Power and Power Alone

She doesn't believe it matters.

Sleepless night?

the greatest use of power over others is found in restraining the sadistic desire to oppress.
greatest use of power over self found in restraining masochistic desire to be enslaved.
anything else is leverage towards self gain.

I think you may be right about your therapist's power issues being as strong as yours, but you dig this, or you wouldn't keep returning to her to wrestle. She takes your bait, plays your game, locks horns, and you both get bloodied.

Perhaps you could avoid this pattern with a T who was more like water than stone, who would allow you your tantrums but not give them anything to engage. Because if you're anything like me, a tantrum no one engages is a supremely ungratifying thing. And as scary as it is to let go of a primary coping mechanism, I would venture that somewhere in you, you'd like to find the tantrums less attractive and useful.

CE this power struggle thing you have going seems so exhausting to me. My T is withing 24 hours if I cancel I pay ... I think that's fair... anything beyond that I think she is just being not nice.

CE: You said in the original post that she ended up leaving it up to you about attending the session and about paying the fee if you were cancelling. Did you feel pressure to go and/or pay even though she did that?

I don't think this is about power or a power struggle at all. When you have the ultimate power to decide it is a faux power struggle at the most.

What it sounds like to me is that this is a disagreement and that your T repeatedly refuses to see things the way that you do, especially if your beliefs are distorted. You seem to see agreement as a synonym for love-- if people agree with me, then they love me. If they disagree with me, then they don't.

Boy and if that isn't the definition of conditional - Italian - parental - love!! If you love me, you'll do what I say. Otherwise you're disowned. Simple!!

Ah, Sanford and Son (1970's television show about a junkyard dealer and his son). If you don't agree with me, you'll give me a heart attack: "It's the big one, I'm coming to join you Elizabeth honey!"

But of course I don't need to explain 1970's TV to you! The parentheses is for the young uns reading this.

I've been thinking about this a bit more. (Or maybe obsessing. )

Her bringing up the cancellation policy after nine years of silence pushes my right back to the beginning. It's as if all our years together never happened. I'm hearing that I'm still a raw rookie, that I've always been a raw rookie, that I'll always be a raw rookie. It denies the idea of progress.

That hurts. A lot.

CE have you discussed how this made you feel with her? When do you see T again?

I was struck by your cancelling the "next" session instead of planning ahead and knowing you wanted to make an appointment for the testing and knowing you have therapy each week and not discussing it and working with it. Do you have to pay if you take a vacation or are ill and give notice? You are allowed to not show up, it is your therapy! However, you are in therapy with your therapist so discussing what you have going on and how best to work it out for all the people you care about. . . isn't about power at all, but about sharing.

I don't think other people can take our power, but we can give it to them? If we are intent on hiding things and playing close to our chests, then we can't also be open and concentrate on what others are thinking/doing so we're likely to miss stuff and end up surprised. Usually such surprises aren't fun and, as is the nature of surprises, look like they just jumped out at us from nowhere. But the possibility was there all along, we were just too busy, with our back turned, trying to keep our own stuff secret/protected?

That seems like an over-interpreting of a rather simple fact and relatively simple discussion. Especially since she gave you the power of deciding whether or not to adhere to the cancellation policy, whatever it was.

There's nothing wrong with deciding to leave this particular T if that's what you want to do, but I think you would be better served by being straight with yourself about why that is and without creating drama and pain for yourself by revisionist thinking and interpretation.

You can own your own decision to quit, even if it's just that you feel you'd be better served by switching. You don't need lengthy and explanatory statements that place blame and recriminations upon her hurtful behavior.

In a couple of weeks.

I honestly thought a week's notice would be enough. And she still hasn't told me it isn't. So why was she beating me up?

I'm telling you how I feel.

Yeah, so am I. Your feelings are a product of your over-interpretation of something that happened or something that was said. Just like my feelings are.

I'm not a big fan of feelings are facts, standing alone like skyscrapers. Feelings are constructed by people, and IMO it's worthwhile to look at what the source of your feelings are. If you want mindless validation of your feelings, you won't get it from me.

I would think a poster could talk about their feelings here, and while not necessarily getting mindless feedback, at least not getting criticized for posting about them. I think there is a more middle ground.

I think the policy should have been made clear from the start.

I think it is acceptable for anyone to talk about their feelings here. You criticizing me for allegedly criticizing someone else (although I would say I was simply saying what I felt) is in fact exactly the same thing. It is hypocrisy to post criticism of one post while claiming that criticism is wrong. It is not wrong here to post what you think.

I am of the belief that outside of name calling or other deliberate unkindness, it is acceptable to tell people what their posts bring up for you. If that is seen as critical, so be it. But I am not here to be controlled by what you or anyone else personally mint to be acceptable here, or what you or anyone else defines as criticism. Your middle ground is not my middle ground. I will decide what I post, and you can decide what you post.

These conversations are always boring, and rather pointless. I'd much rather be engaged in discussions about actual issues rather than arguing over what people should post.

CE - i hope you are feeling better about this. A client always has the ultimate power to leave the game. Trying to win the therapists game is futile in my opinion because the deck is too stacked and they change the rules to suit their whims. I think there are things to learn while playing with them as long as the client is careful about the objective.

We don't put people we care about and work with on notice! We let them in on our plans and what we're thinking and let them contribute what they see and are thinking and then both understand where the other is coming from and what they value and plan, etc. If it is going to impact therapy one discusses it with one's therapist.

CE: I'm going to be calling this week to make an appointment to be tested and I want to pay for the test by missing a week of therapy. What are your thoughts on that?

T: I really think it would be good to have testing and therapy, so I'm willing to consider the testing helpful to our work here and will, instead, not charge you for the week in which you have the testing. I'm quite interested in hearing about the experience for you and how the results might help us in our work here.

Or:

T: That seems like a smart way to pay for the testing, maybe we can work this week on figuring out things you can do on your own so the missed session won't impact the flow of what we are doing here, now?

Interesting approach. Not one I would do, but interesting to see it.