[tinyrabbit]

I have this habit of inventing imaginary characters to represent different aspects of my therapy experience. I'm not sure if it's something to do with keeping myself company, or my tendency to retreat into fantasy, or because I'm turning feelings into facts. I wondered if anyone can relate or if you have any ideas about why I do it. I never consciously think: "Hey, I'll turn that into a character." I just do it without thinking.

So far, the cast of characters includes:

Wolf and rabbit - represent different aspects of my personality. The wolf gets angry and throws tantrums, the rabbit gets scared and lonely.

Captain Transference - transference personified.

Extrapolation Dalek - my T was saying I should extrapolate and I said he sounded like a malfunctioning Dalek, and so Extrapolation Dalek was born. Unlike most Daleks, he's a force for good. Captain Transference is his arch-nemesis.

Penguin - we had a conversation where feeding zoo penguins was a metaphor and my T asked if he was the fish, so next time I got mad at him I said I felt like feeding him to a penguin. Next session, he asked if I'd brought the penguin.

Imaginary supervisor - kind of based on Gina from In Treatment even though we're in the UK. I do know why I do this, it lets me express thoughts and feelings e.g. one of my memories might make my T upset and scared. If I'm angry with him, she'll throw coffee over him.

Why do I do this? Am I just crazy?

[chumchum]

Originally Posted by tinyrabbit

I have this habit of inventing imaginary characters to represent different aspects of my therapy experience. I'm not sure if it's something to do with keeping myself company, or my tendency to retreat into fantasy, or because I'm turning feelings into facts. I wondered if anyone can relate or if you have any ideas about why I do it. I never consciously think: "Hey, I'll turn that into a character." I just do it without thinking.

So far, the cast of characters includes:

Wolf and rabbit - represent different aspects of my personality. The wolf gets angry and throws tantrums, the rabbit gets scared and lonely.

Captain Transference - transference personified.

Extrapolation Dalek - my T was saying I should extrapolate and I said he sounded like a malfunctioning Dalek, and so Extrapolation Dalek was born. Unlike most Daleks, he's a force for good. Captain Transference is his arch-nemesis.

Penguin - we had a conversation where feeding zoo penguins was a metaphor and my T asked if he was the fish, so next time I got mad at him I said I felt like feeding him to a penguin. Next session, he asked if I'd brought the penguin.

Imaginary supervisor - kind of based on Gina from In Treatment even though we're in the UK. I do know why I do this, it lets me express thoughts and feelings e.g. one of my memories might make my T upset and scared. If I'm angry with him, she'll throw coffee over him.

Why do I do this? Am I just crazy?

You are certainly NOT crazy! I think you have a very unique way of healing. You also seem to have a very sweet relationship with your T and that makes a world of difference in healing. Taking such a proactive role in your therapy is going to make your time with him so much more successful.

[BonnieJean]

Maybe it is a way of separating enough from these aspects of yourself so that you can take a look at them and 'experience' them without it being too threatening. It almost reminds me of a conscious way of disassociating various parts of your self while you need them separate. I also see it as a type of metaphor almost - not the same as describing things with 'like or as' but forming a picture to describe the experience better than words can. And you are creative so using your creativity in therapy is not really a surprise. You write parable-like stories, too, if I'm remembering correctly.

[tinyrabbit]

Thanks for your replies!

Originally Posted by BonnieJean

Maybe it is a way of separating enough from these aspects of yourself so that you can take a look at them and 'experience' them without it being too threatening. It almost reminds me of a conscious way of disassociating various parts of your self while you need them separate. I also see it as a type of metaphor almost - not the same as describing things with 'like or as' but forming a picture to describe the experience better than words can. And you are creative so using your creativity in therapy is not really a surprise. You write parable-like stories, too, if I'm remembering correctly.

This is exactly why I posted! I had the beginnings of some ideas and figured people might help me develop them - reading this post was a total lightbulb moment. I don't know why, but it just didn't occur to me that maybe I'm dissociating from those parts of me and projecting them outwards. For whatever reason - to examine them, to disown them - maybe I want to see them as not actually being a part of me.

Thank you for pointing this out. It just hadn't occurred to me.

I do indeed write those kinds of stories

[tinyrabbit]

Originally Posted by chumchum

You are certainly NOT crazy! I think you have a very unique way of healing. You also seem to have a very sweet relationship with your T and that makes a world of difference in healing. Taking such a proactive role in your therapy is going to make your time with him so much more successful.

