Stupid confusing therapy

I actually think what he does doesn't matter. You find your voice for yourself. You matter to yourself. You don't need him to hear for your voice to exist and you don't need him to show that you matter to matter to yourself.

I find this hard to read. It sounds like going to pay someone a lot of money so that I can prove to myself that I matter even when my feelings are not considered worthy of a response. I don't have pay someone money to help me to have that opportunity. Maybe I'm missing something about what you are saying.

I remember early in my therapy that my T asked what he could do to make me feel safe, and that included changes in the environment. He was very willing to help me feel safe. Has your T ever asked you this? I wonder why he would not do this? It sounds like it would help a lot if you understood more about why he doesn't want to move the object. We can guess at reasons he might do this but it's always good to go straight to the source instead of attempting mind reading. Can you process this more with him?

If you really want to up the stakes a little bit, try this...
After a session with your item sitting next to the thing that triggers you, use the last 5 minutes of the session doing one of two things...

1. Smile at the item you sat next to the " thing" which happens to be a picture you had framed the day before which depicts the incredible hulk standing over his adversary with 1 foot on his chest and screaming in triumphant victory or

2. Get out some masking tape, a pen and a tape measure, and then proceed to mark off and measure the exact location of your item. At this point don't be afraid to be a little bit of a perfectionist. When you're certain that everything is marked off the way you want, remove the item.
Make it look like a chalk outline. Remove the frame from the outline and take a picture of just the taped off outline with your camera phone. Print that picture off and put that in the frame instead.
Leave the tape outline and say, "See ya next week."
Next session, bring your newly framed photo of an outline and place it in the outline. If the outline isn't there, begin the process all over again.
That outline will haunt your therapist for a week even if your therapist removed it right after you left.

Snickering

I don't know the history here, so I may be way off track. The idea of a T making a minor adjustment to the environment to help a client feel more comfortable seems reasonable. I asked my T once to change out a light bulb in the lamp on the table between us to a lower wattage because it left me feeling over exposed. No problem.

But you say that the room is filled with objects that trigger you? That seems like a bigger issue than triggering objects. I can imagine it being important to your therapy to deal with whatever this bigger issue is that is being displaced onto triggering objects.

When he admitted to a power struggle, you seem to describe this as his insistence on power which is grating and feels hypocritical in the light of saying he wants you to feel empowered. But could the power struggle he's referring to be your focus instead? That your choosing to focus your energy on this object, and seeing the request to move it as a test of his allegiance with you, is your creation of a power struggle?

If he believes this, then he is choosing to not enable you in this because it would be counter therapeutic for you--and that is empowering of you.

It reminds me in some ways of my occasional struggle with a daily task in a language foreign to me ( I work overseas). When a native speaker of the language bails me out, I immediately feel grateful and happy to have my problem solved. But later on, a feeling of futility and failure sets in: I will never be able to accomplish everything I want to do independently in this foreign language. Having my problem solved for me ultimately is not validating or empowering. The intensity of the situations is very different, but the dynamic feels a bit similar to me.

I remember seeing something in T's or rather our 'space' that I knew had been given to her by 'another'. I mentioned how I didn't like it being here. The next session it was gone. That she did that for me felt so unreal. I felt I really mattered to her. So I get how hurt you are feeling. T has taught me that its not a weakness to have consideration for how someone is feeling. That I no longer have to be strong, I can admit to what upsets me and she honours that.

I had a post written that I lost when I lost my internet connection. grrr.

I just wanted to say that I understand wanting to be heard and to know that you matter (and you do!! ).

Separateness is hard sometimes (freeing at other times!). You're right he does get to (we all get to) say no. But sometimes it feels like the other person is being heard and we are not, when their wish or need is what prevails. It's frustrating when it feels like a power struggle, or an impasse. It feels like not being heard and it's hard to sit with the idea that we each are separate, with separate thoughts and wants and needs, and we each get to say what we want (including to offer a compromise of him putting it away for your session). In the end it is a power struggle of sorts, because we each get to decide what we want for ourselves.

It can feel like someone "doing" something "to" us when they exercise their separateness. Feelings from the past can be evoked, when our saying "no" had no effect, and the other person's want/need is met and our's seems ignored, dismissed, or devalued.

So he can do what he wants with the stone, and you can too. Separateness continues. If it was me, I might start every session with a remark about not liking that stone being present, just to exercise my own separateness.

I hear you. I GET that that's the goal. I mean, really, I DO. I'm working hard to get to this point.

There is a big history this year, and t has admitted that he "colluded with me" in making me small and pushing my feeling aside to deal with a problem that was going on (it's a long story that I can't write here because of confidentiality). So, he has admitted the he himself has used the "smallness" that I created in myself throughout my life to his benefit.

And we've talked about it, and he's apologized, and there has been a lot of "things are going to be different".

