What tells you that you're attached to your T?

^^^ I disagree that there is something wrong, based on my experiences.
I can feel connected and still feel miserable after a session. I stuck with it and the miserable lessened, while the connection grew. I feel the way I do now after 5 years of therapy with this therapist. I have had other therapy and never felt either miserable or connected.

I think maybe it is part of the process for some of us.

I often feel very unhappy and agitated after therapy. It can be unsettling for those of us who have difficulty forming alliances. I feel much safer when I isolate. Therapy is the complete opposite of isolation. It's disturbing.

I am not sure I have any healthy attatchments to the important people in my life. Am I attatched to T? I don't know.. I do get a litter nervous when our appointments are scheduled every other week instead of every week b/c we just didn't get the chance to schedule a head of time. I did admit to him that when he was going on vacation last week that the thought of him being out of the office makes me nervous. I had a flashback to the RA that happened to me as a child last week.. I debated on whether or not I would tell T about it b/c what if I told him and really started talking about it and then he just up and left? I have noooo clue if I am attatched or not..

I am very attached to my T and the healthy transference that has happened has allowed me to move forward in dealing with my core issues more than I ever was able to do with previous Ts. I see her as a "mother type" figure and have even been able to work through some sexual feelings I had towards her. I did not have a secure attachment with my father and I know I have attachment issues. I have allowed myself to trust my T completely - this has helped me to begin working through my attachment issues.

i keep going back.

this is exactly how i feel too

Ya just know

But really...yes, the constant thoughts of T and wondering how they are doing and feeling let down after a session because you know you'll miss seeing them...all those and many more.

Sigh........I don't know what's going on with my attachment to T but there was a bug crawling across my forehead and she said "There it is again! I'm going to get it before it gets away." Then she rolls her office chair towards me. That's the closes we've been to each other. I freaked out because I've been longing for her to hold my hand for almost a year. She almost touched my forehead and I quickly brushed it in hopes that I got the bug off my forehand. Thank goodness I got it but now I kind off wished I didn't get it so she would have touched me. Ick!!!!! Gross!!!! I almost got the nurturing touch from her and I screwed it up but something in me tells me that T and I can't go there. Crap!!!! This makes me feel like I'm attached to her. Crap crap crap!!!!! I'm so frustrated. I feel like the most uncommon or unsual things happen to me that triggers a stronger connection to T. The lastest one is I hate cops and she called the cops on me. The experience was horrible but yet her actions showed that she really cares.

If you ever cried because T wasn't there, that's attachment.

God mine was constant fantasies about my ex t.... I couldn't get him out of my mind ( for the life of me ) ..... Horrible !!!!!

Okay, I'm not so sure of all the attachment theories as they apply to adults...

BUT, if I did, to me, this behaviour says that you are attaching, but haven't yet attached in a secure confident way.

I'm also not sold on the idea that attachment simply describes the desire to be close, I think it is more about tolerating the distance better.

In adults, I would call all of this connection rather than attachment. Yes there are experiments with monkeys contrasting food vs nurture etc... but I'm not convinced. I think attachment is based in physical survival and connection is based in emotional security.

We have to attach as infants. We thrive when we connect emotionally later on in life. I see a difference.

That's just me though and I'm not even sure it matters.

I find the notion of a sort of connection to be more palatable than attachment. The words do not seem synonymous to me. The descriptions of it that I have read concerning how psychodynamic therapists view it do fall more into the attachment arena.

Elliemay: Thanks. You've been extremely helpful. I've maintained the distance from T for over a year and I will continue to do so. I would rather feel connected to her on an emotional level than on a physical level. It's my darn thoughts of feeling worthless that continues to contribute to an insecure emotional connection with T.

Okey dokey. I would highly highly recommend that you watch this:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown...erability.html

I watch it early and often....

Elliemay? Didn't you post this video before. I've watched it before. I completely forgot about it. Thanks!!

To be vulnerable or not to be vulnerable? That is the question.

I belive my mind can't seem to wean away from attachment versus connection to T because I reached out to her between sessions for the first time. Damn me!!! I felt a need to and I'm scared sh$%less now because it made me realize how importance and how much she means to me. It made me realize afterwards just how vulnerable I was. The longing to connect between sessions has not been there before until now and I'm not comfortable with these feelings at the moment. It frustrates me.

Not only do I watch it early and often, but I post it early and often. It hold a lot of truths for me and I think there is something in it for a whole host of different people.

This is me after about 75% of my appointments. Sometimes a session is too much for me to process and I get frustrated. I'm okay a day or so later when I've had time to work through things.

I felt I was becoming attached to t. It took awhile, but sharing deeper things was less scary. My trust for her grew. Now we've had a rupture and it hurts like h*** so I know I was getting more attached. Unfortunately now I am also dealing with transference from the rupture - t has become one of those people from my past that I allowed to get close who in turn caused me deep emotional pain. My next session could be very interesting...

Ugh. Now I wonder if this rupture was one of those dirty t tricks...

I do too. Although I think I form resonably adequate alliances when necessary without this much agitation and rage and frustration that I have around therapy. It is majorly disturbing.

I posted this on another thread - but maybe it makes more sense here.
I experience the therapeutic experience as horrible to endure. It is like weekly I go in and impale myself on a wall of knives, knowing there are no bandages or salves, and I pay the woman to sit there while I do it. It is a mystery to me how to experience it as the good, heard, appreciated, loved thing. What the therapist does that seemingly leads some to feel good (empathic statements, telling the client the therapist likes them, the therapist saying good job and such etc) = feels awful to me. It is almost physically painful when the therapist tries to be all empathy-ish. Those things do not make me feel safe or heard or appreciated etc. They frustrate me or enrage me.

I find these things horribly painful as well. I have been really trying to figure out why. One of my "theories" is that it seems patronizing, and if I accept the empathic responses I am making myself vulnerable.

Wiki: I have felt this way as well. I thought to myself that when my T says things like that, it just seemed staged so is/was my connection to her really happening? I said to her before that I feel like a lab rat at times. I think this is why I came up with this thread in the first place.

I experience much of it as patronizing too. But it is worse than just patronizing. Much of it is just pointless crap -
Me:Blah Blah Blah
Th: That must have been X (lonely, sad, fun etc)
=either the response is so obviously the case that her response is idiotic or she is so wrong that I wonder if she was listening at all.
I don't think I worry about the vulnerability thing. It is just for me a response of either so what (and what am I supposed to do with the information) or she is just wrong.
Then there is the painful part which I do not know what it is about.Unless it is painfully so what or not heard.