A few weeks ago, I was super stressed and had told T that I did not want to get into anything too deep. So we talked a little bit about my stress levels and then kind of chit chatted and I thought it was really awesome because I walked out feeling cared for and so much less stressed. I felt BETTER after therapy and I think that is awesome.

This week, I had T at a weird time for me -- Friday afternoon. I had just gotten back the day before from dropping my son off at college. I spent most of the session Friday weeping. First about my son, then about my daughter's health issues. Then tried to change the tone of the session to something more upbeat and tried to talk about how I have been taking better emotional care of myself and described declining a case that involved almost exactly the same situation as something that happened to me growing up. Instead of being excited about my self care, my T wanted to talk about the the thing that had happened to me growing up. Granted, I had never mentioned this particular thing before, but ... Anyway, it was a hard subject for me to discuss and I had difficulty not getting lost in my head and in dealing with the flashbacks. I managed to deal with it, though, without having to have him walk me through the grounding exercises again, so that felt like progress.

So at the end of this grueling, weepy session, T says I am awesome and it was a great session. Seriously? I am struggling with this feeling that my T thinks it's awesome when I'm sad. I understand intellectually, that is not what he means, but it just kind of amuses me how far apart our definitions of "awesome" are. I understand these sessions are NECESSARY and this is where the real work gets done, but calling it awesome is weird to me.

How do you guys define an awesome session?

[Perna]

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

T says I am awesome. . .I understand these sessions are NECESSARY and this is where the real work gets done, but calling it awesome is weird to me.

How do you guys define an awesome session?

Okay you went too fast over what T said! YOU are awesome!!! I think that is awesome that you were under duress and were able to hang in there and do the work; to heck with what the work was and that you were happy/sad/angry/anxious or whatever, YOU are awesome!

Good sessions come and go, "You" do not :-)

Maybe he meant it was awesome that you were able to bring something up work through it and end seemingly put together onto of all the other issues you have faced over the last few weeks. I think your awesome, but I'm sure my opinion is completly biased.

[Wren_]

I think it could have helped if your t had clarified the awesome comment so you weren't left confused and if he had acknowledged it was hard for you ...
it does seem that he was impressed with the work you did in session - painful, hard, emotional, expressive, deep (and yet you stayed with it) and he wanted to acknowledge his appreciation of you doing that work
might help to talk about his comment with him as well

my t hasn't used the word awesome but has talked about good sessions when to me they were horrible in a lot of ways

[Melody_Bells]

Maybe you wanted your T to be more in tune with your sad mood, and you were not yet ready to label it as "awesome" when you were just finished a grueling weepy session? Instead he went into an intellectual state of mind, perhaps it is a compliment that you did an awesome job, but I can see why it felt funny. Your session sounded hard with sensitive topics!

[purplejell]

I think sometimes therapists want to give the positive feedback (that you worked hard in therapy), but for me I can find it sort of incongruent if I'm still feeling sort of raw and torn up, or sad. Probably good to tell you T how it felt for you and/or clarify what his intent was.

[Favorite Jeans]

OMG my T does that too sometimes and it makes me want to kill her!!!

Maybe it feels particularly engaging for the T when a client talks about a new and challenging thing. Maybe your T was excited to see that you managed to stay grounded through this very hard session. (And of course, Perna's right you are awesome!) But it feels like a real mindf*ck to be praised for feeling horrible. To have them feel like the session was so great when you leave and want to curl up and die is similarly upsetting.

Actually I'm very wary of praise and "I'm proud of you" type statements in general. To me it sounds like "you have pleased me therefore you are good."

I'm sorry MKAC, that sounds rough. I hope that you ultimately feel that the work you did in that "awesome" session led to healing and greater understanding of yourself.

[mixedup_emotions]

I'd imagine that my T would find a session like that to be pretty awesome as well....allowing myself to take the risk to delve into the tough stuff and endure it. I tend to be quite resistant to going anywhere too painful - so he would see it as huge progress. I hope to get there someday.

[stopdog]

I do not think I have ever had an appointment with a therapist that I would consider awesome in any definition of the word. The therapist did try saying "good work" or other similar phrases a couple of times, but I got her to stop that because it was exceedingly stressful to me and annoying. It seemed extremely condescending to me.

[Miswimmy1]

My old t used to tell me that I was awesome, and eventually I began to believe it. I think that if you don't really believe it inside, then its not going to resonate very much with you... like for instance, you didn't understand why she would use the word awesome when you had a hard session. But that's exactly it- you were awesome because you made it through. It sounded like you opened up and therefore, that is progress.

I've had a lot of sessions with my old t that I would label awesome. To name a few- when she surprised me with cupcakes, when she brought her dog to our session, when she looked at me with tears in her eyes and told me she would never leave me. The sessions that I would label as awesome are the ones where I felt special.