If this year hadn't happened, I wouldn't have even asked about the item. It's just SO tied into what happened that it's distracting and painful and I guess part of me IS like "ok, T, put your money where your mouth is. SHOW ME that things are different, just in this small way".

And he won't.

I DO want to own my own value and to believe that I'm big enough and that I matter. But that's why I'm in therapy. I can't do it by myself.

My feelings are hurt. (not by you! by T)

He has. In fact, he has spent a lot of time over the past few months talking about finding ways to make the office fees safer for me. This would have been a way.

And mindreading sucks. I am going to talk to him about it more, I guess.

It feels so frustrating.

The objects are definitely part of a bigger issue we're working on. A hard issue. Which is why I wanted one safe space, not the entire office to be changed - that would be so unrealistic, and it wouldn't make sense in this case at all. It was just something being stored somewhere. We'd still have a LOT to work on.

I said "Honestly, this feels like a power struggle" (we have had those before) and T agreed that it did. I think he is owning his part in the power struggle, about the item.

There is the bigger isssue, and then there is the item. The bigger issue will still exist, regardless.

Argh! It feels so pointless. Not this discussion here, this situation I'm in. Blah.

I thought I remembered you having a story like that, earthmamma. It DOES sound healing.

He did talk before this about doing some affirmations at the beginning of session ("this is my space, i belong here, etc") and he also talked about naming the items that are triggering.

There have been things I've hated in there in the past and I've very openly said "I HATE that box" or whatever, knowing that the box was there to stay, and we may have talked about my feelings occasionally, but therapy went on.

The more I think about it, the more I think this feels like a big deal TO ME in light of this year. I'm going to have to try to find a way to move through it. The ideas here are helping.

Yeah, I do think that this is mainly about all that has gone on. You'll get through this. I know it's big to you and I'm sorry that your therapist has kind of stubbed up about it.

I really really like the idea of making yourself bigger. That's a great way of thinking about it. I think.

Kind of like "I'm the key, I am the one". "that object can sit there all day for all i care."

THAT'S empowerment.

dear Nightsky
you know I love you.
Chris has said here, and very well, some of the things that I wanted to tell you. It may be that you are too upset right now to hear them, I sure understand that!! but when you bob back to the surface you might be able to read her post again and think about what she said. we all care about you!!

There are two competing therapeutic values.

1. The desire to show you that you matter.

2. The desire not to allow you to escape from an appropriate exposure.

T can meet both goals by explaining therapy-related reasons (not power reasons) for his actions.

Nightsky

I can relate to your comment about therapy being stupidly confusing. I SO get this.

I think many of us go to therapy in hopes that our lives will improve dramatically and, often, find it becomes harder when we are working through the muck. It feels so counterproductive to why we began in the first place.

I have thought a lot about your post and can understand both sides. I relate, a little more, to yours. I think, on some level, you know it's not about THIS object. This object just represents something for you on a much larger scale and that is why becoming bigger is so important. The BIGGER (more confident, strong) you become the smaller the object (pain, it's power over you) will be.

Once you posted something here about pain. You were describing it like salt. When you throw salt in a glass it becomes undrinkable; when you throw salt in the lake it stays fresh. You wanted to be the lake.

Be the lake.

Thank you for saying exactly what I wanted to say, but so succinctly and clearly!

I agree that while I can understand why you want one small safe space, and don't see anything wrong with that, and I can understand why T might want you to learn to tolerate the triggering object, and I don't see anything wrong with that... the fact that he sees it as a power struggle is bothersome to me. I think it's good that he acknowledges that he is participating in it, but at the same time, it seems self-indulgent on his part to engage in it.

I get so worried Nightsky, it seems like there is always something else going on with him that isn't therapy. I'm glad you're trying to think of ways to make this better for yourself without moving the object, and I think that shows you how strong you are as a person that after such a frustrating and overly-personal (on his end) conversation with T, you are finding ways to take the therapeutic parts out of it anyway. That's great . I think you've gotten good suggestions here -- THERAPEUTIC suggestions which would have been nice to talk about in therapy, eh? -- and if I think of anything I will add something else.

I think I see that it's not that you think you're being unreasonable, and that it's also not that you don't see reasons why it might be reasonable for him not to move the object out of your line of vision -- more that once again, it turns into a struggle that breaches the confines of therapy. That is, therapy where you are the patient, and he is the T.

Stay strong

T left a message for me. He sincerely apologized (although I don't know for what exactly, and I accidentally ERASED the message - grrr). I think he was apologizing for handling it so poorly in session yesterday.

Apparently as my side of the "story of this year" comes out, he keeps getting information that HE isn't expecting (this was a big part of the problem earlier this year..I was hesitant to tell my side of the story and tried to deal with it on my own...part of why we're supposed to be helping me "find my voice"). One of the things I mentioned in relation to The Thing in his office was something that he was really surprised by, something he didn't know I knew. He said in the message he was caught between protecting me because i "know too much" and...something (what? i really want that message back).

