[IndestructibleGirl]

Therapy 101, and I don't feel that I genuinely understand it properly. I thought it was essentially all manner of ways a client blocks the therapist's efforts, and I guess it is that, but it's too general a definition.

My therapist said I'm resistant, and I know this in my heart of hearts, but I can't figure out what I'm doing that's actively resisting, and I don't even know what it is that I'm resisting. I tell her I love her (in written form more, but say it also) and tell her when I feel utterly vile and suicidal, and in the past I've been very vocal about feeling worthless. So I don't hold back with 'big' stuff.

The stuff I don't say much of is the stuff about feeling deep sadness about the fact she can never be my sister, and the sidekick embarrassment that goes along with that. That I love somebody so much who loves me, but much less. I did talk a bit about this at the weekend session, because I wanted to forget about attachment stuff but then we agreed that attachment stuff wouldn't just go away by itself. So we talked about it, and I said it all quite bluntly, but I was quite poised and in control - is that a subtle way of resisting? Not embracing the sad feelings in the moment??

I feel like I can't let my therapist see me when I'm completely upset, over that or anything else. I can tell her in a careless sort of way, or in a very collected way when I have my emotions in check, but I can't allow myself to go to the place where I am dissolved into upset. Is that resistance too?

I can feel very distressed in the session, but put loads of energy into making sure it doesn't boil over.

Of course, the wheels fell off the bus later in the weekend for me anyway when I had my sui crisis, and it didn't really feel like it was to do with my session (I felt in a reasonably upbeat place at my last point of contact with my T before she went off radar for her weekend) but perhaps there was a small link.

Any clues? I want to get the most out of my sessions, and if I'm resistant forever it will all be slow.

[Leah123]

I'm sorry I don't have anything more to offer than this observation: a lot of the time you write about a relationship repeating pattern, to the extent that I think you've chosen (not completely deliberately/consciously) to hold onto that pattern, to let it repeat.

You get something out of the pattern and I think maybe you'll need to realize all the benefits you get from it before you can stop resisting change. I think a part of you wants the cycle to continue, whether it's because it's familiar or easy or keeps your hopes from getting too high.

This weekend during your crisis I saw a little hint of that: you mention friends but couldn't possibly consider telling them how bad you were feeling, which we can call resistance to getting better, because we can't do it in isolation, and we can't really have good friends if we're not honest with people. Not saying to dump everything on everyone all the time of course, but to... see what we're getting out of what we're doing. The safety and everything else, and honor and respect it before trying to just obliterate it, or we'll be working at cross purposes.

[Leah123]

P.S. I'll add that you're awfully thoughtful though and I think is kind of a curse sometimes. There's something to be said for figuring yourself all out, and there's something to be said for being gentle, giving yourself a break after all the recent stress, and just commending yourself for showing up, being honest, doing the work and to give it a little time to come together.

[unaluna]

Yes to all your questions. Holding back. Not letting yourself engage. Where did we get the message that THAT was what was expected of us?? I want to kick those people. Now our ts try to squeeeeeeze a bit of reaction out of us. We learned our lesson too well. heres to REACTING!!

[Leah123]

Oh, and I'd be quietly resistant to my T also if I were as ambivilent about her as I feel after reading the guilt about the money and the changing boundaries!!! For her to go from a lot of contact all the time it sounded like to a lot more traditional/constraining once a week thing... is that how it is? Because that would make me feel resistant in a very healthy, self-protective way.

[IndestructibleGirl]

Originally Posted by Leah123

I'm sorry I don't have anything more to offer than this observation: a lot of the time you write about a relationship repeating pattern, to the extent that I think you've chosen (not completely deliberately/consciously) to hold onto that pattern, to let it repeat.

You get something out of the pattern and I think maybe you'll need to realize all the benefits you get from it before you can stop resisting change. I think a part of you wants the cycle to continue, whether it's because it's familiar or easy or keeps your hopes from getting too high.

This weekend during your crisis I saw a little hint of that: you mention friends but couldn't possibly consider telling them how bad you were feeling, which we can call resistance to getting better, because we can't do it in isolation, and we can't really have good friends if we're not honest with people. Not saying to dump everything on everyone all the time of course, but to... see what we're getting out of what we're doing. The safety and everything else, and honor and respect it before trying to just obliterate it, or we'll be working at cross purposes.

