Sorry i havent posted in a while. Has anyone ever recanted something they told there therapist? What happened. I'm in that situation now. Haven't met but emailed her. Worried she is mad or disappointed.

[Talulah]

I haven't recanted per se, but I did minimize a traumatic event and leave out huge amounts of details that significantly changed the situation. I felt so awful about that I felt like I was lying. I eventually had to come clean that I was censoring the material I brought forth in therapy. Not surprising, my t could tell.....

Pehaps, if you're comfortable sharing a bit, did you tell a lie and wish to recant? Or did something else happen? If you don't want to share it's ok, just trying to gauge where you're coming from.

It involves memories I was unsure about. I cant tell if I am moving therapy forward or sabotoging it.

I recently discussed something in T. The next session I told T I believed it may be a false memory..told her I wasn't avoiding talking about it but need to talk about it from a "false memory" angle..T did say that she and I need to remain "open" to this memory...I havent talked about it since but feel better knowing that whether its false or real its been talked about...maybe thats all you need to do for now...talk about something that may or maynot be "true"? I believe everything we do is for a reason...

I'm sure your T knows about "confabulation". Maybe that is what occurred here? Confabulation is when your memory and your imagination get mixed up as to what REALLY happened. It's not like an intentional lie at all. It's just that sometimes our imagination fills in when our memory fails, and it FEELS real to us.

Anyhow - it usually takes a LOT to annoy a good therapist! I know this from experience. I'm VERY annoying and my T still liked me.

em

hey. i'm not sure what you recanted, but i'm fairly sure that your t won't be mad or disappointed.

things can be confusing. hard to seperate dreamings from imaginings from rememberings...

a couple weeks after i was hospitalised (the first time) i said i heard voices. i thought it was that i got up the courage to talk about them. i'd mentioned them to a GP before but after she established that they don't command me to do things she told me not to worry about it. they gave me anti-psychotics in the hospital, though. but nothing seemed to work for them. and clinicians started to look dubious about my hearing voices.

i terminated a p-doc because he said they were pseudo-hallucinations. i thought that meant that he thought i was faking / lying about them.

a year or so later... i had a break from therapy to attend a residential program in another city... when i went back to my t... trying to persuade her to help me and that i could be helped even though i got kicked out of the treatment program. i told her that i didn't hear voices after all. i said that i'd lied about them.

and at the time... i thought i had lied about them...

but then... a couple weeks later... the voices came back.

i still have times when i think i've made the whole thing up. that i never really did hear them. that i was just imaginging the whole thing. i get scared that people will terminate me if they think i've made the whole thing up.

will my current t terminate me if he thinks i don't have DID?

i don't know.

i haven't exactly told him that half the time i am afraid i'm making the whole thing up. but i have told him that nothing really happened to me.

but then i do have these flashes like flashbulb memories. i'm fairly sure that some of them never ever ever happened to me. could be scenes from a movie or from a dream or vivid imaginings. i don't know.

there are some people who think - and i agree with them - that veridicality (matching of 'remembering' to actual events) isn't terribly relevant. therapy is about helping you come to terms with you and your experiences and the way your experiences affect you now. it is a side issue whether your experiences are veridical or not. point is they affect you.

maybe...

it could help therapy along to focus on your experiences rather than on events?

i think part of what can be hard is this attitude that some therapists / clients have that events must have been severe. they simply must have been because that is the only explanation for why things aren't so good for you now. the only other option seems to be that it is all because of something deeply wrong with you.

but events don't need to be of 'objective sickening severity' for people to be deeply effected.

don't know if this helps.
don't even know if it is relevant...

[(JD)]

IMO if the T gets mad (angry) or annoyed, then that's THEIR problem and they should take care of it and not bring it to session Really.

of course if t gets mad or upset it is THEIR problem and they should take care of it and not bring it to session.

the trouble is... that we tell our t's things that we are particularly vulnerable / sensitive about. as such rational knowledge that it is 'their problem' tends not to help us recover from feeling

MORTIFIED

among other things...

[Calm]

Hi esther,

Maybe there's no need for you to recant what you have shared with your T about your memories. You mentioned that you were unsure about them. This could lead to a good discussion about them and how you perceive them. I believe recanting would only be necessary if you were sure that what you said didn't happen or wasn't accurate.

Really hope your T is understanding of your confusion about this and can help you put to rest your doubts.

Calm

[Pughead]

Yup, I outright lied about something. The next session I told him the truth, but maybe still only a partial-truth.

He is very non-judgemental about everything. He ought to be, as he teaches MBCT.

[Talulah]

I like Calm's approach. Your willingness to explore how you're feeling about this could really lead you to some insight in therapy. Don't be afraid, you're off to a great start here. Talk about your confusion and what you think/feel about what you've told your t. You can visit the issue together and hopefully feel some resolution about what you've said..