[Asiablue]

Warning * inner 5 year old rant*

"I haaate my therapist, she sucks. i hate her stupid boundaries. I hate therapy and i hate that she's not my exT. "

ok, adult me says.... i don't hate her, she's ok as far as humans go, i think her boundaries are probably a good thing, even tho it doesn't feel like it to me. Therapy is hard and i do need to be there. But i just don't want to be, i drag myself there every week, with old T I at least looked forward to seeing her and that was what kept me going on the days i didn't want to do the work.

I don't know if i want to keep doing this

Hard decision.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

with old T I at least looked forward to seeing her and that was what kept me going on the days i didn't want to do the work.

I agree that wanting to see the therapist is a powerful motivator to keep showing up each week. If I didn't like my therapist, I probably wouldn't have done it, unless I could see he was really helping me each time. I didn't like my first therapist that much. I didn't dislike her. She was fine, just not a reason to show up each week. I did quit after a while, after achieving some stabilizing goals. I didn't do the really difficult work until I was with my next therapist (my current T), where I did have that deep connection and desire to go to therapy just to be with him, no matter how bad I felt. What will you do? Are you getting enough out of therapy the way it is now? If you are making good progress, then maybe it doesn't matter whether you look forward to seeing her or not? If you aren't making good progress, perhaps the lack of connection is part of the issue?

[Moodswing]

What if your fighting the connection because your so afraid of betrayal, afraid of allowing yourself to need them and then the rug is pulled out from under you and their gone and your left all by yourself again. I want to accept he is genuine, I want to let him in. I get so close to it happening and then I panic!

[Jungatheart]

I love that icon that is throwing a fit! I can relate to that

I just starting to see a new therapist. Like yours, she is an OK therapist. Similar to what Sunrise expressed, she helps me with some stabilizing goals. I see her more of a transition therapist after what I went through with my old T. But I also find that I feel much worse after seeing her. So take my words with a grain of salt.

Do you know how you would rather have her act? What is she not doing that you would like? What boundaries of hers rub you the wrong way?

I can hear both sides of your struggle. Can both sides be taken care of? Validate the little girl, and the adult? You could commit to it for a certain amount of time and then make a decision at that point, or you could explore this issue with your therapist and see where that leads. Or terminate, or explore a new therapist as you continue to see her. Whatever you decide, best of luck.

[sugahorse1]

What is going on? Can you tell your T what it is that you need?

[Asiablue]

Sunrise- my plan is/was to keep going with her since she is very good and knowledgable in her field. I guess progress is slow because she's being careful- we are doing trauma work. I want to stay with her and get everything i can from her and i try to forget about that deep connection thing since it isn't imperative to the work being successful. But i'm beginning to see that i'm really missing that connection and i feel myself getting angry and discouraged.

Jungatheart and sugahorse1 - Her boundaries are tight, no emailing, and outside contact via text is fairly limited. It's a good thing in a way because the boundaries were a mess and the ultimate downfall of the last therapy i was in. But i think i just don't feel that she's all that invested in me. The problem isn't my therapist, the problem is me. I'm more at home with a nurturing therapist, one with a real connection to me, who sees me as more than a job, someone i can feel is really with me. My current client/therapy relationship is safe ( i think) professional, boundaried, she's good at her job, educated, funny, we agree on a lot of things i think, she's a great therapist, she's doing nothing wrong. She's just not "warm and motherly" i guess. Which is probably good since i have attachment issues.

I wish i could just suck it up and deal.

[~EnlightenMe~]

Asia,

I know that some of what your T is doing is working for you. I also like the idea of looking for another T who may be a better fit. There are therapists who have firm but flexible boundaries according to what you need at any given point, that may be more helpful to you. It wouldn't be as close as your first therapist, and wouldn't be as far away as your current therapist. I don't really know the answers, but these were just my thoughts.

[Perna]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

I want to stay with her and get everything i can from her and i try to forget about that deep connection thing since it isn't imperative to the work being successful. But i'm beginning to see that i'm really missing that connection and i feel myself getting angry and discouraged.

Are you sure you have finished grieving/closed out the ex-T close connection thing? Working on that while moving ahead and trying to work on other stuff with the new T would be an added burden to me, like taking too many courses in college was, where there were 2 or 3 really hard math/science courses, etc. I think I'd feel lonely and discouraged in your shoes.

[Asiablue]

you could be right Perna, i def haven't stopped grieving. But i've been working on that on my own.

Originally Posted by Asiablue

you could be right Perna, i def haven't stopped grieving. But i've been working on that on my own.

the best way to deal with grief is by talking it through. Can you talk to new T about your grief about ex t?I think this would really help you to trust your new t and to build your relationship together.
I really think you are fighting this t, fighting to not like her, to not trust her and this is totally understandanle after what happened with ex t and only you will know when it is time to build another trusting realtionship with another t, and maybe this t is not the one right now for you

[rainbow8]

I agree with mls. Maybe if you talk to your T about your former T she will be able to help you with your grief, and at the same time it may bring you closer together. The thing about connection and boudaries is that I think it's better for the T to be clear than to change them. I know my T thought it was fine to answer my emails and to hold my hand, at first, but when she decided it wasn't good for me, that hurt a lot more than if she hadn't let me do those things in the first place. But it hurts either way, I know.

