well i guess i've had three sessions since i last posted here. they fade so fast... documenting them here helps me keep them straight. i didn't document them and now it is hard to remember...

anger. we talked about anger though. and he said it was okay for me to feel angry in session. i wasn't angry at him, of course. but angry, yeah.

i can't be in the moment. i didn't say that but it is true. i talked to him about transference and about some of my transference responses to people. one of those transference responses in particular. i said i couldn't figure out what i did to prompt / inspire the old pattern of interrelating. i figure i must be doing something because it is indeed an old pattern of interrelating. but i can't figure out the past from the present i can't figure out my contribution to present circumstances and the other persons contribution to present circumstances. it is just one big muddled mess.

i talked a bit about some of the therapy i've had with other people too. and i told him that i had started seeing someone before i started working with him but that i hadn't seen her since i saw him. told him that i find it really very hard to attach to female clinicians and to feel connected with them. that that came easier with male clinicians... and he muttered something along the lines of 'well we will see where that goes'. i guess he was thinking about the rage and maybe about possible seduction too...

i said that i always wanted to do something psychodynamic and so i was really pleased when i found him and he was willing to work with me. that the closest i'd come was seeing p-docs for a couple months before they moved on as they tend to in the public system. he muttered something about 'well we haven't really begun yet...' i think he meant that we haven't begun interpreting yet (and when he tries i tend to be dismissive) and that we haven't begun to talk about our present relationship (transference) in therapy yet.

in the last session he tried to get me talking about our present relationship. usually when we get into the therapy room he asks 'how are you' and i go 'fine' and then there is some silence... and after a while he starts to ask me questions and eventually i get into talking about my week... and eventually i get into talking about stuff that feels more meaningful. i'm alright once i get going but i guess i'm not very good at getting going. last time he started talking about how the therapy relationship is hard because it isn't reciprocal and because i have to talk about me but he doesn't talk very much about him. and he was talking about how i get on with talking to people outside therapy (trying to assess whether i'm hard to converse with in general i suppose).

i found it... distasteful. don't like to talk about being there with him. he said something about that too. about how there are cues in therapy like tone of voice and posture and the like... i'm not sure what he was getting at but i felt really uncomfortable. i sit fairly rigidly and don't look at him. i'm not sure where he was going with that... quite what i was meant to say. i'm feeling like that a bit now. 'what am i meant to say?' 'how am i meant to get started'? 'what am i meant to be doing'? feeling a little lost. just want him to take the direction kind of and then i can figure out my own and what i want by bouncing off of him. maybe i could have said that.

and he talked about my online interactions. about how you don't have these tone of voice and posture cues and the like. i think he gets how it is safer for me online. he has said to me before 'its okay we are just two people in a room talking'. but now i think he is getting the notion that that is actually fairly threatening really.

i see him once more next thursday (he made a special once off time before easter) then he is away for 3 weeks. we are going to try and email but he mutters about his email being unreliable...

i'm feeling disconnected. i felt so connected on tuesday and had three really terrific days. productive. happy. but friday was hard. i feel like... he is a bit close. i can't be with him in the present. it is a bit close.

i dodge out from under people.

can talk about the present here and now by implication (by talking about patterns going on elsewhere and by implying a relation). but not directly. i really am so very fragile.

i wonder if he likes me?
if he regrets taking me on?

i told him that they are just stories. just stories. don't know how he feels about that. i mean, how he really feels about that when he actually takes it on board (instead of writing it off as denial).

i'm scared of him.

[Hopefull]

We all start off feeling scared of self-disclosure. He is right a relationship like a thereupuetic one is strange because they know a lot about us but we don't know much about them. I suspect this is even more true for psychodynamic therapists. As for transferance, I tend to say, " I relate to you funny." I am still scared to fully explain some of my transferance to my T. I have only told her that I do it. The ability to talk about the relationship and the here and now is hard and will come in time as you continue to practice and work at it. Hang in there. It is worth it to find and try to change the patterns that are there from the past.

hey there.

Connection comes and goes sometimes for me. It's hard when I don't feel it as much in one session as in another. I just went yesterday and that kept running through my mind: "I don't feell as connected today. It scares me." I know I should have spoken that thought, as all thoughts, but I didn't. Sometimes I feel something in therapy but can't put words to it right then.

I also feel like you that I have been avoiding opportunities my T has put out there to talk more about things. Being dismissive about it. I think they completely understand that it is our way of saying "I'm not ready to talk about that yet" and if we could actually say that in session it would be a victory and would be very helpful. I have decided to try to do that next time.

I thnk he wants to help you learn to be able to talk about things easier and not have to look for cues and clues. I understand that too. It makes me feel I need to be vigilant and guess instead of being direct about finding out. When I can be direct I don't have to look for cues or guess; my concerns get answered quicker and I can deal with whatever that answer is. Sometimes worrying about what the answer might be ("what if") is can be harder on me than dealing with the truth. But, can I remember that? No. sigh... so I do it again and again.. . It sounds like your T is patient and kind.