I honestly don't feel like I'm choosing the pattern though - I feel like it unfolds and obviously I'm doing it, but I can't unpick the steps of what I'm doing that's wrong. Like breathing, I know I'm doing it but I have no idea how to deconstruct how Im breathing or how to breathe in a different way - incidentally, I can't do the special breathing that's meant to be more efficient for running either, I just kind of muddle through.

I agree re the friends thing, though in part I believe that 'the way I am' has guided me into choosing friends who, though kind and great in many respects, aren't very emotionally available.

[Leah123]

Maybe if you go through your old posts here you'll see it: I recall instances of you seeming to almost deliberately walk right into it- you were doing so much foreshadowing about being how sure things were going to work out badly in specific ways.

Also, you can't find out if your friends are emotionally available until you share some emotions with them... not sure if you've risked that yet?j

Also, also, I did post again, saying... ya know, with the issues w/your T, some of the resistance could just be a very reasonable situational resistance.

[IndestructibleGirl]

Originally Posted by hankster

Yes to all your questions. Holding back. Not letting yourself engage. Where did we get the message that THAT was what was expected of us?? I want to kick those people. Now our ts try to squeeeeeeze a bit of reaction out of us. We learned our lesson too well. heres to REACTING!!

Hankster, I'm afraid I'm like a pimple, if my T squeezes and I let it happen all kinds of gross gunk will come out Though I guess that's actually the point in a way?

I don't want to be a pimple

[Leah123]

Oh no, the trip is...

You THINK you're a pimple, and by squeezing, you release all the gunk that was covering up your immense beauty! Or so they tell me.

[IndestructibleGirl]

Originally Posted by Leah123

Oh, and I'd be quietly resistant to my T also if I were as ambivilent about her as I feel after reading the guilt about the money and the changing boundaries!!! For her to go from a lot of contact all the time it sounded like to a lot more traditional/constraining once a week thing... is that how it is? Because that would make me feel resistant in a very healthy, self-protective way.

Yes, that's how we roll nowadays. Admittedly it is hard, but I am trying to be positive and sensible about it, because this is how it probably should have been right from the start, isn't it.

Yesterday, I got a response to my slightly hysterical voicemail/ jumbled text sent at the weekend. It was a nice, caring response, saying she was glad the hospital were good to me, etc and her weekends are pretty much off limits now and she doesn't check messages. This is a bit different to what I'd thought (I thought crisis was an ok time to get in touch) and it just hit me about her unavailability. So for maybe half an hour I was choked with pain, but then I was able to make it alright for myself - because I realized that I need to be able to focus on what she can offer, and not what she can't. I think.

[Leah123]

I don't think that's harmful resistance, I think that's healthy self-protection. She's made a massive change to your relationship and you need time to decide it's safe again. I would be very very upset. And I'd be surprised if you were not ambivalent about this.

[IndestructibleGirl]

Originally Posted by Leah123

Oh no, the trip is...

You THINK you're a pimple, and by squeezing, you release all the gunk that was covering up your immense beauty! Or so they tell me.

Ha! I prefer this spin on it to mine!

[IndestructibleGirl]

Originally Posted by Leah123

I don't think that's harmful resistance, I think that's healthy self-protection. She's made a massive change to your relationship and you need time to decide it's safe again. I would be very very upset. And I'd be surprised if you were not ambivalent about this.

The last few sessions I have noticed she's said that I kept asking where the boundaries are and that she ****ed up with that. So she owns her part in the discord.

But sometimes I do feel massively hurt by it. And then other times I genuinely feel pretty cool about it that I can still have her as a valuable guide to help me discover some stuff about myself even if I don't get to be very close to her. Like now - I feel positive that I have a therapist I enjoy seeing, that I will have an interesting chat with at my session, that I feel quite sure will help me meet my career goals over say the next couple of years. But then after the session, I'll probably feel like I'm being emotionally flayed alive

I wish my emotions would commit to one view so I could understand them, they swing around so much on this.

[Leah123]

Yeah, I often prefer my old black and white view of the world lately. The muddy greys seem like a lot more work to slog through sometimes.

