Have you told your T your basic needs? Also attachment disorder question.

Have you been able to tell your T your basic needs like wanting them to comfort you, hug you, tell you everything will be ok? I can tell my T most anything except needs that come from my childhood and an emotionally distant mother. I told my T I can't say those basic needs but don't know why and how to start. I feel like a little kid and she's my age which makes it wierd.

Also if you have an attachment disorder, how long before T told you there was one and what it was?

Ooh. Hi Soccer Mom... I know there was another thread were we crossed paths with some similar issues. I had an emotionally distant (emotionally neglectful!) mom as well... so that's interesting to me to see the similarities.

On needs - nope. I'm not sure I can even identify them yet. T has stressed a couple times that he wants to make therapy "safe" for me, and asked what I needed. Hmmm... I feel perplexed. I have no ideas here. I also still feel like I don't know T that well... so I really do not want him trying to hug me or physically comfort me - nope nope nope. That would be WAY too much closeness too fast for me. Though, I would probably be ok with a handshake if he wanted to connect more.... maybe!

re: Attachment disorder... T hasn't said anything yet to me, but I took an online test, and scored pretty high for the push-pull attachment (disorganized, I think? I can't remember? Fearful-anxious?) Basically the one where you want to get close to people, but get scared. I am not sure if he has figured this out yet... I've actually thought about bringing in a printout from the test to say, "hey, just in case you haven't figured it out yet... "

And, along the same line... it makes it really hard for me. I want to trust T, but I get freaked out and run away. Or feel like he's not understanding. Or sometimes feel good, but too close. It's this constant... "come closer, help me, understand - omg! Too close! Back up!" I found (and still find) it even hard to look at his website with his picture sometimes, now that I'm a client, because for me it generates feelings of "ick - too close" (not "ick" against him personally, just from the "too close" part.)

I don't know what to make of it all. I think I'd feel better if I was confident that he understood THIS part, and knew how to deal with it! I'm just not sure, and we haven't had a chance to talk about it yet...

Hmm.. sorry not sure how helpful that was. I think I'm not far enough in to give advice yet on this stuff!

Yeah that stuff is a minefield for me (and a goldmine for my T--haha!)

I have touched on it but avoid it if I can because it leaves me feeling unbelievably angry, exposed and vulnerable. I inevitably wind up in a little crisis a few days after one of those sessions where I can't concentrate, feel tearful, hate, hate, hate my T for not being there when I need her and wonder why the hell I do this to myself. It's really not pretty.

I had a mother who was not there for me emotionally and was also physically/sexually abusive. All of my past therapists have been mothery and hugged me and cuddled me and I have to say sometimes, I kept going to therapy just for that. I am starved for a mother. However, my therapist now is not a touchy feely type, and I am really enjoying that. She tried to pat my back on my way out the door one day, and I quickly pulled away. I don't need/want her to be my mother. I think I get too dependent that way. I don't want to be dependent on this lady, I want to heal. I read a book a while ago called the Emotionally Absent Mother by Jasmin Lee Cory and it was really helpful. I think I would really benefit from a mother figure in my life as long as that person was not my therapist.

I can sometimes identify what I need, but no, I can't ask for it. If I need comfort or a reassuring word, I can't say so. I have to hope that my T can figure it out.

As for the attachment, she never said so, but it was assumed that was the case.

I should probably clarify that while I want to tell her that, I don't necessarily want her to hug me. I know it wouldn't always be good for me. She did hug me when my mom died. Now she will pat my arm or back as I leave. I have to admit I like it and feel all is ok when she does. When she doesn't, it bothers me.
I have also read that book and could relate so much to it.

I don't consider anything with a therapist a need for me. I have told her I want her to stay back from me, I want her not to touch me and I want her to acknowledge she is not part of my real life. I don't want her advice or opinion. All I really want is for her to sit there and appear to listen -and yes, I have told her.

