[CantExplain]

Hi gang!

It looks like I'm headed for another rupture with T.

In mid-October I had to get an uncooperative teenager to school in the first week of term with my wife out of the country.

I had a session with T for which I have still not forgiven her.

I say she failed in empathy. I have since told her, in detail, what kind of support I was looking for.

I need to hear from her that accepts that she failed me and that she will try to do better in future. I need to hear from her how she would have handled it differently.

I predict that she will tell me this is an ultimatum and dig her heels in. But what else can I do?

[stopdog]

Well there are other things you could do (I am not saying you should - just you could):
1. you could forgive her and accept her shortcomings if her good parts outweigh them
2.you could avoid situations where you think she will fail you
3. you could tell her you are leaving to find another who is more empathetic
(and then be prepared to leave because she won't try to talk you out of it)
4. you could tell her what you would like her to do at the time it comes up
5. you could ask her not to talk at times where she will not respond as you want = so you get to say stuff, but she can't make it worse by saying something stupid at least

I am sure there are a lot more.

[feralkittymom]

You seem bound and determined to force a rupture. Might be worth examining why you feel the need to do this.

[stopdog]

CE - has the therapist ever apologized to you for anything?

[likelife]

You can tell her what you feel you need from her. And she can decide whether she can provide it. Beyond that, stopdog has some excellent alternatives.

I recently had a difficult conversation with my T about how she felt coerced (my word) into responding to me in a certain way. I'd imagine it might ring kind of hollow for your T to follow your script for support if it doesn't fit with how she envisions offering support. I'm still trying to learn this lesson myself, so no judgment, just observation.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by stopdog

1. you could forgive her and accept her shortcomings if her good parts outweigh them

My unforgiveness is an experimentally verified fact. It's not something I can change by effort of will.

Originally Posted by stopdog

2.you could avoid situations where you think she will fail you

I might as well quite if I can't rely on her support in a crisis.

Originally Posted by stopdog

3. you could tell her you are leaving to find another who is more empathetic (and then be prepared to leave because she won't try to talk you out of it)

This is the option I am trying to avoid.

Originally Posted by stopdog

4. you could tell her what you would like her to do at the time it comes up

It's too late to do that now. Anyway, when I'm upset I need support, not a fight.

Originally Posted by stopdog

5. you could ask her not to talk at times where she will not respond as you want = so you get to say stuff, but she can't make it worse by saying something stupid at least

If you can't be supportive, just shut up." Yes, that's worth thinking about.

[CantExplain]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

You seem bound and determined to force a rupture.

That's not at all how it feels to me. If my T is unsupportive, how can I trust her? And if I can't trust her, how can I advance?

[stopdog]

I actually do 2, 4, and 5 myself. They work remarkably well for me.
I have done 1 in terms of deciding if 2, 4, and 5 work well enough then I can deal with her being a disappointment.
I have 3 too - I just have not left. So I have two.

[stopdog]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

My unforgiveness is an experimentally verified fact. It's not something I can change by effort of will.

If you won't forgive, Could you simply accept her shortcomings and play to her strengths? Can you identify her strengths?

I might as well quite if I can't rely on her support in a crisis.

Did she not view it as a crisis?

This is the option I am trying to avoid.

do you know why this is not what you have chosen to do?

It's too late to do that now. Anyway, when I'm upset I need support, not a fight.
That is what I am saying - if you start by telling her that you are in a crisis and that you want support in x fashion at this moment and if she can't do x, to please just not make it worse by talking

If you can't be supportive, just shut up." Yes, that's worth thinking about.

I have asked the woman just not to talk because her talking will not help at that moment.

[pbutton]

I think it may be more beneficial to look at your own behavior and see how you can change your reaction. To go from "T failed me" to instead "this happened, this is how I reacted, here's how I can change my pattern".

[pbutton]

It's like you keep saying that you want to change your T. That's not how life works. Instead we need to learn to cope with other people's autonomous decisions, which sometimes means our own disappointment. It does also mean learning to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice.

[skysblue]

[QUOTE=CantExplain;2896620 I had a session with T for which I have still not forgiven her.[/QUOTE]

I get this. I'm still hanging on to some old old interactions with T that still haunt me. I can still see that the good she does for me far outweighs the disappointments I have felt. And with those disappointments I am trying to adopt the attitude of "If I cannot forgive others, how can I ever ask and receive forgiveness for myself?"

