great session!

i had to post cos i just had the Best session with T! she was so great. listening and talking and reassuring and guiding and explaining and letting me ask her so many questions ive been wondering about. we were talking about connection and i said i have a lot of trouble figuring out when i connect to someone. she said people are drawn to people they can connect with so i dont need to worry about hanging around people who hate me because if they hate me they just wont be there and if theres a connection they will. so i asked how do i know theres a connection. because often i like someone and maybe theres a connection or maybe i just want to be with that person but they dont want to be with me. her answer? with that we ll leave it there and thats something you can think about for the next week. lol. BUT then she let me stay talking for 20 mins over time!!! we just sat and chatted about psychology, freud (whos a big eejit we both agree), sandtray therapy (she says shed love to try it with me because id be a perfect candidate and its a great therapy) and jung (who shes about to do a course on and i said id look into him). we also chatted about her getting her house refurbished (her office is in her house) and she described her whole house to me (i never get to see more than the sitting room in passing and the office) and her plans for the kitchen and bedrooms and everything. i hardly took in what she was saying about the design cos i was just so happy to listen to her voice talking. she also told me she d been in that house for 20 years and she was designing it with the next 20 in mind and that her partner lives with her and hes a T too! they ve been together 4 years and he uses her office sometimes (how very weird!! a man sitting in MY T's chair???) but they arrange it so neither of them is in the house when the other has a client. im so excited. this is the most self disclosure shes ever done and i asked so many questions and told her where i was and what i was feeling and we covered a LOT.
there are down sides: her offices is going to be out of commission for 5/6 weeks when its being refurbished and she said her clients would just have to take a break during that time (though its not probably until about next december). also now im even more afraid to tell her some things in a way because i feel now she might actually like me (how arrogant!!) so im even more afraid of scaring her off. plus now im so curious about her partner! lol. id love to see him and see why he s so important for her and does he measure up? is he good enough for her? does he make her life better? happier? what does he look like? what sort of therapy does he do? how old is he? where is he from? (how freaky and weird am i?) yuck. just got icky images of him hugging her. pah.
BUT. the good stuff is soooooooooo outweighing the bad.

ok. so to add a question...
does anyone here know when you ve actually made a connection with someone? how do you tell? how do you know its not just you obsessing or getting too attached when the other person couldnt care less about you or worse, actively doesnt like you but is being polite?
off to enjoy this nice warm feeling now.
wow. this ended up long! sorry! thank you if anyone actually made it to reading this far!

I think most ppl would use the term "gut feeling?" Intuition, something inside that makes the "connection" for me I think....just as some ppl give me a cautious feeling. I try to figure out why I met them in the first place... and maybe it isn't for now, but later on in life? TC

Hello Biiv.
I am glad to hear you sounding so positive and alive from your therapy session. I hope things keep going in a positive note for you. PM anytime. Take care and good day. Soidhonia

biiv, I agree with sky, its a gut feeling. I'm glad you enjoyed your session. I remember the first time discovering that Freud and Jung were both damaged individuals just like myself, I felt a bit disappointed at first but then I remembered that both this individual's added a lot to todays "thinking" practises. I wouldnt consider freud an eejit exactly. for their era's they were way ahead of a lot of people, personal problems and phschis aside. Almost like Nietzsche, a disturbed indivdual but a great thinker. Now see i connect with those torutured souls that think a lot LOL. I wonder why? LOL maybe we connect to others with what we connect with within ourselves? I dunno. Just rambling I think LOL

I agree-- gut feeling. I'm trying to remember if there was a certain moment when it clicked for me. I know there were little things that occured with T that let me know. I will never forget the time I had an appointment with my pdoc before my session with T. When I got up to Ts room, I couldn't even talk. I was depressed, overwhelmed, etc. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes, and then I feebly pointed to the door as if my arm was about to fall off. T said, "So how did that go?" I was just like... wow. I don't even have to verbalize and this man knows exactly what's on my mind. And a couple sessions ago he brought up a part of a dream that I had told him about a couple of months ago, to connect with something I was talking about in that session. He amazes me like that, and that's how I know he's the T I can connect with.

And Biiv-- it's funny what you say about your Ts partner. The only thing I know about my T is that he must be married because he wears a wedding ring, and of course, that makes me want to die. Sometimes I imagine him at home with his wife and kids (I don't even know if he has kids), and it drives me crazy. I have a completely unrealistic view of my T, and tend to think that he does not exist outside of our hour together. I told him that, but I never told him the thing about the wife and kids. I don't think I could go into that type of detail without wanting to jump out the window.