I have trouble identifying my needs a lot of the time, and definitely can't speak them in the moment. Former t and I kinda worked on it a bit, and then I was able to tell her in writing after the session some of the stuff I needed, but I generally stay away from even acknowledging having any needs, let alone asking for help with them. Right now new t and I have identified a need for emotional safety and a lack of judgement. I had tried to ask for additional support via extra session or setting me up with an outside group, but that failed, so I try not to ask for that stuff much anymore. I just one away for it without ever telling her.
I don't think I'd ever be able to ask for a hug or anything like that. The closest I got was with former t, and even that I could not acknowledge as my own need not could I acknowledge needing a real hug instead of a metaphorical one.
My mom was and continues to be emotionally distant. I understand why, but it doesn't make my cravings for emotional connection less. It actually makes that craving for a motherly t somewhat awkward, as I livewith my mom again for the time being. I think it bothers her that I don't look to her for the support even if she'd not freely give it. Weird dynamic at home, but I digress... in short, I don't know what my needs are most of the time, so I can't ask for them to be met.

Once an Jungian type analyst said I had a "Samurai" archetype--warrior, tough soldier without needs, never vulnerable, completely self-sufficient. My father was an admiral and my mother very distant and cold, if not downright neglectful and cruel. The denial of needs for me goes hand in hand with my avoidant attachment which is an insecure type. (It's not a disorder, but it is a problem that many have.)

That was a while ago. I made progress with that therapist and moved onto someone who was more emotionally attuned and relational in approach. I very quickly worked through lots of things that I had assumed were resolved. And I grew as a person in so many ways.

Now I do not really have an insecure attachment (of course you never completely lose the original one). And I am nothing like a Samurai. Those were survival strategies forced on me by my circumstances. I have compassion for the person that had to live that way to survive, but I am no longer that person and happily so.

I am also lucky because my current therapist is alert to my needs without my having to state them explicitly. I have felt so well understood, so "seen," so safe to attach to him that I have felt more agency about being upfront, but it isn't absolutely necessary. I'm glad that I don't necessarily have to, but I am also glad that somehow I developed an ability and even desire to be able to state what I needed. I have been able to confront my therapist (and then my partner) when upset and articulate what I needed and what was going wrong in ways that, though awkward at first, became very good ways of processing things and establishing better communication and mutuality.

Yes, I tell him these things. I've told him many times I need him to comfort me, that it feels really good when he is nurturing, and that I have intense longings to be closer to him. He is like the cloth mother monkey from the attachment experiments!

I told him I had attachment issues at the first or second session; I forget which one exactly. I have an anxious/preoccupied attachment, but I didn't refer to these problems as attachment issues tough.

Can you give an example of the kinds of needs you can't tell her about?

I find it difficult to know what I need, and I don't think it is particularly helpful to tell T what I need from him. Usually I can't, because it's not the sort of thing you say to other people, and when I have been desperate enough to tell him a thing or two that I perceive as a "need", he acknowledges it without judging, which is good, but then nothing more happens so the hole is still there. I know that the act of acknowledging it should probably be sufficient.

In general I get what I need without asking, from T: he is punctual and consistent, he accommodates my decision to sit up or lie down, he speaks English to me, he lets me come twice a week, he targets the issues I try to avoid without being insensitive.

I don't think I have an attachment disorder.

I think that most people share the same needs, it is just in the way we like to see it expressed that differs.

No, because it's all verbal. She either says it or she doesn't. I told her I want reassurance, comfort, etc. and she said she was distressed (or something like that) that I don't feel I'm getting it in the therapeutic setting which is what it's all about. That made me feel worse. Maybe I need it to be more verbal than action-based. I hate the fact that I even want it - just complicates things....

I have no idea what I need from my T and im not sure she would ever fill them. she has tried to make the office a safe place to be but they were her suggestions. I think I would freak big time if she tried to be motherly to me . been there bought the tee shirt. it didn't work out so well

Actually I was thinking of the wrong book. The one I read was Running on Empty. I have just started the Emotionally Absent Mother.