Therapy Question

Uh - I think your unconscious is a better comedian than the conscious - in my professional opinion

They were both conscious.

You have said that your goal for therapy and on this board is to learn ways to create better defenses against other people--to learn how to build higher stronger walls, but you can't inform the therapist of this goal because then she wouldn't divulge the information you need to accomplish your goal. So you already knew you were playing different games. You've ensured it by not being honest with the therapist about what your agenda is. It sounds a little like what you want to learn is how to resist their agenda more effectively. No wonder you don't want to leave the distasteful T. Look at all the practice she affords you in building walls and resistance. Your stated therapy goals are being more fully fulfilled by her.

Actually I have told her time and time again. She insists i am attached and that the problem is how much i detest that i am? She knows there are some cross purposes and has said so. I tell her all of this.

Why not make it your first goal? You certainly get more bang for your buck if you can put more into your therapy.

I thought more about this and if the therapist is doing most of the work for their clients this is being codependent. A major goal for mental health is that people can take care of themselves. I'll take care of me, you take care of you (we can help each other, though). Codependents take care of other people too much. Again, going back to my first post about this where I talked about it being about boundaries.

I agree the only person who can take care of me is me.

And nobody better damn help!

tennis and bridge - not really one-person games, are they?

I think there are some areas the client has more of a role and other areas where the therapist should make more of the contribution. I definitely don't go to therapy and expect to be a passive object that my therapist does stuff to. I expect us to work as a team and each contribute to solving the problems in my life. I think the therapist can have important roles in doing things for the client that the client cannot. Like if the client is feeling hopeless, the therapist can make a huge difference by instilling hope. So in this area, the therapist would have a greater role. In deciding what to work on, I think the client should have more of a role. The therapist can't know what is most important to the client to work on, and for the therapist to constantly have to guess at this is really inefficient. It is really important for the client to be able to communicate his/her needs so the client has a significant role here. If the client lacks communication skills to be able to do this, then it is important for the therapist to teach the client how to communicate effectively. Client motivation is also important, and one might think this would come all from the client. But the therapist should be skilled in knowing how to promote and reinforce motivation, like using the techniques of motivational interviewing, so both people have a role here. IMO.

Last quarter in school I took a counseling skills class. I noticed a big difference in my therapy since then. I am a more active client and my therapy goes along better. I wasn't super passive before, but somehow, now that I know more about how therapy is supposed to go, and have experienced sitting there being the counselor to a client, I know how I, as the client, can better facilitate my own therapy. I had not expected this at all. So I think I am giving more to the counseling now, and because of that, it is going better. I am not as hesitant to take risks and interact with a greater degree of honesty. I have more confidence that what I say will be "acceptable" in counseling and less worry about my therapist's thoughts and feelings. I don't need to worry so much about him, and I didn't even realize I was before I took the class.

I think there are sometimes when the best thing a therapist can do for a client is to end the therapy. In the end it has to be about the client being willing to look at themselves and make the changes and not excuses.

I am fairly certain passive is not a term I would apply as to how I see the client being (nor one the therapist would use at me) Passive is giving control to the therapist. And both therapists, as recently as this week, said I was not doing therapy wrong.

Passive isn't necessarily giving control - it can be refusing to play the game. Or in refusing to participate. Someone who is practing passive resistance has a lot of power in a situation. I can speak to this with some authority as I used to be very skilled in this area.

And also - hey, both of them said you're not doing therapy wrong? Sounds like good news. Maybe things are just proceeding a whole lot slower than you want them to.

So, they believe that building higher walls and stronger defenses are fine and worthy therapeutic goals?

I told my t one time that I didn't want to feel anything anymore- that I wanted to build stronger, higher walls. She seemed to think that request was totally reasonable, and she gave me some skills to help me move in that direction. Now, my request was about specific aspects of my life (an unraveling relationship; combat related memories that were making it hard to function in civilian life; etc) not a generalized deadening of emotion. But still, she was very helpful.

Opps - on reflection not up to posting today.

I wouldn't know the first thing about how to do that. And if it's my job as a client to do it, I'm a bit lost, since I don't have the tools or the skills or the right kind of thinking.

I am not the one trained to do this whole therapy thing, he is. I was up front and honest from the beginning...my treatment plan was to help me communicate. The reason I was in therapy was that I could not speak. Yes, I was relying on him more then myself, but that was because I don't know what I am doing.

I'm hardly an expert on how therapy works, but it does seem to me that even though the client needs to do a lot of the hard work, the therapist does have some responsibility to enable the client to do their part. As you say, it's what they are trained to do. Otherwise, we might as well just talk to the squirrels in the garden.

Being empowered is being able to do what you want to do without inhibitions coming from within or from the outside. What do you want to do that you find yourself unable to do?

You just need to try to speak and then deal with whatever is getting in your way of speaking.

Wow! Thanks to everyone for such great responses! I am learning a lot.

So can somebody expound on what being engaged and proactive in therapy looks like? I feel like I need a definition!

Do my job properly.

Also, kill myself.

Hey, I thought I was the black comedy white comedian around here.