I don't know where that leaves me. I think it leaves me with not wanting to think about it anymore ever. A big defense mechanism for me is "just forget it, it's fine" and moving on...but maybe this is something to be worked through. I don't know.

I know T is a real person, but I need him to stop stumbling out of his therapeutic stance and be more SOLID. That would help.

It sounds like he talked this over with the other person. Not good. It also sounds like your were not honest with him about the object. Also not good. I mean therapeutically. Please stop playing these games even if he can't.

Yes, yes it would.

I really like how Bill put this. I do think T can help both of you by an explanation of his approach here. I think the garbled phone message is not sufficient. I think it is important enough to talk about in person to make sure you understand.

??? I really don't know where you got this. At all.

I'm probably having a hard time getting the story written down well. But none of the stuff above is true.

I will see him tomorrow, and I do think talking about it in person will help. It won't be easy, but it will help.

Nightsky, I think this is REALLY important and needs to not fall by the wayside under any circumstances.

I remember as this story was unfolding, that I constantly had the urge to ask if you if you were telling T everything, especially all the reasons he could be certain that the other person was not telling the truth, but it felt like an insensitive question to ask.

But now... and please don't take this the wrong way... it's not hard to see how this could get extremely messy, if you're not telling him everything. I *know* part of the work was for you to find your voice, and I *know* he shouldn't have taken sides to begin with... but how can you expect him to be on your side if you don't tell him what your side IS? Ultimately it is his job to keep things from getting out of control... but this certainly cannot have helped things. For me, I would find it very hard to reassure someone that I was "hearing" them if they weren't telling me everything they had to say. And to be completely honest -- and I am not saying this to hurt you, because you know I think he should have always believed in YOUR truth as you told it -- I would very likely also struggle unconsciously with believing someone who seemed not to be telling me everything that was going on. I'm not saying he was right not to absorb what you were saying. But I am saying I can see this as a potential source of struggle.

Was part of this fearing that he wouldn't believe you if you "told"? If so, that is something I could definitely see and get, but at the same time, you must give him the opportunity to believe you, rather than withholding it and thus not allowing him to show you that he can.

I am glad your side of the story is coming out now, and hopefully this will give you both a better chance at mending things. I do believe you need to lay everything on the table before you can walk away feeling you've done everything.

This is kind of akin to something that happens fairly regularly between me and my mother, which is that she will want me to do something, and will get frustrated if I don't think it's a good idea or don't agree with the reasoning she gives me. I think the implication is that I'm just supposed to do it because she's my mother and she knows what is best. But we're both adults now, and I have my own idea of what is best, and if I disagree with her, well, I might not do it.

One of these things happened around my wedding. I have a female cousin on my mother's side, who was 12 at the time, and my mom did not want me to seat her with the rest of the younger cousins (ranging from about 10-18 in age, plus my brothers who were happy to entertain the kids and maintain order). She wanted me to seat her with my aunt. I was not on board with the idea -- I didn't want her to feel left out, and it seemed odd to have just one of them sitting with her parents. Especially at that age. She kept giving me all these reasons, like "Oh, she's so shy though," or "I'm worried the girls on your father's side will make her feel excluded" (she had no reason to believe this, except that SHE felt excluded from my dad's family, projecting much mom?). I just didn't see the sense in it and promised to contact my other cousins (who are sweethearts) to let them know ahead of time that my other cousin was shy, and could they make an extra effort to get her engaged?

One evening we were going at it about this over the phone, and I said I would just call my cousin and allow her to think about it and decide for herself. FINALLY my mom told me, "Well, a couple of months ago we had your aunt and uncle and cousin over for dinner, and the next thing I knew she was sitting in your 24-year-old brother's lap -- he was obviously uncomfortable, and her parents didn't say ANYTHING, and eventually I had to do something about it." WHOA. Whoa. OK, now that's a good reason not to seat her with my brothers! It would have saved us a lot of back-and-forth if she had just told me about the heart of the matter straight off the bat, instead of trying to dance around an uncomfortable situation by talking about other things and expecting me to just hear her out. From my end, what she was saying didn't add up with reality -- until she told me the whole story.

I recognize that this is not the same thing that is happening here, but I do want to highlight that you can't ever quite know how much is missing from what you're saying if you hold certain things back, because you are biased by knowing those things yourself. Until everything's out in the open, it can be a real struggle.

I'm not trying to criticize you. I just SO want things to be better for you when you talk to T.

Sorry. Where I got this stuff was, he didn't know that you knew something about the object. That was the message he left, correct? I am asking, where did he find out from? Answer: from discussing it (and therefore you). I''ll bow out again now. And again I apologize.