic approach as well, so whatever I need help with the most that day, that takes priority.

[Nightlight]

Originally Posted by just_some_girl

The way my T does therapy/counselling, it seems to be all inclusive. She says she's going to help me make the most of who I am. That involves working through issues from the past, my situation in the present, and looking at future goals too. In my case it's all a big tangle - mixed in with depression, anxiety, and maybe some kind of personality disorder - so I'm glad of my T's flexible and eclectic approach.

My T is just like this too. I'm so glad because it's what I need and I would describe my issues as interlinked to all of these areas too. I don't think I've made it easy for her because I don't have a good memory of my childhood. It's not always easy to understand where things started or why I think the way I do. We talk about the bits I remember that are related to my issues. We talk quite a bit about problems that arise from week to week and how to tackle them. At times in the past when I've had another appointment that I was really nervous about, T has offered to go with me during my appointment with her. I didn't take her up on it, but it was so nice that she offered to do something really practical like that.

Part of me wanted "coaching", but that was part of my problem. I'd lost my sense of who or what I was and just slept walked through life. Making decisions was scary for me, I couldn't handle how I felt when I chose "wrong". The blank slate gets confused I think. Its not that the therapist is cast in stone, it just means she or he doesn't bring their personal life into the theraputic space. The space is yours, the therapist is still warm and open to the client. But its for the client to learn about themselves even if that means that not being the same as what the therapist may feel about something.

For me I lacked self approval and would look for bodys clues from T to see if she approved of what I just said, if I felt she didn't I felt bad about me. But with my T she neither approves nor dissapproves, this is more the meaning of "blank slate" not lack of emotion.

Sometimes I don't feel glowing nor positive, I don't think we supposed to are we? Therapy has helped me tolerate those times. So a life coach to me would be a defence against what I really think or feel for myself. We are our own life coaches.

Thanks everyone. I spoke to T about it on Friday and she thought it was a good idea. She raised a point which relates to what PreacherHeckler said about using therapy to explore and manage reactions and feelings which come up as we engage with real life, but she made it the other way round: we are supposed to be working on my schemas, but my schemas are only activated by quite specific relationships, which I don't currently have (maybe because I'm keeping my life 'safe'), so it's hard to work on. So hopefully with some life coaching to push me, I will then have more opportunities to practise what we're doing in therapy

I was less impressed when she said "oh I'm intrigued to hear how it goes if it works I might get some life coaching". I was like, um, no, your life is already bloody perfect. If it gets any more perfect I'll feel even worse about mine, which is completely contrary to the purpose of me getting some life coaching.

I've decided to challenge myself by choosing a male life coach (I find it hard to form any kind of connection with men, so this will be good practice. Plus I need someone who is more pushy and less nurtury) and also by 'road testing' three who offer a free session before choosing one. This will mean tolerating my discomfort at accepting what is offered without rushing in and committing for the rest of my life.

A (not very funny story) is that after speaking to T, I was all fired up and went to the websites of a couple of life coaches to email them. Their websites crashed my computer and my hard drive was wiped- I've just spent two solid weeks working on my doctorate thesis, and hadn't backed up. So already life coaching is causing me more problems than therapy!

I've just spent two solid weeks working on my doctorate thesis, and hadn't backed up.

EEEEEEEEEK!!! Sympathy and empathy to you. I really hope that's "merely" a huge annoyance that you'll be able to took back on as a life experience, and that you didn't lose anything that can't be recreated.

Originally Posted by Apteryx

EEEEEEEEEK!!! Sympathy and empathy to you. I really hope that's "merely" a huge annoyance that you'll be able to took back on as a life experience, and that you didn't lose anything that can't be recreated.

Bless you, thank you for the empathy! I had a good cry and then went over to a friend whose boyfriend was able to retrieve all my documents (another reason to start connecting with men!). So it's just a hassle, with a broken laptop which needs to be fixed by uni when I live and work in a different county etc, and holds up my work in the meantime. But at least the documents are safe

That's a relief to hear!

[PreacherHeckler]

Originally Posted by Improving

Thanks everyone. I spoke to T about it on Friday and she thought it was a good idea. She raised a point which relates to what PreacherHeckler said about using therapy to explore and manage reactions and feelings which come up as we engage with real life, but she made it the other way round: we are supposed to be working on my schemas, but my schemas are only activated by quite specific relationships, which I don't currently have (maybe because I'm keeping my life 'safe'), so it's hard to work on. So hopefully with some life coaching to push me, I will then have more opportunities to practise what we're doing in therapy

I am not doing schema therapy but my therapist refers to the way that specific relationships activate problematic patterns of reactions and behaviors -- same concept, different words. We've worked through most of the intensity as those patterns were activated in our therapy relationship, and that's why it's so important for me to develop these kinds of real life relationships while I'm still in therapy, so my therapist can help me navigate them successfully. You do need opportunities to practice what you're doing in therapy, and with each little success along the way you will start to feel more confident in your ability to one day manage close relationships without needing your therapist.