I think it takes time to get used to psychodynamic therapy. It is different, and what we want, but still hard to get used to. Ambivalent. A word she used to describe how I am sometimes. I thought I knew what it meant but I looked it up and I was wrong. It is not about vagueness as I thought.. it is about being pulled in more than one direction. I want this therapy. I want this type of therapy. I want it to be about me, yet I don't want to be in the spotlight. I want to talk about things but I don't. Ambivalence. I tihnk we'll get used to it, ak.

[sunrise]

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ECHOES said:
I also feel like you that I have been avoiding opportunities my T has put out there to talk more about things. Being dismissive about it. I think they completely understand that it is our way of saying "I'm not ready to talk about that yet" and if we could actually say that in session it would be a victory and would be very helpful. I have decided to try to do that next time.

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I actually did say that once, ECHOES. T and I were talking about a topic I did not want to be talking about. Just wasn't ready to deal with it. In mid conversation I said rather abruptly "I don't want to talk about this" and I changed the subject. I guess it was kind of rude, but he didn't bat an eye. As the weeks passed and our relationship developed and we worked on other things, I was able to return eventually to this topic. Sometimes I would flit in and out and touch on it, but we are now able to engage sometimes for an entire session on it. Just takes time.

Alexandra, you are so interested in your therapy and so motivated. I have confidence you will get where you need to go with this T. He sounds very patient and kind.

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he muttered something about 'well we haven't really begun yet...' i think he meant that we haven't begun interpreting yet (and when he tries i tend to be dismissive) and that we haven't begun to talk about our present relationship (transference) in therapy yet.

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That's a really interesting interchange. Sounds like you are getting closer to being able to make the transference more overt. I remember how thrilled I was when my T made his first major transference interpretation. On the one hand, I didn't much like it. But on the other hand, inside I was saying, "hey, cool, a transference interpretation!" I have made the TI's also on occasion and he is always very interested. Those TI's can take you a long way in therapy.

Good luck, ak, so nice to have you back.

hey guys. it is hard to explain the feeling of disconnection. i guess i got the idea that he was mildly pissed at me in our last session.

but of course i'm probably projecting...

i was having some trouble with his secretary. i told her how i wanted the bill set up so i could send it on to the insurance company and things didn't go very well. i had a couple of issues - like my last name being spelt incorrectly and wanting her to list the full amount and not the amount i am contributing as well. she looked a little puzzled when i requested that and so i said i didn't want to make things any more complicated for the insurance company than things needed to be. that i was concerned they would get confused with the discrepancy between the full amount and the amount i pay. she said 'well, should the insurance company pay 80% of the full price when you are only contributing xx?' I left about then. Kind of fuming. I am NOT going to get into conversations about the ethics of sliding scales with my therapists secretary. To be fair she was looking a little flustered that morning and the phone kept ringing...

I wasn't sure what to do about that. I decided to tell him how I wanted the bill and see if he could get her to do that. I didn't much like that idea... Don't want it to look like I'm trying to split people into 'good t' and 'bad t's secretary'. But I did talk to him. And he walked out with me to talk to her... And she said that she was not able to set the bill up the way I wanted. And... I took a deep breath and tried to be non-hostile but assertive and said 'is that a limitation of the program you are using or is it an ethical thing for you'?

And t looked a little startled / surprised. And he left at that point (wisely choosing not to get involved I guess). I sorted it okay with his secretary in the end (it was a limitation of the program). I got to explain that the sliding scale rate works on my contribution and not on the total amount or the amount that is covered by insurance.

But next session... I think he was a bit annoyed with me. I didn't know how to explain where that comment came from without it looking like I was trying to run her down and justify myself etc etc. So he has no idea where that comment came from. And I figure he is a bit pissed with me. But maybe it is that I'm a bit pissed with him. That she said that (yeah I was pissed about that). That I can't explain where the comment came from because it will only make me look worse. Horrible all round. And of course I'm over reacting.

But I feel pretty disconnected.

He keeps saying that I should say that I don't want to talk about something if I don't want to. I've promised that I will do that. Or I will find some way of letting him know that I don't want to talk about it. I guess talking about our present relationship is one of those. Too embarrassing / humiliating for me.

Maybe part of this is about pushing him away before he leaves for a while. Don't need him anyway.

And it is hard. Because yeah, I guess I am terrified of intimacy. When I meet people in my daily life I can chat with them okay and look at them okay. Therapy is different, however. It feels very intimate, just the notion of two people being in a room with the door closed feels very intimate. Then the notion that I'm supposed to talk about my innermost feelings and thoughts (stuff that I'm normally very ashamed about and wouldn't tell anybody about) feels really very intimate too. And I guess I am quite emotionally intense. And my not looking makes all those non-visual cues (like tone and rate of speech and the like) take on more significance than they would outside therapy.

I'm just feeling like I don't know how this is supposed to go. I wonder a bit about other peoples therapy sessions. How they get started. What kinds of things other people talk about. Maybe things are different for me because I have all these ideas that it is about talking about the things I'm ashamed of and talking about past hurts and talking about transference feelings. Maybe other people don't arrive with such preconceptions of what therapy is supposed to be about and so it it lighter most of the time and then they have moments of intensity... Whereas for me the whole session (from just before I arrive truth be told) is super-charged.

