[CantExplain]

Huh? Well, give me a chance and we'll see if I can work it out.

I went to the hygienist earlier this week. As usual, she asked me how often I brush and how often I floss. I gave a series of unsatisfactory answers, "Three times a week. When I think I need it. I don't remember. I never think about that." Eventually she gave up (vocally) and cleaned my teeth. Possibly she sulked, I don't know.

Now from her point of view, it is her duty to ask those questions and to give me a lecture if she doesn't like my answers. And I'm sure her teachers and her employer would back her up on this.

But from my point of view it is an annoyance and an imposition. I don't like it and I don't want it. I didn't come here for a battle of wills. Dental hygiene may be your whole life, Missy, but I have other priorities. In spite of my neglect, my teeth are not falling out in rotten handfuls. Just clean my teeth and shut up.

Now it occurs to me that this is a microcosm of my relationship with Madame T. She insisted on doing things by the book and would not be persuaded otherwise. She was trying to change me in ways I did not want to change, and would not back off. That, in my view, is not good therapy. But in her own eyes, I'm sure she felt she was right.

So I'll just have to find another hygienist.

[unaluna]

Why are these sciences negotiable in your mind? Are all sciences negotiable? What's the difference ie between those that are and those that are not negotiable? Are these not sciences? Is the earth indeed flat?

[stopdog]

I don't let doctors or their staff lecture me. It is not their job and I don't have to endure it.

[Rapunzel]

Okay, why go to the dental hygienist, dentist, or therapist at all if you are not interested in their advice? You pay them to try to make you healthy, but you don't want to work with them and do your part. They are all fighting a losing battle because they only have a chance to try to help you once in a while, and they can't make the changes in your behavior and thinking and self care that are necessary for your health. The best that they can do is advise you on what you need to do on a daily (or more frequent) basis. None of them can do it for you. It's like paying a contractor to build a house for you but you go there when they are not working and tear it down over and over. They are either going to tell you to stop sabotaging their work, or they are just going to quit.

[stopdog]

I don't go to a therapist for their advice on how to make me healthy or a dentist cleaning for them to lecture or give advice to me. I go to the therapist to find out how therapy works and I go to a dentist for them to clean my teeth or fill cavities or tell me if there appears a problem that I then decide whether or not to allow them fill or get a root canal or whatever. If I ask how to avoid such in the future, then they can explain how such things may be possibly avoided. But I don't go to them to tell me how to be.

[Freewilled]

Originally Posted by Rapunzel

Okay, why go to the dental hygienist, dentist, or therapist at all if you are not interested in their advice? You pay them to try to make you healthy, but you don't want to work with them and do your part. They are all fighting a losing battle because they only have a chance to try to help you once in a while, and they can't make the changes in your behavior and thinking and self care that are necessary for your health. The best that they can do is advise you on what you need to do on a daily (or more frequent) basis. None of them can do it for you. It's like paying a contractor to build a house for you but you go there when they are not working and tear it down over and over. They are either going to tell you to stop sabotaging their work, or they are just going to quit.

Yeah - true if it's a very structured, CBT-style of therapy with homework and such. But what about those psychodynamic/psychoanalytic Ts? In my experience, I have felt like I'm stumbling around in the dark and trying to hit a moving target. What does my T want me to fing do already?! And then it sometimes seems Im on the right path and then I'm hinted at that I'm not progressing or expecting T has a magic wand. Um - no. I'm expecting that by committing to attend the weekly therapy on a very continuous and persistent basis, I can overcome this ****. And I'm making outward changes which I've always been able to do for the most part even before T (albeit with much agonizing pushing of myself) until I just got fing tired of the trying, trying, trying, trying, trying, trying ad nauseum. I mean, I'm still trying and falling down and back and forth. I'm not refusing to try. Idk. Please disregard if this makes no sense....Might just be me and my T

[looking4polaris]

Well, I prefer silence in a dental hygienist, but I guess I see my T's role a bit differently. He can't change me in ways I don't want to be changed, true. However, T and I are working together, collaborating and that means that I don't get to control everything that happens. That is where the growth and change happens for me, when I'm ready. T is not performing a service by rote. That would not work for me in a T. I rarely like relaxing my control, but I find more and more that it's the only way I can truly connect. Very uncomfortable for me. That's how I know it's working.
I hope you find what you're looking for.
As a side note, perhaps a dental provider out there could get a thriving practice going by offering guaranteed lecture-free cleanings. Sign me up. Hush 'n Brush

[feralkittymom]

I think the pursuit of discrete analogies is unfruitful. It keeps you entrenched, rather than encouraging expansion of perspective.

[WikidPissah]

My hygienist is the devil incarnate. Helz no, I don't want that in therapy either.

[Perna]

Did she actually lecture you or just ask you questions to which you gave answers you "knew" were not making you look like a healthy person? So your teeth are not your priority. Maybe they are not rotten or falling out now but I can almost guarantee you they will and it will not be pretty or fun. My husband did not like the pain of deep cleaning so just quit going to the dentist and let his teeth fall out and eventually he had the rest pulled and has dentures doesn't have to go to the dentist ever again or listen to people who care about him and his health (ask him about having his face swollen with sudden, life-threatening infection).

I want people who care helping me take care of me, even wish I could have my stepmother back, despite her controlling nature and our flawed relationship. I always knew my stepmother loved me, like I knew I loved her; we both knew that. We had an impossible relationship though. Now, after a zillion years of therapy, if I had her back I could do a lot better job of the relationship, maybe help her feel better maybe not feel so bad myself when dealing with her, etc. But I do not mind she took me to the dentist when I was 5 and every 6 months after that as I grew up to get my teeth cleaned and get that habit ingrained in me (and no, I almost NEVER floss and don't brush my teeth often enough and I end up paying a couple thousand dollars a year to keep my mouth happy/"up-to-date" so I don't have to have dentures/worse problems than I have).

My teeth are not my priority either but I do not mind that they are my hygienist's priority when I am with her. I learned to love my therapist's snippy attitude when I got the bit between my teeth and was determined to go in a way she thought would not help me. I feel it is like sonar and while I'm running deep, I want all the feedback I can get?

[tametc]

Originally Posted by looking4polaris

as a side note, perhaps a dental provider out there could get a thriving practice going by offering guaranteed lecture-free cleanings. Sign me up. Hush 'n brush

Hush 'n brush--love it!