You could look for someone else, but maybe what you need is not what you want, and your T knows that. Just a thought.

ETA: Do you think it's because you don't like the "sensorimotor" therapy? I know that's hard for you, as it is for me. Does your T do that all the time, or do you do regular talk therapy also?

[likelife]

I so hear you, Asiablue. I'm sorry it's such a struggle.

I just read rainbow's post - didn't know you were doing sensorimotor therapy. My exT did some of this with me, and I felt really mixed about it.

At any rate, I agree with the others that processing some of the grief related to losing old T might be helpful. I talk in bits and spurts about exT with currentT, and while I find it helpful, it dregs up a lot of shame for me. CurrentT isn't warm and motherly either. But I still feel that she cares and is invested in me. It seems possible to have the latter even if the former isn't present.

[ultramar]

With ex-T did you come to associate the great extent of outside contact as proof of caring and nurturing? Because if this is so, I can see how the transition to a therapist with different boundaries could be very difficult.

Maybe in part you will need to redefine what constitutes, for you, nurturing and caring. Apart from the lack of outside contact, in what ways is your current therapist nurturing and caring with you?

[1stepatatime]

Originally Posted by Asiablue

Sunrise- my plan is/was to keep going with her since she is very good and knowledgable in her field. I guess progress is slow because she's being careful- we are doing trauma work. I want to stay with her and get everything i can from her and i try to forget about that deep connection thing since it isn't imperative to the work being successful. But i'm beginning to see that i'm really missing that connection and i feel myself getting angry and discouraged.

Jungatheart and sugahorse1 - Her boundaries are tight, no emailing, and outside contact via text is fairly limited. It's a good thing in a way because the boundaries were a mess and the ultimate downfall of the last therapy i was in. But i think i just don't feel that she's all that invested in me. The problem isn't my therapist, the problem is me. I'm more at home with a nurturing therapist, one with a real connection to me, who sees me as more than a job, someone i can feel is really with me. My current client/therapy relationship is safe ( i think) professional, boundaried, she's good at her job, educated, funny, we agree on a lot of things i think, she's a great therapist, she's doing nothing wrong. She's just not "warm and motherly" i guess. Which is probably good since i have attachment issues.

I wish i could just suck it up and deal.

Hi,Aysiablue
I know how those "tight boundaries" feel. It seems that you do have a connection with this T but that you need more warmth, nurturing. Is this something that you could discuss in session? I know...that is a tough one!! Not sure that I could...but if you are able to maybe she will get a better understanding in what you need. Maybe she can give more?
My T has some pretty heavy boundaries but she does let me email.. I hope that your T can lighten up those stupid !@#$%%^ boundaries a bit!!
Take care

[Asiablue]

MLS- i'm not aware of fighting her, i feel like i'm looking for some connection every week, i just don't see any evidence of it.

Rainbow- You are so right, what i want isn't necessarily what i need. It's for that reason that i've kept going with this one. Because she is what i need. Sensorimotor stuff isn't all we do, we are doing Emdr work, we don't really do talk therapy so much, although she takes the lead from me, if i said i wanted to talk we would.

Likelife- I feel shame too talking about what happened with old T. I stopped talking bout it in my current therapy because i felt like it was taking valuable time away from getting on with actual therapy and i'd got to the stage where i didn't feel like i needed to talk about it anymore. So now i just deal with it myself.

Ultramar- Yes, i suppose i did associate it with caring because she chose to give me her time outside of the paid hour, in her free time or a weekends and days off. She thought about me outside of the hour, she said things that told me how much she cared. I just "felt" it. You're right, i may need to redefine nurturing.... I don't see any way my current T is nurturing or caring with me. She's caring in a " this is my job " type of way. But there's nothing that tell me she feels anything else.

1stepatatime- i suppose i have surface level connection. In that i think she's ok and i am fairly comfortable with her. I don't think i could tell her i need more warmth... i'm not sure that's something you can ask a person who isn't naturally like that? Plus i feel a lot of shame surrounding having needs in the 1st place.

[ultramar]

I have some outside contact with my therapist and it's very helpful -but nothing like the dynamic you had with your ex-T.

My point is that even without tons of contact, I really do feel that my therapist cares and is warm; I feel this from sessions and how he has helped me, it's hard to explain. Maybe you need to look for a therapist who has good boundaries, but at the same time shows him/herself to be warm and caring. I think it's very possible to be both and no doubt there are lots of therapists out there like this.

In reading your post, I realized that I'm not sure what you mean by nurturing. If you mean encouraging your growth (I looked up the definition!), then I definitely feel that from my therapist and I would hope that all therapists are this way. On the other hand ('definitions' aside) I personally associate 'nurturing' with mothers or motherly behavior. This isn't something I'm looking for, but I wonder if you hope for a therapist to be motherly?

I can see how a mother (or father) figure can keep good boundaries and fill this role to an extent, at the same time. But I can also see that if a therapist takes on this role too literally/liberally, it could involve more/outside the usual bounds involvement than what would be considered traditional therapy. In the sense that good mothers/fathers are highly involved in their children's lives, certainly more than a therapist would be.

Do you think the 'nurturing' issue is a sticking point? Do you feel you need a mother-figure who will nurture you somewhat as a real mother would?