The T relationship

For those of you where the focus of your relationship with your therapist plays an important role in your therapy ... how does that help you with your other relationships?

does it help?
shoud it help?

I'm feeling a bit confused on this at the moment

It does help me. I notice how what I say and how I act reflects immediately with how I relate to others. It shows me ugly parts of myself that I may have been with people from my past. The relationship can also just be used as an indicator of how I'm doing outside of the room. I bring him all my baggage. Nine times out of ten, if I'm feeling needy, desperate, or angry in my own personal life, I'll end up either consciously or unconsciously directing that toward him. The relationship can be a tool in finding out what I need and want.

"She had blue skin, and so did he. He kept it hid, and so did she. They searched for blue, their whole life through, then passed right by- and never knew."

It hasn't been helping me but things are tough right now. If anything, I'm grumpier and down in real life because of this 'relationship.'

can you clarify what you mean by plays an important part? i know my relationship with my t is important but i'm not sure how to express in what way?

My therapeutic relationship has been a healing model of how to mother. I've internalized some of the empathy and knowledge from my therapist and found it made me more open to understanding and helping my daughter than when I was parenting her without any of that maternal influence.

Also, intentionally and unintentionally, I've gained the ability to be more open, in-the-moment and honest with my husband, and to a lesser extent with others based on how accepting my therapist is of my disclosures, and the feeling of normalizing them.

It isn't a cure-all, but it has been helpful.

not really sure how to clarify it; just thinking that for some of us we spend a lot of time talking about the T relationship within therapy and know that we are working on that relationship ... so i'm wondering how the relationship with our therapist can help (or if it does) with other relationships

Yes it should and it does help. I can do so much and be much more vulnerable with others because of my T. It has helped me so much.

To add: I can connect with others more deeply and don't see myself as repulsive to others. I can (and do) believe that they enjoy my company, and I don't constantly worry about whether they're happy with me.

I don't think my relationship with her has any impact on the way I interact with others. The WORK we've done has changed some of the ways I interact, but it's not a reflection of her or anything. It's just choices I've made to better myself.

thanks ... sorry i'm not good with replying to everyone but i appreciate everything that is being shared ... trying to think it all through (which usually leads to getting lost in thought)
Leah that's great to read how much it is helping with your husband

some how my thoughts get the opposite message at times I'm glad it is helping you

A hundred times yes.

I started therapy thinking I would talk about my problems and find solutions to those problems.

Um, no.

Very early on I attached to my T and he was steadfast as all anything. Nothing I said or did scared him or changed him in any way. He has been the same guy day in and day out, and I've told him some pretty deep stuff.

Through our relationship I've learned to

love in the face of inevitable loss,
be kinder to myself and to others,
set boundaries that I am comfortable with and enforce them,
express to my family and friends how I really feel,
accept that I am enough,
have compassion for myself and empathy for others,
embrace my feelings - positive or negative,
face my shame and confront my insecurities,
practice patience and tolerance with those around me

I am thankful my dear therapist sees the value in a therapeutic relationship and allows me unlimited time to talk about how it makes me feel. He "allows" me to love him, deeply, which will hopefully help me learn to love myself and in turn put me in a place where I can be accepting of love in return.

The relationship with my therapist is without a doubt one of the most complex, liberating, healing and powerful relationships I will ever know. I still have a lot of work to do but my life is better with him in it. I could never have done the work I've accomplished without paying a lot of time and attention to the relationship.

The woman tried to make something about a relationship but as she would never explain the point of it, I would say no.
The second has never said a word about relationship between client and therapist.

In some ways it's still kind of a beautiful mystery to me, as in how it actually works!! Aside from the how though I can see clearly that she is basically modeling for me the kind of relationship that I would like to have with myself. And one of the biggest indicators that my relationship with t has been healing for me, is that for the first time in my adult life, I am now making friends outside of work based on my personal interests. I found a group of like-minded folks on meetup.com, and about 8-9 months ago screwed up every last ounce of courage I could and went to a gathering and introduced myself, boy was that hard for me but I am so glad I did as I am really enjoying the time I spend with them. I hang out over there pretty much every weekend, sometimes after work during the week, and almost every time I go I meet someone new, and it's really been great being able to open up to people who think the same way I do. Never in a million years before meeting t3 would I have imagined this me could exist!!! And that's the honest truth.