I'm really glad for you that you are able to enjoy the "warm feeling" after the session. That's wonderful that you can take that warmth and safety and bask in it outside of therapy.

That is great you had an awesome session.

For me, gut feeling is adequate. It only takes me minutes to determine if I can spend one more minute with someone. As for attachment, I am learning that when it comes to men, I am probably doing that out of need to be "taken care of" kind of, listened to or just admired...

biiv, that is wonderful you had such a great session. When you are left with that warm feeling, you know you have made a connection. Other ways to know: can you talk really easily with the person? Do they seem to know exactly what you mean without your having to overexplain? Are words sometimes not necessary? They can give you a certain look and it speaks volumes, yet you haven't said a word? These are some ways to know.

What is sandtray therapy? Sounds interesting.

thanks sky. i have a problem identifying 'gut feeling' i guess. sometimes im sure theres a connection there (like this week in T) but the very next week i cna be equally certain theres nothing. i cant tell if thats gut instinct or my own distorted reactions. course also when im sure theres a connection am i just fooling myself because really its just me feeling it and the other person actually feels nothing about it? complicated complicated! lol. i really have to think about this more before i see T next but after my next couple of exams.
thanks for replying. (and i love that little wavy smiley. )

Thanks soidhonia. i hope the next session goes just as well too but i imagine that might be hoping for just a little too much. im happy just to have had that one time. for now anyway. lol.
hope you re doing ok.
take care
biiv

Your T sounds so nice! I was looking for where you lived so I could come see her :-) LOL

I have trouble with there one day, gone the next in relation to connection too. I try to remember both that things ebb and flow; "feelings" don't stay the same anymore than the weather does but that doesn't mean the real relationship isn't still there and, since I often find I often doubt :-) I remember that and "correct" my thinking when I doubt.

I'm taking a class and really like another student who lives north of me (class is 1 to 1-1/2 hours south) who I hook up with to go to meetings but a week or so ago when I hadn't heard from her much I started getting afraid she didn't like me :-) We had been to dinner before class the week before and she has always been fun and friendly and never given me any indication (gut or otherwise :-) that she didn't like me and we're supposed to spend a week together at the hotel when we do the class project in a couple weeks. But I kept getting scared she was going to drop out of the class or didn't like me and was wishing she didn't have to work with me, etc. but then we had a class thing again together and she was perfectly delightful, we went out to dinner, etc. and I finally realized it was all my head worrying and not based in "reality" so now I just keep pulling myself back to the "facts" instead of letting my anxious fears rule.

thanks mouse. i havent read about jung but its true. freud did make some huge connections although his conclusions on the connections seem largely to have been way off. i guess i meant that he was not a nice individual. i think i would have had some serious personality clashes with him if id known him! lol. i must admit i do often connect with 'tortured souls who think a lot' too. lol. though often for me they tend to be fiction writers, poets, philosophers more so than psychologists... probably cos til now ive paid more attention to these disciplines than the latter. lol.
btw you hit the nail on the head saying we connect to others with what we connect with in ourselves. its hard for me though to take that objective, rational thought and apply it to my 'feelings'. whatever the heck they are!
thanks for your 'rambling' mouse. i always get so much out of it!

hi pinksoil. that sounds like a really great moment with your T. sometimes i wonder since i have so much difficulty understanding myself how can she understand but then theres the odd thing she says that gets me thinking 'hmmm... now where did that come from unless she knows what im thinking...' its great.
im glad im not the only one who has a 'problem' with the idea of their T having 'someone else' for lack of a better phrase! do you think its a bad thing to have an unrealistic view? but it feels safer that way... im totally with you about wanting to jump out the window rather than go into detail like that with her though. though my T works in a bungalow... but still! even if it was several stories higher! lol.
thanks for you input. its hugely appreciated.
take care

funny i get the gut instinct that i dont want to spend time with someone but when i get the instinct to spend time with someone how do i know if thats real or just my need for people to want to have me around? to 'be taken care of' as you say? cos if thats the case its probably not going to be mutual and if it is then its still unhealthy... i get very confused about this. cant seem to get my thoughts in a straight line. lol.
thanks for your comments. everything that gets me thinking is welcomed!