[sweepy62]

yep yep yep, my t calls me avoidant, i guess its resistant, holding back, omitting, well, she mentioned it again today, not being honest with my feelings, crap crap, I guess im in the spin cycle of resistance.

[JustShakey]

I guess Ts sometimes tell us we're resistant to try and get a reaction. Sometimes that reaction is not therapeutic however. Previous T telling me I was resistant sent me spiraling. I tried so hard to do it right, not to be a nuisance and held back as much as I could. In short, it made me even more resistant as well as upset and frustrated because she wouldn't tell me what she wanted me to do. We spent the better part of six months with her saying and doing hurtful things to try and trigger me and me smiling and pretending it didn't hurt and I could handle it.
Resistance is unconscious. If you didn't have a problem with it you wouldn't be in therapy. Tell your T to stop trying to pull that sh^t on you. It's confusing and it's unfair IMNSHO.

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Resistance is a continuous part of therapy. I don't know much about it, but i'm thinking it is something that really never goes away completely.

I just think that therapy is uncomfortable for most people. That being the case, clients are going to want to gravitate towards the known and predicatable, rather than the unknown and unpredicatable.

Your therapist could likely be contributing to your resistance by engaging in your pattern, or a re-enactment...which is another reason why it's so important for a therapist to do his/her own work!

I do wonder if a therapist should confront it in cases where it really obstructs the therapy. My therapist, i think, recently confronted my resistance, and things have gotten much better, in terms of work, since that time.

IDK, but i think the skill and/or unconscious motivations of the therapist has a lot to with the degree in which your resistances hold you back.

What did i just say? never mind.

I almost forgot to mention=it's part of the therapy, rather than something to 'make go away'. if you know what i mean....

You're original question: What is resistance? Can it be in subtle details?
Heck, yeah. it can be really subtle and/or unconscious.

[unaluna]

I was thinking more, empty tube of toothpaste, not pimple. Ugh. My new med is making me queasy

[feralkittymom]

I think as skies said, resistance is therapy. It's usually unconscious though, and it provides important information to a T about where the difficulties reside and how they came to be. I think it's unfortunate that it's called "resistance" because it has nothing to do usually with a willful refusal to cooperate in therapy. It's more an unconscious pattern of defenses to either self-protect or to order the world to fit the perceptions you've developed over a lifetime.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

I think as skies said, resistance is therapy. It's usually unconscious though, and it provides important information to a T about where the difficulties reside and how they came to be. I think it's unfortunate that it's called "resistance" because it has nothing to do usually with a willful refusal to cooperate in therapy. It's more an unconscious pattern of defenses to either self-protect or to order the world to fit the perceptions you've developed over a lifetime.

Exactly exactly exactly.

[JustShakey]

Originally Posted by feralkittymom

I think as skies said, resistance is therapy. It's usually unconscious though, and it provides important information to a T about where the difficulties reside and how they came to be. I think it's unfortunate that it's called "resistance" because it has nothing to do usually with a willful refusal to cooperate in therapy. It's more an unconscious pattern of defenses to either self-protect or to order the world to fit the perceptions you've developed over a lifetime.

This. Resistance *is* an unfortunate term. Being told I was resistant made me feel awful. Like, 'I'm trying to help you here and you're just being resistant. You can't even *talk* to someone properly'
I get so angry when I think of it.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[IndestructibleGirl]

Thanks guys, I think I have a slightly better idea of it now.

Difficult, though. Cause if it's largely unconscious, then it's virtually impossible for me to decide to change it, because I don't know what to change. Need to mull over it some more, and try to come up with a plan of action.

[Perna]

Good article: Resistance: "I Have Nothing to Talk About Today" | Psychology Today

[feralkittymom]

Originally Posted by IndestructibleGirl

Thanks guys, I think I have a slightly better idea of it now.

Difficult, though. Cause if it's largely unconscious, then it's virtually impossible for me to decide to change it, because I don't know what to change. Need to mull over it some more, and try to come up with a plan of action.

I don't think you can consciously decide to change it (what is "it," after all?) But you can commit to continuing to engage and to try to not self-censor. But this is only possible if you really trust in your bones that such vulnerability won't be used against you. The rocky road you've had with your T makes that more of a challenge. Give it some time. It doesn't need to be all or nothing.