I think that next time I will try and talk to him a bit about what it is that we are supposed to be doing. I want some direction. I guess I was thinking that maybe it is about something along the lines of free association. Maybe a little more structured (with respect to coherant lines of thought) but then I've heard that some peoples style of free association does take the form of coherant lines of thought. But he seems a bit too interactive for that really. He asks questions and does more than just clarifying even. I appreciate that he does this when I'm having trouble getting started but I find it a bit hard / odd that he does this once I have gotten started. So I'm not sure how he envisages this going really. Sometimes I feel like his comments / remarks are more disruptive than anything. I read about that somewhere. I guess he has tried to offer, not exactly interpretations, but little comments like that every now and again. I guess I've noticed that I tend to be quite rejecting / dismissive of those. I don't think that he knows me well enough (has observed me for long enough) to have figured me out very well yet. I really do think that. But maybe my dismissiveness is just a rejection of intimacy thing. I don't know.

I don't know how he envisages this going. I'm not sure what I'm 'supposed' to be doing (in the sense of what kind of process he is envisaging). Don't know...

%#@&#! fixation

lol.

you can be orally fixated and oedipally fixated but not anally fixated it seems ;-)

lol. it just gets better :-)

ROFL

Best advice I ever got about therapy:

Begin where you begin/begin where you are. (therapy itself and each session)

Talk about anything and everything: whatever comes to your mind. Don't censure yourself.

The therapist will listen in the way s/he is trained. It is a special kind of listening that will help him/her learn about you.

I think you already get most of that, but could be he is still learning and everything is going fine.

I told my last therapist that she talked too much sometimes. That I would be working up to something and she would fill up the space.

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I appreciate that he does this when I'm having trouble getting started but I find it a bit hard / odd that he does this once I have gotten started. So I'm not sure how he envisages this going really. Sometimes I feel like his comments / remarks are more disruptive than anything. I read about that somewhere. I guess he has tried to offer, not exactly interpretations, but little comments like that every now and again. I guess I've noticed that I tend to be quite rejecting / dismissive of those. I don't think that he knows me well enough (has observed me for long enough) to have figured me out very well yet. I really do think that.

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Tell him this. The pace is important too. Silences are important. For me they are important because I don't think fast and I need time sometimes to convince myself to talk without censuring.

The intimacy can be uncomfortable and when it is, we should be saying that. Sometimes it is recognizable as that and sometimes it feels like something else, so when we can recognize it we should say it, imo.

Yeah. I think I do want to be a little bit careful though. This might well be coming from my stuff... But I don't think it is solely coming from my stuff because one of my therapists commented on this after we stopped working together. She said that I come across as self-sufficient and kind of distant aloof and enigmatic. That I was kinda daunting...

I know that I do sort of try and alienate clinicians at times (to get them to back off because of my fear of intimacy).

I guess that my dismissiveness is probably part of that. I was talking to him a bit about some of my IRL relationships and I said that I guess I do come across as a bit distant and that people aren't really sure what to make of me. There are some fairly high profile proffs here and quite often students are visibly sucking up to them but I don't do that and so the proffs aren't quite sure what to make of me. And he muttered something about my coming across as enigmatic...

I was reading this case example about some lady who would turn up to her sessions with a plan of what she was going to talk about. That she would proceed to talk about it and everytime her t offered a comment / interpretation she would look a little annoyed like it was an interruption. That she would be a bit dismissive of it and ignore it and get back to her train of thought. That after a while the therapist started to feel powerless to help her. So he talked to her about whether she was afraid that if the therapist could help her because she might become dependent or needy or that it would be very undermining to her self esteem. And after some time... The issue became around how she needed to be self sufficient in order to be accepted as a child and she was afraid of relying on other people.

I wonder if I've got some of that going on too. Not with structuring the sessions but with respect to being dismissive of what he does say. Kind of a defence against neediness / dependency.

I think that he is trying to be a bit more interactive because he doesn't want me to get lost in the transference / the past. Because if that becomes too intense... Well... I can't afford to regress too much because I need to keep on with my work. I think that is why he is trying to be more interactive and why he tells me a little bit more about himself than he otherwise would (e.g., his having time off while his wife has a kid). But then I don't know. I don't really know how much he thinks about all this stuff... Don't know. I guess the only way to find out is to ask.

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alexandra_k said:
Sometimes I feel like his comments / remarks are more disruptive than anything. I read about that somewhere. I guess he has tried to offer, not exactly interpretations, but little comments like that every now and again. I guess I've noticed that I tend to be quite rejecting / dismissive of those.

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This reminds me of a situation I had with my T. I constantly complain that he is too quiet, that I'm dying to know what he's thinking, and above all, that he should ask more questions to facilitate my ability to talk. (I have told him all of this). So, a couple of weeks ago, he's asking questions--considerably more than usual. And I find myself begin to get really irritated. Why is he asking so many questions? What the hell does he want to know? I shared this with him the following session, and it ended up leading in to a much needed discussion about how I live in extremes and opposites-- I will want something very much, but as soon as I get it, I'm angry/upset.