hmmm... thats an interesting take on 'connection'... those things are something i dont usually get with people until ive known them years though... which doesnt help me with recognising it early on... but then it begs the question that maybe im just too standoffish to let those things develop earlier? trust issues? hmmmm... thanks for those thoughts.
as far as i know sandtray therapy is where the T literally has a big tray of sand with a range of figures and objects in the room that you position wherever you want in the tray. the figures you pick and the position you put them in apparently allows the T to point out things and understand you better... thats about all i know about it! lol. sorry. not much help. maybe try searching this site or google for more info? actually if you started a thread here no doubt you would get a lot of info and feedback on it. id be fascinated to try it but not sure it would work since id be so self conscious about what i was doing... i suggest it would work better the less you know of it...
anyway thanks again.
take care

((( biiv )))

I'm so happy you had a great session and for those wonderful lingering feelings of closeness!

There is a lot to learn about how we connect with someone and why. What we tend to do is to be drawn to the familiar. That is how transference happens, in or out of therapy. Someone can remind you of a loved one and that can make you feel instant fondness for them. It can cross genders too. There is an older man in my complex who is so kind and in a way that reminds me of my kind and loving grandmother, the one shining light in my growing up. I like seeing him and talking to him; it feels warm and familiar to me.

For the same reason, though, someone who hasn't had good relationships has to be careful and sometimes has to learn how to connect with people who are worthy of them. Abused people are familiar with abusive relatioinships and personalities and so that will be familiar to them and they will be drawn to that type of person because of the feeling of familiarity. It is work and can feel like swimming against the tide to learn to connect with trustworthy people.

So I think for some that intstinct (which really isn't but is actually repetition) can be reliable, but for others it is not a good idea. Just wanted to get that out there.

I think it is so cool that your therapist's office is in her house. I love the idea of that set-up, though I've never had one who works from home. Jonathon Kellerman's books have or had a psychologist who did that and it sounded cozy to me.

I would be having the same thoughts about your T's private life. It's natural I think. She painted you a detailed picture and you are just exploring it more.

It's good that she said about the coming break while the remodeling will disrupt her office. It gives you time to talk about that, plan for it personally and in therapy--together you can decide how you'd like to pace things accordingly. I think it's going to be okay, biiv.

Thanks for sharing your good session and joy with us!

lol perna. id introduce you but i think ireland might be a bit far for you to come for therapy??
it sounds to me that the other student likes you as much as you like her i have to say. in fact it sounds like you have a really good friendship starting there. good for you!
heres an example of why i get so confused about these things. theres a gay guy in my class and whenever he would see me he d get this big smile on his face and say a warm hello and we would go have lunch together or go out together in the evenings. of course i thought maybe he likes he and we could actually be friends which would be cool since i dont have any gay friends but i was so nervous i was certain i was going to mess it up. then i figure i must have messed it up somehow cos now hes not texting or ringing me at all. i saw him a few days ago for the first time in weeks and all he said was 'hi' with this kind of frozen smile and then got away as quickly as possible. also he crossed the street directly in front of me the other day and i know he saw me but totally ignored me and kept looking the other way. does that mean the connection wasnt there in the first place and it was just me liking him? then maybe he realised i liked him as a friend and backed off because he never liked me? or maybe i did something i dont know about? maybe he just got to know me better and got scared off?
but just to really complicate matters he sent me a brief text on thursday saying he was in a club if i wanted to join him. i said no.
so basically was there a connection there as i thought and i ruined it or was there never a connection at all and it was just in my mind?? this seems to happen a lot.

edited to add that im a horrible dolt. the poor guy lost his mother a few weeks ago and he has almost no contact with his dad so that might be why hes acting like this. i was thinking about that as i was writing and about how pathetically self centered i am to be thinking any of the above when hes going through so much but i forgot you guys didnt know that already.

thanks for replying echoes. your words make a lot of sense to me. i think i tend to do that alot with people. be drawn to people who are abusive. or at least who take more from me than they give. i have two (sort of three) good friends who i know care an awful lot about me (they must be nuts!) but they do demand a lot too. makes me wonder sometimes if our friendship would survive if i stopped being there quite so often for them. god i feel so disgusting thinking those thoughts about people who do actually care. i know they do! sigh.
ive only really had two relationships and in the first one if it had gone on longer im sure it would have become physically abusive. it was close enough as it was. and with the second she was utterly controlling. so your theory we draw whats familiar rings a lot of bells. its something that terrifys me for a lot of reasons so i havent been in a relationhship in forever.
also it is great to be forewarned about the break. even if it isnt going to be for many months. this is about the amount of time i need to adjust!
(((echoes)))
thanks again and take care

wow, what a great thread :-)

i think that the 'gut feeling' or 'gut reaction' that people are talking about is hugely linked to emotion. this might be more controversial than i think it is, but i guess i conceive of 'feeling connected' as something along the lines of 'emotional attunement' or 'empathetic attunement' or 'resonance'. I think it is easier to describe that in the case of infants...