Sometimes it helps to just turn the mind off, not hang on like a pit bull to the 'prize' and allow deeper feelings to emerge. Who's right or wrong then becomes less relevant. Of course, I'm still trying to apply this to my own life.

[learning1]

I agree with Skysblue. But if the good she does doesn't outweigh the disappointments, or if the deeper feelings emerge and they are not positive, then I'd find friends who could provide the support, or another t who could provide the support plus more.

[CantExplain]

Maybe I'm ready to leave, but for some neurotic reason I have to believe that she's throwing me out.

[learning1]

[quote=CantExplain;2896686]My unforgiveness is an experimentally verified fact. It's not something I can change by effort of will.


I might as well quite if I can't rely on her support in a crisis. I agree, some basic level of a therapist being able to show they care in a crisis is necessary for a decent therapeutic relationship. Unfortunately, when it comes down to it, some t's just really don't give a dam* about some of their clients.


This is the option I am trying to avoid.


It's too late to do that now. Anyway, when I'm upset I need support, not a fight.

Stating what you need in a nondemanding way doesn't have to be a fight, but it's a risk that you might not get what you want, and it's a hard time to be vulnerable when you already are vulnerable in another way. Sometimes it's not worth the risk I think.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

Maybe I'm ready to leave, but for some neurotic reason I have to believe that she's throwing me out.

Then you're not taking responsibility for your decision. It's like breaking up with somebody by being so awful to them that they can't take it anymore and so they finally leave. It's passive-aggressive.

[adel34]

Hi CE,
For as long as I've been on here, which is since this past May, it seems like you and t have been in a fight very often. You two don't seem very connected and I sense a power struggle a lot of the time. I don't think this is either of your fault, just maybe not a good match. I'm not sure how long you have been working with her.
If you feel that despite feeling unsupported, there are strengths of hers that are important enough to keep working with her, then I'd try to calmly talk about the situation and see if you can't figure out something she can do in a crisis that would work for you. If she doesn't respond positively, or you don't feel that her strengths outweigh the issues, I'd try and find someone else though I know how hard that is!
Your t kind of reminds me of the last t I tried to see. She was very detached and clinical, and when I came in very anxious and upset she did not respond in a way where I felt supported at all. I told her what I would have needed during that session, and she said she just wasn't comfortable giving this to me. I just quickly realized I couldn't do therapy with someone who seemed so distant and went back and forth between sort of caring (still think she was being fake, just couldn't even begin to trust her) and very challengng, telling me I wasn't taking responsibility for things was critical and on and on. Even though it's been hard these past couple months looking for a t, I know that trying to stick it out with her and continuing to feel unsupported wouldn't have done me any good, and would have probably made things a lot worse.
Good luck with this!

[sittingatwatersedge]

CantExplain >> My unforgiveness is an experimentally verified fact. It's not something I can change by effort of will.
just wondering, but how do you know CE? Have you really made a concerted effort of 'will' to forgive T? Or are you keeping unforgiveness warm & cozy in your breast pocket ? I say this because I have done that and know it's possible.


>> when I'm upset I need support, not a fight.
well...no.... these days, more and more, from what I read of your posts, you are upset and you need a fight.

If you leave to find some other therapist, the scenario will repeat itself. You will never find a T who is perfect, who will never say the wrong thing, who will never react in a way that disappoints you (or worse).

Some psychologist wrote that between every two people, one must dominate. I don't believe that (maybe because I am female and this strikes me as a uniquely male viewpoint? IDK). But a power struggle with the T - in my own opinion, based on limited experience - is self defeating. The work is not about T. It's about you. The more time and energy is wasted on a power struggle, the more time and energy is lost which could have been used focusing on the work.

can you not sincerely try to set this power struggle aside and just get on with it?

[stopdog]

It really is not always the client who is wrong. And a good number of therapists do have power/control issues in dealing with clients.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by CantExplain

In mid-October I had to get an uncooperative teenager to school in the first week of term with my wife out of the country.

I had a session with T for which I have still not forgiven her.

I say she failed in empathy. I have since told her, in detail, what kind of support I was looking for.

I think to label this incident about a lack of empathy and improper support is to oversimplify the wide range of upsetting situations clients bring to T's and how they can respond in many ways that are supportive.