Another example: Like any other good borderline, I crave my T's attention, I yearn for him to be concerned about me. I often think about stirring things up a little (in terms of self destructive behavior) just to get his attention. Well, the other day I was on my cell phone while driving (yeah, I know..) and my husband said something that angered me. As soon as we finished the conversation, I had my usual bad temper reaction, and threw my cell phone against my dashboard so hard that it bounced to the back of the car. I told my T this and he got very concerned that I could have ended up getting into an accident or getting hurt. The more concern he showed, the more irritated I got.

Alex, most of my first year of therapy with my T was spend talking about my preconceptions of therapy. I had very rigid preconceptions. I wanted every second to be filled with intensity, but at the same time, I was so incredibly closed off to him. Things started to click more once I learned that I do not have to be linear in my thoughts or what I express during the session. He encourages me to free associate-- my free association does take on a more linear form than what is traditional of that technique.

How flexible is your T in regards to therapy on your terms? What I mean by this is that my T will normally follow my direction, my way of going about things. If I speak in analogies and metaphors (and I often do), he will adapt to this easily. He will hold a whole conversation with me, using my metaphors. Last session we were in a different therapy room, and I made a comment about something in a painting that was hanging on the wall. It was an abstract and something on it looked like a bridge. My T asked me where the bridge went to--- before I knew it, we were talking about me through the painting.

Probably the best direction I have learned how to take in therapy is the abandonment of direction, lol.

[sunrise]

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alexandra_k said:
I'm just feeling like I don't know how this is supposed to go. I wonder a bit about other peoples therapy sessions. How they get started. What kinds of things other people talk about. Maybe things are different for me because I have all these ideas that it is about talking about the things I'm ashamed of and talking about past hurts and talking about transference feelings. Maybe other people don't arrive with such preconceptions of what therapy is supposed to be about and so it it lighter most of the time and then they have moments of intensity... Whereas for me the whole session (from just before I arrive truth be told) is super-charged.

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alexandra, for me the whole session is often quite intense. I think part of this is because I am very motivated to progress in therapy and don't like to spend time on pleasantries and talking about stuff that is superficial. If I had more time and less pressure from my life situation, I would move more slowly in therapy. T always leaves it up to me to start the sessions because he says only I know what I need to talk about. I often have a good idea of what I want to start with by the time I arrive. I have a whole week to decide, and usually the most important thing will rise to the surface before our session. Occasionally it doesn't and I am not sure how to begin, and T lets me sit there in silence and let whatever I need to talk about come up. Sometimes if the silence grows too long, he'll say "just let it come, I'm here," in an easygoing way that is reassuring and not pressuring. He also has told me that if I need more direction from him, to please ask him.

Sometimes T will offer "bait" to me and it is up to me to comment on it or not. Like he will mention something or have a "prop" such as a book or something. Sometimes I do not rise to the bait and just ignore it, mainly because I have my own direction for the session and have so much that is really important to me to get through. I feel a little guilty about those times because it's almost a little rude to ignore his props like that. But we only have 50 minutes once a week and it is never enough time! Sometimes I will rise to the bait. But he's never pushy about it or acts rejected when I don't take it.

There are also other rarer times when we just kind of talk easily about this and that and it is surprising what comes up. With this T, I rarely cry in session and I think sometimes that he thinks I should, based on the experiences I share with him (like they are tears-inducing tales). Once during one of these seemingly random easy talks, some sadness just came out of nowhere for me and I cried, and it was a big surprise, because I wasn't telling him about a big trauma or anything. It was good.

I hope that is helpful to you as a comparison point for your own therapy. I don't think there is any one "right" way to do therapy. I have no idea if I do it like other people or not. I do know that I move more quickly, because T has told me that.

> I will want something very much, but as soon as I get it, I'm angry/upset.

That is interesting. Is it that you didn't get exactly what you wanted or is it that you really do get upset when you get something that you think you wanted? I mean, I can understand having a desire for your therapist to ask a few more questions but it might well be the case that your therapist went to more of an extreme then you intended and asked a few too many questions ;-)

> I often think about stirring things up a little (in terms of self destructive behavior) just to get his attention.

That is interesting...

I was reading something the other day about how some theorist (sorry, I really do have a hopeless memory for theorists and dates and names of publications and the like)... But I was reading how some theorist said that we are driven to repeat the KIND of interaction that we are used to. For example, if there was a lot of hostility in our interaction with our parents then we often seek out those kinds of hostile interactions. It can be about our parents loving us and having hostile interactions with us and so our coming to associate hostile attention with love. There was some client who used to provoke hostile interactions with her boyfriends because it was only by way of those hostile encounters that she felt like he loved her and was attentive to her. One of the theorists was also saying something about how anger / hostility / frustration also serves to distinguish oneself from the other person. Hostility / frustration with a person can be what helps one feel like an individual person in ones own right that is a focus of anothers attention instead of loving / attuned encounters where one can be terrified of loss of identity and merger...

I wonder if there is something of that in my annoyance with my t's comments too... I like him to say what he thinks and often express a little annoyance / disagreement with him. Maybe the annoyance / frustration helps me feel like an individual in my own right who is a focus of his attention and in part my own individuality is defined by my difference to him... Rather than attunement / merger which can be terrifying...

> I wanted every second to be filled with intensity, but at the same time, I was so incredibly closed off to him. Things started to click more once I learned that I do not have to be linear in my thoughts or what I express during the session. He encourages me to free associate-- my free association does take on a more linear form than what is traditional of that technique.