And Mactastic thanks for this: "The relationship with my therapist is without a doubt one of the most complex, liberating, healing and powerful relationships I will ever know." this is exactly how I feel about my T. Thank you for putting it so eloquently.

Same here. I have such a fondness for him.

For me, it helps.

It has taught me that I can trust people. That someone can be safe (and what that looks like and feels like). That I have a voice. That I can speak up for myself. That I can assert my boundaries and not have to feel guilty about it (I can say "no" or "don't touch me"). That I can have a relationship with others that is based on equality. How to communicate better (still practicing). Also still practicing processing in the moment... How to handle anxiety better. Coping with talking on the phone Looking at people's eyes when having a conversation (instead of reading their lips or looking at the floor).

All of these things help with my current relationships and with any future relationships. I do suffer from agrophobia, so pretty much any interaction with people is an improvement

I do tend to take what I've learned from T's and apply it to :

Work people--usually about setting boundaries, sometimes conflict management
Family---patience (they try it) , empathy, learning to be less reactive to stuff they say and do
Friends--trying to connect more, ask for what I need, be more vulnerable with those who earned the trust

ah. we've talked about it briefly and the relationship is important, but we don't spend a lot of time focused on it. it's mainly about getting me to be open. to break down walls. my t is my safe space for letting someone see me for me after years of rejection and loneliness and that's what makes him valuable to me as a relationship. his acceptance translates into my everyday life. i'm more open with my hubs because i've practiced being open with him. i'm more open with my friends because i've rehearsed what being open is like with him and i've had him respond positively which replaces the negative reinforcements i've had.

my t says the way i behave with her is the way i behave in all my relationships (doing something to make the other person mad enough to push me away) and that if i can learn better ways to interact with her, i can repeat them with other people and have more successful relationships where i dont feel the need to do things that alienate others.

so far im not there yet.

No time to list references but the success of the T-C relationship is the best predictor of the success of therapy.

Without the relationship, there is no therapy.

I'm the odd one out, I think, because while the relationship with my T is more important than I had thought it would be before starting therapy, I don't see how my behaviour in that relationship could impact relationships outside T's office. The T relationship is different from all other possible relationships - that's part of the therapy package, you get something you can't get anywhere else, and so the fact that T doesn't judge me (because he is a T) does not in any way mean that I can stop fearing other people's judgment. The fact that T is interested in what I have to say (because he is a T) does not mean that I suddenly become interesting to other people, who are not paid to listen to me. And it is not as if I can apply how I behave in T's office to any outside situations - I don't understand how that could be possible.

I have one specific instance where it did help with an outside problem: I told T about a reaction I had to something that happened in choir practice, thinking that I'd get a discussion about why I overreact in certain situations. Instead, T said that he thought what happened was something that he would have reacted to, as well, and that gave me the strength to bring it up with my choir director the next day. I guess that is a way that the T relationship affected an outside relationship, because I saw how another human reacted in the same way I did, which is not exactly something I am used to seeing.

My T has said if there is a good bond between the client and T, then a lot of work can be done, if the client feels it is a safe place to open up and the T still greets them with a smile each time, the client learns that you can have one safe place to talk about the worst things.

But he hasn't spoken directly about the relationship between him and I. And I don't think I would want to. I would probably go as far as saying thank you for giving me a safe place to talk about the worst things, and for supporting me through all of it.

I would agree with that, at least as far as my own therapy goes. But that just means that the therapy work can be done - it doesn't mean (to me) that the relationsip itself is any kind of model for how other relationships can be.

Or does the T use the relationship to get an insight into how the client treats others? Like with respect, or getting mad at them and throwing stuff, or talking in a snippy tone? Or do T's remember that this is the one place where they can safely be real for a while and then go out and put on a fake mask for the rest of the day?

The relationship thing works until you get abandoned and rejected and tossed in the garbage. Then you end up broken and crushed and probably never able to trust anyone again. You want to die and you hate yourself so much you can't even breathe.