Does your t help you with starting?

I ask because because today I really needed t to help me start but she didn't. I said I needed help because I didn't know how to start. She said to take my time and arrive. I said ok but you know t I will sit here and say nothing and she said that is ok too. Sometimes I get frustrated because I need her help. I mentioned this love hate thing I have with her after a while, which seemed like ages and she said I needed to accept her as a whole person which meant all of her, good and bad.
I couldn't bring up anything else for rest of time and she just sat with me.
Is your t good at helping you start?

I thought you were going to bring what you posted about your family. Did you get scared? Is that why you sat there? I know it's hard, but she's not going to be a mind reader and know what you need to talk about. That could have been the time to give her your post to read. I think it would be painful to sit while my T waited for me to say something. I mean for longer than about 2 minutes. I'm sorry that your session was like that.

Usually my T asks what I want to do, and waits for an answer. Sometimes she says, "How about doing some SE?" I always have a zillion things to talk about so it's not a problem.

I brought the post but I couldn't give it to her. There is a total block when it comes to my mother. I couldn't even get it out of my bag. I have a million things to say but I can never get it out.
Thank you Rainbow

If I want my T to start the conversation I'll email him. Otherwise he waits for me to talk. I generally don't want his help - I want him to wait and let me speak.

I sound like a stuck record but could you try writing things down?

My T will help me start the difficult conversations if I email her the topic ahead of time and then tell her at the session that I need help starting. If I'm just completely blank on what I want to talk about, I'll tell T that and she'll ask me for status updates on some of the things we've been working on. That usually gets me talking. Sometimes she'll ask me why it's hard for me to start or have me do some mindful breathing to focus. So, yeah, my T is good at helping me to start talking, but I have to give her some indication of why it's hard to start or what direction I want the session to go first.

my T is all about allowing me to talk and bring things up . in fact we had a talk about communicating. she feels i need to have a voice and learn how to communicate. that her having expectations and subjects and such would be rather judjemental. i don't know how that works .i think i would be happy with allowing het to just lead the session and pick what she would want to talk about .but i wonder if that would be helpfull

Whenever I have something I want to talk about but know it's going to be hard for me to start, I email t and just tell her in the email that I'm afraid I will chicken out so here it is and please remind me to talk about it. She won't bring up the actual thing, but when it becomes obvious at the next session that I'm not going to bring it up, she will say something like "so you sent that email..." or something similiar. So I know she already knows the topic and I can talk about it.

i wonder if i ever e-mailed my T and told her that i have something to talk about but think i would chicken out would she even say anything. i wonder if she would just feel that i am not ready to bring it up then. she has never acknowledged any e-mails that i have sent her. although she tried to talk about it once .saying that she doesn't like e-mail at all but that she would rather me e-mail if it is a choice of that or never talking about a problem. but she never ever encourages it at all.

I know it can be hard to reach in to you bag and pull the letter out, i've had the same problem, it feels awkward and embarrassing especially since all your body wants to do is stay frozen in position on the chair. Sooooo how about having the letter in your hand as you walk in to your appointment, cos that's much easier to hand over?

Mine almost always starts by asking questions about various things we've already discussed. I have trouble opening up but it can be really frustrating at times because I'll want to start off saying something (not sure if the words would actually come out) but then I don't have the chance because she'll ask me about a different subject.

No, mine doesn't really help me start. Though, consultT did ask me if having her ask questions would be helpful when I told her that I had something difficult to talk about, but didn't know how to get started.

My. T lets me initiate. Heck, I can comment on the weather and she won't even entertain that one! It's getting easier to initiate because I can usually think of something in my life to discuss...what is hard for me are those moments of silence...hate them

My T always starts because I think she knows how much I struggle with my therapy.

Not usually. I bug him to pick a topic but he never has and I'm glad he doesn't, because I will get to the topic/issue on my own, even if I talk around it or about stupidly random and unimportant things first.

I had another therapist who would pick topics or ask me questions to get going. You know what it turned into? Him talking me into talking and that wasn't healing. I thought it was what I needed at the time, but I see now, that it created huge problems.

You have to want to have the conversation yourself and bring it up for there to be healing, IMO. It definitely is uncomfortable, especially at the beginning. Sometimes I start with random things like where I parked that day (I refuse to park in the therapy parking lot), the weather, or anything completely pointless.