Yeah. I'm not too sure what I'm 'meant' to be doing... Every moment is kinda filled with intensity because I feel very wired before I get into the room and the sensation doesn't dissapate until I leave. He has said the odd thing about my being very very sensitive. I think part of that is that I don't look at him and my posture is kinda rigid. And I am quite intense by nature. Part of my not looking at him is an attempt to reduce the intensity but I think that it does kinda magnify the significance of other cues like his rate and tone of voice. I guess I am very sensitive to alterations like his sitting back a little (which he has become quite good at doing to give me space when he senses I'm getting a little irritable / panicky at how close he is) and disapproval / judgement in his tone...

> How flexible is your T in regards to therapy on your terms?

I think he is fairly flexible. When we were talking about some of my past therapy experiences he did ask whether there was anything they did that helped that we could change about the way we do things. I said 'no, its cool'. But maybe we should return to that conversation... Not with respect to past clinicians being particularly helpful (I prefer this way of doing things) but more with respect to figuring out what exactly it is that we are up to...

I would like to do free association but I don't know that I'm able. But if he is okay with that as a goal and okay with doing what he can to help facilitate that then I guess we could have a common goal... What would be really helpful to me would be if he could tell me how he envisages the process going and then I could bounce off him a little and we could figure things out that way.

(You know my academic work is the same. I need to read other peoples views and it is in figuring out my precise points of disagreement that I figure out what I think about it all)

> ...don't like to spend time on pleasantries and talking about stuff that is superficial.

yeah, i guess i feel the same. i don't see him often enough for me to feel comfortable spending too much time on pleasantries. but the i suppose i have difficulty getting into it too. maybe it is that i find talking about the hard stuff to be fairly distasteful and so i figure therapist finds it similarly distasteful. so it is only after he has done some work around trying to get me into talking about something meaningful that i feel that he really is okay about my opening up which means that... it really is okay. jeepers. i should tell him that, huh...

> I have a whole week to decide, and usually the most important thing will rise to the surface before our session. Occasionally it doesn't and I am not sure how to begin, and T lets me sit there in silence and let whatever I need to talk about come up. Sometimes if the silence grows too long, he'll say "just let it come, I'm here," in an easygoing way that is reassuring and not pressuring. He also has told me that if I need more direction from him, to please ask him.

hmm. so mostly you figure something that you want to talk about before you go and then you just get into it right away? sometimes i do have something on my mind but i still don't typically get to it until halfway through or sometimes not even until he says 'our time is about up' (so i can just say it and i don't have to elaborate on it further). i have expressed gratitude to him that he doesn't just leave me sitting in silence when i can't think of anything. i just find it so very hard. i've been in trouble with therapists almost constantly for not being able to take more direction with talking to them. it is hard to explain... sometimes in session... i feel like i'm about dying of shame. just being there. not shame around going to therapy exactly. it is that the therapist is focused on me. observing me intently. about my existence. that another person is really seeing my existence. and i feel like i'm about dying of shame. i do try and talk about me. and my therapist really is very gentle and validating and non-judgemental. and i can see that he really is trying to put me at ease. but then i just feel so scared that i will say something and he will see me more clearly and he won't be able to contain his revulsion or anger or whatever. i wish i could mute these feelings... i wish so much i could...

> Sometimes T will offer "bait" to me and it is up to me to comment on it or not.

lol.

> I hope that is helpful to you as a comparison point for your own therapy.

yes it is. thank you. i see that i'm a bit strange in that i don't just jump right on in. i guess my t thought i would do that more over time as i felt safer with him. but what seems to be happening is that i did feel a little safer and then i started to care and so now the very safety is feeling very unsafe. i guess that is what he was getting at... how we could better get me talking so i don't save up the important stuff and express it as a rushed comment as i'm on my way out the door.

it is so hard.

i guess i regress quite badly in therapy.

i've had a past t ask me (very gently) whether i looked at people IRL when i'm talking to them. i was like YEAH OF COURSE I DO.

with my current t i sit with my forearms across my upper legs. leaning forward kinda. but rigidly. with my eyes resolutely fixed on the rug or something a little off to the left of him. i try and fixate on different things over time or i can tell he is worrying i'm getting too absorbed. if i fixate on someting for too long then he will start talking about practicing awareness of the external world mindfulness exercises especially in the visual modality. (i think i told him already that my variety of dissociation is sometimes linked to tunneled vision / temporary blindness). he typically sits leaning forward to mirror my pose but i guess the rigidity of it is hard for him. i don't move forward or back at all i'm just kinda stuck there. he moves back and forward a bit... i think he has figured out that my lack of eye contact is about my trying to regulate my emotions and has realised that his moving back when i get a bit panicky / annoyed helps me with that too.

panic.

i guess that is it. panic and shame.

and of course interactions aren't like that IRL. but then i don't really do intimacy IRL. i mean i have intimate encounters but not really the sustained relationship variety.

i know it isn't uncommon for people to regress a bit in therapy. it does scare me how quickly and how much i regress, however. just when i start to forget how sick i actually am... how pathological it actually is to hold people away from oneself as much as i do... i guess therapists are people who get closer to me than anybody else in the world. it feels terrifying. something longed for but something terrifying. i get images sometimes of holding him so close i'm smothering him and yet i'm trying to beat him to get him the hell away from me at the same time. disorganisation.

thats why people aren't safe. 'cause of how i respond to them.

and i can't find where the hell the mute button is...

you know... if i could jump him then maybe that would discharge the tension somewhat. i mean if we get it over and done with then theres nothing to fear - right?

