[CantExplain]

http://psychotherapist-nyc.blogspot....tures-and.html

This seems to be saying that ruptures are mistakes on the part of the therapist. Speaking as a patient, I find this idea comforting!

[Dr.Muffin]

good article.

[Nightlight]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

http://psychotherapist-nyc.blogspot....tures-and.html

This seems to be saying that ruptures are mistakes on the part of the therapist. Speaking as a patient, I find this idea comforting!

I agree that the therapist can be at fault (none of them are perfect after all). I know that I've been more at fault than my therapist has been at least once (and probably a few more times that I can't remember now)!

I also agree that the important part is in the reparation.

http://whatashrinkthinks.com/2011/06/13/enactment/

This one has been posted before. I think it's about a certain type of rupture. I don't think this article places blame on either the therapist or client.

I've certainly been helped by working through misunderstandings (which have felt dreadful at the time). My therapist does admit her part in mistakes that have been made (and I certainly hope it's clear to her that I'm willing to own my part in them too).

thanks for sharing. and i do think it is smart of the t to own his mistake immediately.

Just to be clear. It isn't saying the "blame" or "fault" lies with the therapists, or the client for that matter. It is simply a mistake and not intentional. That seems to be what really needs to be remembered here because what I often read is posts about blame and fault which is one of the reasons why these things seem to become so blown up. Therapists just make mistakes sometimes and the ability and willingness to accept that mistakes can and will be made, that they aren't intentional affronts towards the client, and the effort to get past that through honest discussion with the therapist is ultimately what is important.

[SoupDragon]

Yes I agree farmer girl - what I got out of that article is not the "mistake" as being the most important thing, but what happens after the mistake.

Also ruptures can be really useful - T is about being able to manage IRl relationships and if T was always perfect and faultless what would we ever learn about real life? It is also (and maybe more importantly?) about our ability to acknowledge humans as fallible, without letting it feed on our insecurites and learn to accept and forgive.

So Can't explain, has your T made a mistake? & has he/she apologised?

My T has made mistakes I guess. But they were normally the end result of something I brought with he unconsciously into the room.

[WikidPissah]

This is hard for me...so if I am saying something stupid, don't jump all over me. I get that a T should apologize if he/she messes up, misses and appointment, forgets familiar info...etc. This isn't stuff that bothers me though. The rupture I had with T was about several things, but the most unforgivable being a confidentiality breach. Not just a breach...but a saying "I promise I won't tell him, I don't even have signed authorization to speak to him" and then hearing from "him" on several occasions "I spoke with t and he told me....". Is that a rupture? Or is it a lie?

It's over with that T, I actually told him off about it, it was the final straw of a bunch of smaller forgivable offenses. No, I didn't get an apology, not even close to one.

she forgets details sometimes and i tell her she did but she says she has good memo

"However, if the client and therapist have just begun to work together or if there have been frequent ruptures or if the client has a personal family history where he or she was neglected or abused, any kind of empathic failure can lead to a big rupture between client and therapist." ------> im ****ed lol

I know I have made mistakes in the therapy room that lead to my T having hurt feelings. I know stopdog thinks therapists are immune; mine doesn't happen to be. The reason MY mistakes don't lead to a rupture is that my t stops immediately and says, "Do you really think that? I hear you saying X, and that hurt my feelings because . . ." Then I can clarify what I meant, or say why I thought what I said was true, and give him an opportunity to tell me it wasn't, or whatever. The reason HIS mistakes lead to a rupture is because I sometimes lack the ability, in the moment, to stop and say, "Wait, did you really mean what I think I heard you say? I heard X. Is X what you meant because that hurts my feelings." I don't ask. I don't address it. I go home and brood about it for a week and it gets bigger and bigger in my head and we have a rupture.

So, in some sense, I agree that HIS mistakes are usually the ones that lead to a rupture, but that is because he has more skill in handling my mistakes and not allowing them to lead to a problem in the relationship. As I grow in skill in addressing my own pain and sensitivities, we are having fewer issues.

[stopdog]

There may be some therapists who are not immune. The one I see has said I can hurt her. I don't believe her, but if true, I think she should butch up or be more careful.

Originally Posted by stopdog

There may be some therapists who are not immune. The one I see has said I can hurt her. I don't believe her, but if true, I think she should butch up or be more careful.

Sounds like what an abuser would say.

[stopdog]

She did not say I had hurt her, just it was possible for clients to hurt her. I do not want a wussy therapist who wears their heart on their sleeve (I am not saying anyone here has that kind of therapist - just that I do not want one). I want one who is impervious to clients and who remembers it is a business relationship and that it is not personal. And I do want a therapist who is careful. I assume if the therapist finds a client abusive, they will tell the client to leave. I expect the therapist to take care of themselves and not be affected by clients. I usually ask when I interview them on the phone and at the first appointment.

