T is not at all the person I thought she was.

I've been in therapy for about 2 months now. This is the first time I've ever been in therapy. Up until three weeks ago, I experienced very intense transference for my t. I couldn't stop thinking about her. About three weeks ago my T went on a two week vacation. It was hell. I suffered more than I thought I would. At the same time I started the process of breaking up with my boyfriend. I just figured out that it was a really bad codependent relationship. It all got too much for me so I decided to put my feelings aside and I feel like I kind of withdrew into myself. I had my the first session after my T's vacation yesterday. It was a really terrible session. I told her all of these things. I just feel like she didn't attune to me as she did all the other times. It just felt like she was really happy and in her own world. I think the fact that I just withdrew into myself also didn't help. Afterwards I felt like she was not at all the person I thought she was. I think she was disappointed about the fact that I'm not coping as well.

I want therapy to work. And I want to feel as attached to her as before. But I feel like that empathetic attunement is gone and its never going to come back. I feel hopeless. I know that I will have to deal with my emotions if I want therapy to work, but it's going to take baby steps. I just don't want to loose my T. Has anyone ever bounced back after something like this?

Lily, after only 2 months, you're just barely scratching the surface of therapy. Transference usually takes much longer to develop. Could it be that you've felt great relief and some hope that you have a support system? But that first flush of relief has now passed, and you're entering a different phase of therapy?

The middle time is when most of the hard work gets done. It's very common to feel a let down. It isn't because of anything you've done, nor any pulling away by your T. It's just the natural ebb and flow of the process. Accept and explore your feelings, but don't trust that they're telling you the whole story right now.

It would be best if you could express how you felt at the next session, and perhaps your T will use it to talk about the process a bit.

Hi Lily,

I agree with Feral.

Also (correct me if I'm wrong) I also think you had had a tough few weeks and perhaps it was overwhelming for you. You wanted your T to react and see that you had 'withdrew into yourself' yet she seemed 'in her own world' and 'disappointed that you weren't coping as well'. You missed her when she was away, yet on her return she seemed different which is making you see the therapeutic relationship differently.



However, you will 'bounce back' - every therapy session is different. Your T will be different and use various approaches. If you can get the confidence, I would try to talk to her about all of this. Perhaps print out your post to refer to?

Take care and don't give up - it took me 3 years to scratch the surface of therapy!!

Lily, a couple months into therapy with my current T, I said something that was pretty emotional to me. T responded by saying "yes, that often happens." In retrospect, T was trying to normalize my experience but I heard it as her telling me I had no right to feel anything about it because it was commonplace. I despaired that she was too cold and not empathetic enough, and wanted to go back to my previous T (even though the former T didn't really know how to deal with me and referred me as a result). Instead I went back and told T how I reacted to her comment. She basically said it was my responsibility to be honest with her about how I was actually feeling. Later I realized that not being overly warm and empathetic was something T was doing very deliberately to avoid overwhelming me, and it worked. 1.5 years later I can't have wished for a better T.

Not every day in therapy is the same, and not everything your T does means what you think it means. Go back and talk about it. Give her a chance and see what happens.

I think it's important to recognise how much of this is - and isn't fact.

These are all feelings - and important ones. But they're your experience, and I think you should find out what your T experienced. It's normal to sometimes feel unattuned - and worth talking about it and pushing through. It's very healing to do that, once you're out the other side!

I always find the first session after a break difficult. I think I hold myself together and then go into session desperately wanting something which I then can't get and come out feeling worse than I went in. Now however I know this is a pattern and have talked to t about it. Hang on in there. It took me years to get any relief from therapy and I'm glad you did at the beginning but unfortunately in order to deal with stuff there will be times when this doesn't happen.

I have misread concern as disappointment, so I wonder if you might have?
I also find the first session back can be really hard. Part of it is because I can withdraw, and part has been my fear that she will change or forget me, or decide she didn't want to see me anymore, or...... It was easy for those fears to steer my perceptions.
So hang in there and see if next time is better.
It is all something to learn from.