(joke)

i'm a bit of a %#@&#! up huh.

:-(

i wonder how he would feel about my taking a benzo before session...

have taken a benzo before session. helped a bit and I told the T that i had taken it (only fair).

I frequently do some relaxation breathing before my session to help me go in more relaxed. It helps a lot. Being relaxed does help the thinking.

What if, when you have the vision of holding him close, that you..slow down and practice kindness to yourself.. and just let it happen, allow yourself to have a vision of closeness with your T. It doesn't have to last long, just a little at a time. When you've had enough, instead of smothering him or beating him let him go and say "That's enough". Your part in the vision you have now seems to say that you think you are dangerous to him. That being close to him will be dangerous for him. It won't be. He's okay and sturdy and can well take care of himself, so it's okay to let the feelings of closeness happen.

That's part of the transference, ak. It's okay.

Yep, shame is heavy in the atmosphere in my sessions. Like who do I think I am to want someone's help? Shame, deserving, allowing my needs to be met, allowing good feelings in, allowing others in...all get in the way in session, yet are some of the reasons I'm there.

Last session during one of the longer silences I recognized my feelings for my T growing. It feels good and horrible at the same time. I look anywhere but at her a lot and when I began I rarely looked at her at all. Couldn't even remember her hair color or length from one session to next. lol. That last session during that silence when I was feeling closeness to her and wanting to fight it but not wanting to fight it, I just stayed with it. Stayed quiet, ventured looks toward her, ended up looking at her arms and hands and wanting them to be holding me, liking it and hurting from it at the same time. Wanting now what I wanted then but could never find. What do I do with that NOW?! I don't know but I'm going to let it happen because I want the good feelings and the not-so-good feelings.. well that's nothing new so I can deal with them.

The night of that session I had my first T dream (there will be more) and now have fantasies of receiving comfort from her quite often. Transference has begun for me. It feels so intense to me and if I didn't know it was okay, it would be another thing I would feel shame about.

I think you are proceeding as you are meant to and it is okay. The things that are rising, that are being stirred up might be making you feel like it is regression when it isn't.

You're identifying, naming, and thinking about your defenses and I think that's very hard and can be exhausting.

ECHOES

> have taken a benzo before session. helped a bit and I told the T that i had taken it (only fair).

okay. i'll give it a shot this week. i'll be sure to tell him as well. (if it works out well he will need to write me a prescription lol).

> I frequently do some relaxation breathing before my session to help me go in more relaxed. It helps a lot. Being relaxed does help the thinking.

yep. i try and do this too. part of the problem is that the sessions really are very early and so i get a maximum of 5 hours sleep before going. so i'm sleep deprived. and i need to have 2 coffees just to feel awake. but then the anxiety kicks in despite my trying to relax in the 20 minutes before i walk in the door. i know the coffee is pretty bad... but it turns off the REM sleep (without it i'm kinda dreaming while awake). maybe i should just take half a tablet. and / or get him to prescribe a slightly smaller amount than the present dosage i've got (which is most useful for intense episodes).

> What if, when you have the vision of holding him close, that you..slow down and practice kindness to yourself.. and just let it happen, allow yourself to have a vision of closeness with your T. It doesn't have to last long, just a little at a time. When you've had enough, instead of smothering him or beating him let him go and say "That's enough". Your part in the vision you have now seems to say that you think you are dangerous to him. That being close to him will be dangerous for him. It won't be. He's okay and sturdy and can well take care of himself, so it's okay to let the feelings of closeness happen.

http://forums.psychcentral.com/image...ns/Bawling.gif

(it wouldn't paste)

thats beautiful echoes.

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ECHOES said:
have taken a benzo before session. helped a bit and I told the T that i had taken it (only fair).
ECHOES

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I've done this-- interesting that you guys feel that you need to let your Ts know you've taken it. This might sound bad, but taking a benzo has become so casual to me (been taking them for almost 8 years now) that I have never even thought that I have to tell my T, or that it would be unfair not to. Sometimes I get very nervous on the way to a session, so I just take one. On occasion, I've mentioned to him that I've taken one before the session-- maybe because I've told him how nervous or anxious I was that day-- but I've never felt like I "have" to tell him. I guess when anxiety and benzos are somewhat routine (more the anxiety than the benzos) it doesn't stick out as something that I need to mention. By the way, I am not addicted to Xanax or Klonopin, lol-- I just realized that this whole post probably sounds like I am.

[lauren_helene]

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alexandra_k said:

i can't be in the moment. i didn't say that but it is true. i talked to him about transference and about some of my transference responses to people. one of those transference responses in particular. i said i couldn't figure out what i did to prompt / inspire the old pattern of interrelating. i figure i must be doing something because it is indeed an old pattern of interrelating. but i can't figure out the past from the present i can't figure out my contribution to present circumstances and the other persons contribution to present circumstances. it is just one big muddled mess.

