[9874]

In dealing with rupture and repair within the psychotherapeutic relationship I am interested to hear from others about your experiences. What has been the nature of the rupture with your therapist? Have you talked it through in an effort to repair it? Have you been able to repair? If yes, how did it come about? Perhaps you acquired insight that brought about a shift in thinking?

I will share my own experience as well; too tired now for that, but will do so one of these days.

[Perna]

I've had a couple of problems but in the week before I've seen my therapist again my head goes into overdrive to "figure it out." I trust my T so can usually get to a place where I know she isn't "out to get me" and so I look for some other reason for what happened and usually find a misunderstanding of her words or affect by me. One very painful week when I thought she was being sarcastic and mocking I came to the realization she was warning me of danger and making it as strong a warning as she could. That intensity helped me in the future, supported me. She was "all" there for me. I'm prone to take observations or statements of fact as complaints and slights. But it's not all about Me :-)

[JustBen]

I never had a major rupture with my therapist, but a few minor ones. We talked them through, and I think the relationship was even stronger for it afterwards. I could see it going the other way, though, if the rupture was too severe.

Once i had a T who would just tell me stories about her own life. I tried to tell her by email, but she didnt want to change and referred me out.

I once had a T who just didnt care anything about me at all. I could tell. She didnt worry about returning my phone calls and was always tryint to force me to talk about thinks i wasnt comfortable with. i never confronted it.. I just stop going. With my current T, I once said soemthing that really hurt her (unintentionally). I think it really ruptured our relationship. I tried to repair it. Im never really sure how bad it hurt, because i dont think she would ever tell me.

[Hopefull]

My T started hen pecking me to try an anti-depressant. At the first mention of it, I darn near started starring at the walls. Instead, I answered in monosylabic answers. She kept bringing it up. I knew that she thought this was in my best interest and I was frustrating her because she wanted me to be happy. But, I just didn't have it in me. She said something about they should put anti-depressants in the water. I told her that it offended me and tried to express my more moderate views on drugs. She seemed to just let my response drop and never once invited me to share my reservations about drugs. I ended up going her way on it. But, I still feel that she could have invited me to share my pros/cons list. She could have been more open about the risks, negative consequences etc. I can't make a proper decision on whether to talk to a psychiatrist for the first time without an honest appraisal of the option from both sides. I had to do my own research and thinking in her absence to come to my conclusions.
I can still work with her because I know that she cares and knows what she is doing. I just keep wanting to ask her to remember to be more open to all sides of a decision rather than only pointing out the positives of drugs.

oh my gosh. hopeful.. i feel the same way. had the same situation happen. i hate feeling like i have to do something.

[Rapunzel]

I told about ruptures with past therapists in the termination thread, so I won't repeat what I already posted. I'll add that I have ruptures with my current therapist also. I have finally reached a point where I can see that I am the one creating the problems. I start feeling picked on, especially when what they teach in my classes seems a lot more client friendly than what she does with me. She expects better of me than what I usually present to her, and I end up feeling like she must hate me and I can never be good enough, and a who mountain of self-pity garbage. But she treats me better than I treat myself. All the junk and garbage is mine, not coming from her. She just gets out of the way when I act like that, and that's frustrating because you can't carry on a fight very well with nobody fighting back. One time in the very same email I told her that I wasn't sure I even liked her, and then I demanded hugs, and said that it wasn't even worth showing up at my appointment if she wouldn't give me a hug. What a mess. I'm in another rupture now because I only partially did my homework, and she rejected it and told me to get to work, and I wanted to talk about other stuff, but she wouldn't forget about the homework.

Repairing the ruptures requires me to change my attitude and stop fighting and accept responsibility for my own behavior. Sometimes it takes several weeks, and I keep feeling like she must hate me until I can see her in person and feel that she acually isn't the way that I've been picturing her. I'm doing better this time. I know it's me, not her. It's still icky though.

Rap