I hope you're right. It is sweet when Captain Transference doesn't get in the way...

[Anne2.0]

I think the word is creative. Roll with it, it is working for you, as all creative strategies do.

[Perna]

I'm with you tinyrabbit; I did that and found it helpful. I wrote it all up too and had a cast of 20-40 characters when I was done. It was interesting for a few months but then gradually faded. Now I just have "Queen's Knight" my protector He was the only one with a physical body, a miniature, multi-colored, jointed, teddy bear in a jester's hat.

[tinyrabbit]

Originally Posted by Perna

I'm with you tinyrabbit; I did that and found it helpful. I wrote it all up too and had a cast of 20-40 characters when I was done. It was interesting for a few months but then gradually faded. Now I just have "Queen's Knight" my protector He was the only one with a physical body, a miniature, multi-colored, jointed, teddy bear in a jester's hat.

It's nice to speak to someone else who has done this! Did you invent them all in a short space of time or gradually one by one?

For some reason we always want to relate to somebody or something else all the time as a human race instead of wanting to just be ourselves. I mean we never say I don't want to be like a rabbit or a wolf, I want to be me, I am happy with me.
Maybe this is the child part of you that wants to be creative and have a fantasy world filled full of these colorful characters.
Were you allowed to be creative as a child TR?

[growlycat]

I love this. You have me wondering about my own "characters"...

[tinyrabbit]

Originally Posted by monalisasmile

For some reason we always want to relate to somebody or something else all the time as a human race instead of wanting to just be ourselves. I mean we never say I don't want to be like a rabbit or a wolf, I want to be me, I am happy with me.
Maybe this is the child part of you that wants to be creative and have a fantasy world filled full of these colorful characters.
Were you allowed to be creative as a child TR?

Yeah. I don't want to be me. I'm not happy with me. And it's just me in my therapy, which is pretty lonely really.

I wasn't stopped from being creative - if anything it was the only thing that kept me sane, making up stories and imagining things in my head.

Originally Posted by tinyrabbit

Yeah. I don't want to be me. I'm not happy with me. And it's just me in my therapy, which is pretty lonely really.

I wasn't stopped from being creative - if anything it was the only thing that kept me sane, making up stories and imagining things in my head.

Hey well I don't see anything wrong with this fantasy world you have created, in fact it sounds like a nice place to escape too
As long as you don't use it as an escape from the harder things in therapy which maybe you are avoiding TR?
It is really good actually that you keep inventing new characters and scenarios.
Maybe there is an author in you, hiding away

[tinyrabbit]

I think I'm keeping things at a distance which is a kind of avoidance.

The author in me isn't quite so hidden! I'm a writer by profession...

[~EnlightenMe~]

I do the same kind of things, but I usually relate to movie/t.v. characters.

I always thought it was a form of symbolism, that it helped me express how I felt while putting it in different terms. It is kind of like a math equation, where I have all of the answers but prefer to use the variables.

I think you might be right, that it is a way of distancing. I think that it is creative, and that it helps put feelings of interest around whatever the scenario is, and that may be distancing myself from my emotions. I still like doing it, though.

Originally Posted by tinyrabbit

I think I'm keeping things at a distance which is a kind of avoidance.

The author in me isn't quite so hidden! I'm a writer by profession...

Have you ever wrote a story about yourself TR? I think that could be very good for you

[tinyrabbit]

Originally Posted by monalisasmile

Have you ever wrote a story about yourself TR? I think that could be very good for you

Only in the third person using characters (like the wolf and the rabbit). I feel weird writing stories directly about myself. I have no idea why!

[Luce]

Sounds like you're very creative to me, and are simply finding creative ways to understand your inner psyche.

[tinyrabbit]

In case anyone is interested, I talked to my T about this today. He thinks I'm doing this as a way of understanding how I exist in the world.

He told me a story about a question he asked his mother when he was really little - he wanted to know what something in his room was made of. She said: "You'll find out when you're older." He said he kept trying to remember the question, and at first he thought it was because he really wanted to know the answer. Then he realised it was because he wanted to remember that he'd had a question, as that was part of how he existed in the world.

It made sense in the session, I'm not sure I'm explaining it very well now though.

I am not sure I understand tiny
You create characters to show how you exist in the world? Is that what he means?

[tinyrabbit]

It's like I'm making sense of how I exist and relate to the world - how I think and stuff.