That is how it feels certainly...I get that.

i talked a bit about some of the therapy i've had with other people too. and i told him that i had started seeing someone before i started working with him but that i hadn't seen her since i saw him. told him that i find it really very hard to attach to female clinicians and to feel connected with them. that that came easier with male clinicians... and he muttered something along the lines of 'well we will see where that goes'. i guess he was thinking about the rage and maybe about possible seduction too...

I'm wondering if I had a woman T, would this be happening to me?? Possibly. But I'm with you. I feel more at ease with males.

i said that i always wanted to do something psychodynamic and so i was really pleased when i found him and he was willing to work with me. that the closest i'd come was seeing p-docs for a couple months before they moved on as they tend to in the public system. he muttered something about 'well we haven't really begun yet...' i think he meant that we haven't begun interpreting yet (and when he tries i tend to be dismissive) and that we haven't begun to talk about our present relationship (transference) in therapy yet.

That is pretty profound.

in the last session he tried to get me talking about our present relationship. usually when we get into the therapy room he asks 'how are you' and i go 'fine' and then there is some silence... and after a while he starts to ask me questions and eventually i get into talking about my week... and eventually i get into talking about stuff that feels more meaningful. i'm alright once i get going but i guess i'm not very good at getting going. last time he started talking about how the therapy relationship is hard because it isn't reciprocal and because i have to talk about me but he doesn't talk very much about him. and he was talking about how i get on with talking to people outside therapy (trying to assess whether i'm hard to converse with in general i suppose).

T and I talked about this last session a little bit. It is one sided and I hate that!! But this is something to analyze...

i found it... distasteful. don't like to talk about being there with him. he said something about that too. about how there are cues in therapy like tone of voice and posture and the like... i'm not sure what he was getting at but i felt really uncomfortable. i sit fairly rigidly and don't look at him. i'm not sure where he was going with that... quite what i was meant to say. i'm feeling like that a bit now. 'what am i meant to say?' 'how am i meant to get started'? 'what am i meant to be doing'? feeling a little lost. just want him to take the direction kind of and then i can figure out my own and what i want by bouncing off of him. maybe i could have said that.

Ah ha! That makes a ton of sense. Just like we examine their tone and body language they are doing the same to us. I know how you feel about it being distasteful but you're doing great so far!

and he talked about my online interactions. about how you don't have these tone of voice and posture cues and the like. i think he gets how it is safer for me online. he has said to me before 'its okay we are just two people in a room talking'. but now i think he is getting the notion that that is actually fairly threatening really.

He's very insightful. It is easier to talk online. I myself have posted feelings here I can't manage to say to my T in person.

i see him once more next thursday (he made a special once off time before easter) then he is away for 3 weeks. we are going to try and email but he mutters about his email being unreliable...

i'm feeling disconnected. i felt so connected on tuesday and had three really terrific days. productive. happy. but friday was hard. i feel like... he is a bit close. i can't be with him in the present. it is a bit close.

i dodge out from under people.

can talk about the present here and now by implication (by talking about patterns going on elsewhere and by implying a relation). but not directly. i really am so very fragile.

i wonder if he likes me?
if he regrets taking me on?

I'm sure he does like you very much. Whenever I thought that my T didn't like me, he always cleared that up.

i told him that they are just stories. just stories. don't know how he feels about that. i mean, how he really feels about that when he actually takes it on board (instead of writing it off as denial).

i'm scared of him.

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Try not be scared. You're on the right path it sounds like to me.

Hugs to you Alex

[lauren_helene]

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alexandra_k said:
And it is hard. Because yeah, I guess I am terrified of intimacy. When I meet people in my daily life I can chat with them okay and look at them okay. Therapy is different, however. It feels very intimate, just the notion of two people being in a room with the door closed feels very intimate. Then the notion that I'm supposed to talk about my innermost feelings and thoughts (stuff that I'm normally very ashamed about and wouldn't tell anybody about) feels really very intimate too. And I guess I am quite emotionally intense. And my not looking makes all those non-visual cues (like tone and rate of speech and the like) take on more significance than they would outside therapy.

I'm just feeling like I don't know how this is supposed to go. I wonder a bit about other peoples therapy sessions. How they get started. What kinds of things other people talk about. Maybe things are different for me because I have all these ideas that it is about talking about the things I'm ashamed of and talking about past hurts and talking about transference feelings. Maybe other people don't arrive with such preconceptions of what therapy is supposed to be about and so it it lighter most of the time and then they have moments of intensity... Whereas for me the whole session (from just before I arrive truth be told) is super-charged.

I think that next time I will try and talk to him a bit about what it is that we are supposed to be doing. I want some direction. I guess I was thinking that maybe it is about something along the lines of free association. Maybe a little more structured (with respect to coherant lines of thought) but then I've heard that some peoples style of free association does take the form of coherant lines of thought. But he seems a bit too interactive for that really. He asks questions and does more than just clarifying even. I appreciate that he does this when I'm having trouble getting started but I find it a bit hard / odd that he does this once I have gotten started. So I'm not sure how he envisages this going really. Sometimes I feel like his comments / remarks are more disruptive than anything. I read about that somewhere. I guess he has tried to offer, not exactly interpretations, but little comments like that every now and again. I guess I've noticed that I tend to be quite rejecting / dismissive of those. I don't think that he knows me well enough (has observed me for long enough) to have figured me out very well yet. I really do think that. But maybe my dismissiveness is just a rejection of intimacy thing. I don't know.

