[precious things]

Have you ever found yourself in therapy where, a few months in you find your T making proclamations about your problem that leave you wondering if they have been listening or even paying attention up to that point?

I had a session where after I described (again) my eating disordered episode (and my T specializes in EDs ) and thereafter he made an oddly placed comment, "this sounds like a severe eating disorder..." I have been seeing T for several months and this struck me as the type of comment one would make in the first appointment or two....where I provided all the same behavioral details. (Nothing has changed behavior wise, just kind of re-hashing the same this is what I do and feel when I do it). He was almost making a pronouncement as if I were telling him for the first time and he was giving me his initial take....but that's not the case, as I said.

At the time, I couldn't process fast enough why this bothered me so I asked a puzzled, "what makes you say that" and he sort of mumbled "oh just in terms of how long this has been affecting you..." Again, he is well versed in my history (or I thought he was). It felt very disingenuous and I don't know how to phrase this any better than to say it felt like he was phoning it in. I know T's have off days, that isn't the problem...it's that the comment itself feels invalidating to all the sessions I have been going in and painstakingly talking about how the eating disorder affects my life. It felt like I just went in a big circle and he has not been paying any attention at all to what I have been telling him and certainly, makes me question his sincerity on any other advice or comments he has made about my disorder.

Does this even make sense to any of you? Am I looking for reasons to doubt him or would you take issue at all with this? I've called him on BS before so I don't have a problem telling him exactly what I posted here next session, but is this a big picture problem to you or just a blip? This really, really bothers me from a trust standpoint.

Sometimes it takes a therapist or pdoc time to really get a strong feel for where we are/what diagnosis is appropriate. I don't think that is particularly unusual. His perceptions may be changing the more he gets to know you.

My pdoc, for instance, didn't really arrive at my diagnosis until he had been working with me for over a year. It took time and observation over time to feel confident in his diagnosis.

[Perna]

Sometimes my T would say "obvious" things but then I would realize that I had been looking at trees so long I forgot the forest? What are you actually doing with your eating disorder? If you are just continually talking about episodes, I don't know what else T could say/do? What are you learning and how are you applying it, etc.? Are you doing a "well I tried eating an apple a day but this other thing happened. . ." or just doing what you have always done?

[precious things]

Originally Posted by Perna

Sometimes my T would say "obvious" things but then I would realize that I had been looking at trees so long I forgot the forest? What are you actually doing with your eating disorder? If you are just continually talking about episodes, I don't know what else T could say/do? What are you learning and how are you applying it, etc.? Are you doing a "well I tried eating an apple a day but this other thing happened. . ." or just doing what you have always done?

No, we are doing far deeper work than just discussing behaviors...the behavioral stuff sort of gets talked about early on and then our work focuses heavily on working on the feelings at play...how they originated and what purpose they serve...and the deeper reasons why I use the disorder in the first place.

I hear what you are saying Perna but it wasn't him trying to give me an aha moment....I walked in there day one saying this is a serious problem I've been dealing with for x years. This felt more like a filler comment where the T is sort of reaching for something to say.

[likelife]

I don't read your T's comments as disingenuous. Not that that matters all that much, necessarily. I see them as sort of ridiculously obvious and not all that helpful, though. It does sound a little like your T was phoning it in that day. It would be interesting to hear his perception of the experience.

[unaluna]

Is this like where, earlier this month, my t said to me, why don't you ask a friend to sell your books at their garage sale? And I was like, what exactly do you think I do when I leave here? If I had friends with garages, would I be bothering you all the time? It was like he thought I was normal. The thing is, while they are building us up in the therapy room, we don't always carry that behavior out to real life. But we can't be totally under stress in the therapy room either, or else for sure we'd be a mess IRL.

[eskielover]

When you first started with your T & you stated that the behavior had been going on for x years.....that was prior to this T.....the way I see it is that NOW T realized the extended amount of time in HIS REALITY WITH YOU that the behavior is continuing to be an issue.

Sometimes even when we tell them it's been going on for so long....they need to process it into their own reality with you....sounds like that was what he was doing IMHO.

I know that I went through a horrible trauma while I was seeing my pdoc & my psychologist (who was having back problems just before back surgery at the time)......then all minimized the trauma I was going through & excused it away to my lack of eating....but my lack of eating was because of the stress I was going through. I ended up in the medical hospital because of the anorexia.....& the nightmares I was having from the trauma were horrible......but one doesn't have PTSD until a certain time after the trauma.......they were having a difficult time figuring out how to Dx what was happening to me because it was all in real time & hadn't met the specific criteria that it needed to meet in their minds to qualify as anything but a horrible situation & anorexia.....but I was living the horrible terror & fighting all the Dr's regarding the condition of my mother's cancer with absolutely NO SUPPORT from anyone.....& they just didn't get what I was telling them.

Just like for me....it became more clear as time passed & it was more obvious of what had been happening......& they needed to SEE the progression with their own eyes & ears...not clear in real time or just from things I had commented about in the past because I had gone through anorexia issues previously for a completely different reason & circumstances.

Think your T is just now getting a more clear picture of what you are dealing with & the causes that surround the ED behavior which is really the most important aspect of the treatment.

Therapy can be so difficult because we don't see always where our T is coming from & what their logic is behind their thinking......hope you can maybe ask him about this & get a better understanding of where his thinking is coming from.

[ECHOES]

I hear it as he was paying attention to you, and your experience, as you were describing it.
It sounds like it really resonated with him and he was being validating.