I didn't say you had hurt her. I said what you said sounded like what an abuser would say. If we feel hurt we feel hurt. It's how we work through the Hirt that matters. A T will feel hurt but be the adult and work through it. It's not being a Weak.

[WikidPissah]

Originally Posted by earthmamma

Sounds like what an abuser would say.

IF a therapist were being abused by a client, they are well enough trained that they should know when to walk away.

I think it much more beneficial for a therapist to reassure a client that they can take it.

[unaluna]

wiki, since you ask? your T talking to your pdoc - why is that a big deal? I know that according to HIPAA rules, you should have control, etc, but according to the definitions of venial and mortal sin, it wasn't a mortal sin - the actual ACT was not horrible - but you're treating it like one.

I think you know that the true rupture was probably his email list. That he was sexual. Now you are always giving us "proof" that things are good or bad. I get it, I couldn't believe I got fooled last week and bought a fig newton without looking at the label first - HFCS!!! Listed right after figs! The shame!

But no one is perfect. So we MUST accept the good and bad in people. T's spend a lot of time with people trying to seduce them, pleading with them to love them - I wouldn't be surprised if they need some relief between sessions sometimes. So why not look at it as professional hazard, rather than personal perversion? T is nothing to you. He's a figurehead. This is more about your real feelings about a real person, like maybe your dad. A T is more like a lawyer, showing you where the "law" of feelings was rightly on your side.

Originally Posted by WikidPissah

IF a therapist were being abused by a client, they are well enough trained that they should know when to walk away.

I think it much more beneficial for a therapist to reassure a client that they can take it.

Where did I say a t was being abused???? I said the statement was how an abuser rationalises their actions. We are capable of saying hurtful things to therapists. A therapist is human and can feel hurt. Being therapist its how they process that natural human emotion that matters not that they rid themselves of that part.

[sittingatwatersedge]

Originally Posted by WikidPissah

I think it much more beneficial for a therapist to reassure a client that they can take it.

well, and then to behave accordingly !

[WikidPissah]

Originally Posted by hankster

wiki, since you ask? your T talking to your pdoc - why is that a big deal?

It's a big deal because I told him top secret crap. My crap. I reserve the right to tell my crap to someone. Besides...it is the lie that hurts the most. Saying "I won't tell" in fact "I can't tell" and then telling. Over and over and over again. If that was this thing people call a "rupture" I would like to know, because I have wondered exactly what people meant when speaking of it.

The porn was one of the small forgivable straws. If that was the problem, I'd have dumped him two years ago when it happened.

This was more about me taking my mental health into my own hands when I went off medication back in April. His constant running back and forth to pdoc while telling me he wasn't. His weekly stance of "just take the ativan". That was the beginning of the end.

[unaluna]

that may be the letter of the law, I don't think it is the spirit of the law, that two drs at the same clinic can't talk to each other about their patient in common! r u serious? and I doubt it is the letter of the hipaa law.

[stopdog]

I do not want therapists of all people trying to interpret law. And certainly not substituting their interpretation for what it actually is.

[tooski]

For WikidPissah:
I thought that the "porn" thing was that after your T's father died, he discovered an extensive porn collection and it seemed to you that T was not upset by this, but seemed amused by it? Maybe I missed some posts, but I thought that was the story. Now this has grown into your T being some kind of perv who's all into porn???? Sorry, but this is bugging me. Could you please set the record straight with facts so I can forget about this? Apologies, it's Monday morning and I don't do Mondays well

[unaluna]

well, and you sure don't want comedians interpretating law. or mental patients. or comedic mental patients. but then to answer wiki's question, saying I quit cos I can't control you - that's stopping becausing of a control issue. Rupture to me is defined WITHIN a cycle of rupture, repair, repeat. Instead of "straws" building up and then finally breaking the camel's back, they are dealt with and removed as soon as they are placed there. So yeah, what mkac said, that her T is better at noticing - or maybe just at speaking up, risking to speak up. cos she notices, but she hides them in her pocket or up her sleeve to pull out later, an ace in the hole?

[unaluna]

tooski - sorry. I brought it up, I probably shouldn't have. wiki and I both got misdirected emails from our T's of a sexual nature. I dealt with mine immediately, intensely for a week, it's how I found PC last year. It caused a rupture, we survived it and have a better r/s because of it. Wiki never told her T about her situation.

[tooski]

Originally Posted by hankster

tooski - sorry. I brought it up, I probably shouldn't have. wiki and I both got misdirected emails from our T's of a sexual nature. I dealt with mine immediately, intensely for a week, it's how I found PC last year. It caused a rupture, we survived it and have a better r/s because of it. Wiki never told her T about her situation.

Ok, thanks, that makes sense. I thought it was the other thing. Good - now I can forget about it - thanks for the clarification.