I don't know how he envisages this going. I'm not sure what I'm 'supposed' to be doing (in the sense of what kind of process he is envisaging). Don't know...

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I couldn't have type this out better than you. I think just relating to him in the way you are is what your supposed to be doing. From what I've read about transference we act with our T's the way we act with others in our past and present...that is how they figure out our patterns.

[sunrise]

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hmm. so mostly you figure something that you want to talk about before you go and then you just get into it right away?

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Yes, but as I get more comfortable with therapy, I'm not doing it as much or don't have such detailed thoughts in my head about what we need to cover and get through. It can be just a sentence I want to discuss and I've learned better now that even one small thing can blow up into 50 minutes of really useful work with T. So I've learned to not try to do too much and allow one thought enough space to expand and fill the session. I journal a lot so this helped me know what I needed to discuss at the next session. Lately I am not journaling as much, and this may be a good thing, as I then don't have too much "figured out" before our sessions. I think I can tend to overthink and analyze stuff and this isn't always productive.

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it is that the therapist is focused on me. observing me intently. about my existence. that another person is really seeing my existence. and i feel like i'm about dying of shame.

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I am hopeful you can work through this and it will dissipate with time as your therapeutic relationship develops. Have you shared this thought with your T?

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my eyes resolutely fixed on the rug or something a little off to the left of him

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That's really interesting to me. In my first few sessions with my T, I would tend to look off to one side (can't remember which) due to discomfort with the topic I was trying to discuss or with being in a close sharing situation with T when I was not ready, etc. T tried to get me to look off to the other side. He would say follow my hand, and move his hand from my left to right so I was staring down at the other side. I'm not sure if we moved left to right or right to left--can't remember. I did read in a book (of course, I can't remember) that the brain is doing different things when it is staring right or left and one brain mode was more preferable in therapy. And I realized that T was trying to get me to stare off to the preferable side to faciliate our therapy. I thought that was kind of cool when I realized that, like "hey, this guy is really thinking of all kinds of stuff as I am sitting here with him and trying to help me in every way he can." Anyway, maybe you can try staring off to the right next time instead of the left. Who knows, maybe it will help?

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i wonder how he would feel about my taking a benzo before session...

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I try to arrive at my session a half hour early so I can go for a brisk walk. It both relaxes me and energizes me, and clears my head. And then I go to his waiting room and wait for the client before me to finish. My T often runs late (it's like a rule!) so I often sit by myself in his waiting room, close my eyes, and sleep. No kidding. I've become very comfortable there and I like that I can sleep. There is a reading lamp on an end table there and I turn it off and it is kind of dim in the room and I relax. The first time T came out in the room to get me and it was so dim, he asked "did the light burn out?" and I felt kind of dumb but just said, no I turned it off. Now he doesn't ask me, you know, that's just sunny out there in the waiting room doing her thang. Anyway, whatever method you can use to relax before session would probably have good pay off in session.

(You guys, I must admit, I feel dumb, but I don't even know what a benzo is. Is it a tranquilizer? Like valium? Like Xanax?)

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(You guys, I must admit, I feel dumb, but I don't even know what a benzo is. Is it a tranquilizer? Like valium? Like Xanax?)

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Don't feel dumb. I should feel dumber that I've been taking the stupid things for 8 years.

Benzo is short for Benzodiazepine. This is the class of minor tranquilizers that includes Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, etc.

See? You knew what it was!

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I try to arrive at my session a half hour early so I can go for a brisk walk. It both relaxes me and energizes me, and clears my head.

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I used to try to walk before my session. I normally take my ipod and play music appropriate to my mood and upcoming session. But ever since I started going on Fridays, it's impossible to get there on time because of traffic. I've had to park in the parking garage right down the block because I have no time. Before this, I would find (free!) parking a couple of blocks away, and walk slowly to the building, ipod on, staring up at the skyscrapers-- just taking in my city, the moments before a session. Trying to be in the here and now (so hard for me), and observing those unique feelings that only occur once per week, right before a session. Unfortunately, the last couple of weeks have been such a rush getting there, I hate that. That's when the benzos get whipped out, haha-- when I'm stuck behind 10 buses, trying to manuver my way across 4 lanes to drive around City Hall, 5 minutes before the session, lol.

Hi pinksoil

I don't take the Xanax on a regular basis but on an as-needed basis. Because I think honesty is crucial to therapy , I told the T about taking the Xanax. There's nothing wrong with taking it but it does speak to the level of discomfort about therapy or something in the therapy or therapist at that time that mademe to choose to use the benzo for that session.

It is part of the honesty and my belief that 'everything is important' in therapy that I told her. Also since part of my therapy goal is to learn to cope with the things that create anxiety for me and to be med-free, disclosing that I took it was part of the process in my situation.

So, no right or wrong, just where I was coming from.

ECHOES