First you have to look at the upsetting situation for which you sought support. What you faced was something that probably almost all parents face on a regular basis, if not occasionally. I don't know if your child is normally cooperative or if you don't have the task of usually getting her off to school, but certainly all kids, particularly teenagers, can refuse and be obstinate at times. And if you're committed to being a loving parent, which I believe that you are, then engaging their cooperation without violence or threats can be a challenge.

So I would wonder why the big reaction to a child's lack of cooperation-- it suggests that there is something more to it than just being upset that it was difficult to do? I speculate that you were over the top upset that your bossing around strategy, which you use with other people in your life who back down in response, didn't work with your daughter, and you had little else to work with. So what you sought support for was your unhappiness that you couldn't boss your child around and have the outcome be what you wanted it to be. And your T tried to get you to focus on the things that you can control and perhaps to understand that parenting for the purpose of bossing your kid around might not be the best way to enhance your relationship with her. Maybe she wanted you to feel that it was okay to not be able to control your child (or anyone else, like her maybe?), that your world wouldn't end, that you'd still be the same powerful person with all the same competent and loveable qualities even if someone refuses to be bossed around by you.

I think asking for empathy and support for dysfunctional behavior is unlikely to get you anywhere with a good T. Sometimes I get a clue for what my more hidden dysfunctions are by observing my reaction to what others say to me. If I am unhappy about what people are giving me, or it makes me feel angry, then I look more closely at what the situation and my response was. Sometimes it is just that I have different values than other people, and it's not about dysfunction. Most of the people in my life, for instance, are not supportive when it comes to me skipping medical exams that are "protocol" for the particular disease that I was diagnosed with. I say an exam around 6 months is not meaningfully different than a 3 month one, and I am a bit more skeptical about the value of medical intervention compared to the average person.

As other people have pointed out, you insist on looking at this situation as a failure of your T. You refuse to consider the possibility that what you feel reveals something about your own failure. You've obviously chosen a T who is not a doormat and doesn't roll over and agree with you whenever you bark at her. So you can either decide it's not worth the effort for you to change or you can try to change and see if there are positive benefits in your relationships with other people who refuse to be bossed around by you.

[feralkittymom]

Originally Posted by stopdog

It really is not always the client who is wrong. And a good number of therapists do have power/control issues in dealing with clients.

I'm sure this is true; but I haven't seen any evidence of it in this T's interaction.

CE:That's not at all how it feels to me. If my T is unsupportive, how can I trust her? And if I can't trust her, how can I advance?

I don't think it does feel like this for you. But your feeling that your T is unsupportive doesn't necessarily make it so. Where is the evidence? You seem to equate disagreeing with her perspective with a lack of support. And if you're willing to abandon all trust because of one perceived transgression, your notion of trust is distorted.

I just don't see your willingness to be part of this relationship. Instead, you hold your T to some standard of fantasy perfection, get angry when she doesn't act accordingly, then feel aggrieved, issue an ultimatum, have a rupture.

I don't know what happens during the ruptures, though since you're still seeing the T, there must be some sort of resolution.

Is this like an attraction to make-up sex? Do you crave the post rupture honeymoon? There has to be some felt benefit to continue this.

[Lamplighter]

Been reluctant to post here because I'm not sure that what I have to say is either useful or even relevant, and I'm terrified of getting criticized too - I'm sorry there does seem to be a lot of criticizing going on in this thread, and it's making me a bit wary of speaking up.

Well here goes anyway. I suppose all I really want to say CE is that I relate quite closely to a lot of what you're going through with your T, the struggles, the power plays, the sense of missing trust and the need for T to prove herself in various ways - I understand why that is for me but don't want to presume to attribute the same motives to you.

So just wanting to say that I feel a lot empathy and understanding for your position in these threads and am posting to send you some support

Torn

Originally Posted by CantExplain

I say she failed in empathy. I have since told her, in detail, what kind of support I was looking for.

What would have been a perfect response or set of actions from her ? Is it realistic?

[stopdog]

I see CE's therapist as making it all or nothing too. I believe the therapist could both throw CE a bone as it were and then go on to make the point she wanted to make. I don't see them as mutually exclusive.

Perhaps her hair was more than usually underperforming that day and she just blew it and won't admit it.(I am teasing CE).

[pbutton]

Originally Posted by stopdog

It really is not always the client who is wrong. And a good number of therapists do have power/control issues in dealing with clients.

I agree. However, a good number of therapists don't have power/control issues in dealing with clients. I'd be willing to bet that a good number of clients generate power/control issues where none exist.