infant is feeling warm and happy and smiles at mother. if the mother responds to the infants smile with a smile of her own that is genuine that is an attuned response.

therapy analogue: if you are telling your therapist about something you are really proud of or happy about and you smile as you are reporting it then if the therapist responds with a smile / happiness / pride of her own that is genuine that is an attuned response.

not attuned analogue: therapist says something like 'oh i did this' (shifts the focus to their achievement) or says 'but that wasn't so great after all' (looks disapproving or something) or says 'but you could do this next time' (is dismissive of the achievement).

infant is feeling upset / disgruntled / frustrated / irritable. an attuned response would be to comiserate / soothe. a not attuned response would be to shift the focus to oneself or undermine the feeling ('there is nothing to be upset about just get over it) etc.

I think the feeling of connection is based on attuned connections to others. In therapy it is mostly about the therapist empathising with our mood and thereby matching their mood to ours in an attuned way. IRL, however (outside therapy) friendships are based on reciprocal attunement.

For example... In order to experience emotional attunement with people you need to spend time with them. Going out for coffee or going to movies or spending time with them in class or whatever. What do people want? Moments of emotional attunement. I have some friends who are into movies and I quite like them myself. We all get a bit excited before the movie (emotional attunement) and then after the movie we recount some of the scenes and the like. Or I quite often go out for coffee with people and we talk about how our work is going (since we all have to do roughly the same thing). Sometimes we are attuned with each other because we are both happy with our work or because we are both a bit down about it. Sometimes I'm doing well and the other person isn't but I can comiserate with them and encourage them along. It takes effort (it can be quite draining) to empathise with others and allow their experiences to affect us so our mood matches theirs. That is where relationships are supposed to be reciprocal. When someone is attuned to us it can kind of 'refuel' us even though being attuned to them can (at times) require quite a bit of effort.

I think that friendships are really based on how much one can interact with the person fairly naturally (so it isn't that you have to focus on them all the time and that you have enough in common for pleasant experiences where the other person helps amplify them into a happy experience). and good friends are people who you know you can call on when times are tough and they will be able to comiserate with you and help you feel a bit better.

it is hard though...

sounds to me that with this guy... something upsetting has happened to him. he does like you because he really went out of his way to reach out to you. and now... sounds to me like he needs a friend. i would txt him and say 'i'm sorry to hear that this has happened. would you like to go for coffee (or something)?' he might be grateful to be distracted from it or he might be grateful to talk to you about it. sounds like he needs a friend to be soothing right now. and so... it is up to you whether you consider him a friend or not and if you do consider him a friend then it is time for you to step up to the plate and be a friend to him. that is how friendships are made / maintained.

it is hard though...

hehe. i was kind of hoping youd reply to this thread. i really wanted your opinion on all this so thank you much.
((((((((alex_k)))))))))) if you would like.
i absolutely get what you mean about emotional attunement ok. my first thoughts on this were 'how do you tell if the response is genuine?' but then i started thinking about this guy again (just as a concrete example i can focus on) and i guess it can expand a bit to other people i know.. though that will need more thought.
im not sure he actually asked me much about myself or i even talked much about me... because im so self conscious and afraid of people i really dont divulge stuff easily and when i make an effort to it always seems like im sort of a fish out of water. i have very strange ideas and interests and ways of looking at life compared to the people i come in contact with. i have interests in so many things but they rarely seem to correspond with other peoples interests except in fairly superficial ways. films are one of my more normal interests or music but the type of films and music are completely different from most peoples. i had someone stop a conversation dead a while ago by saying 'youre a post modernist!' and literally stalking off. sigh.
anyway where was all this going? right so im afraid to reveal an emotion or much of anything because i know i wont get the 'emotional attunement'. so ... am i looking for it from the wrong people? is my thinking distorted from not having the emotional attunement in the past so now im afraid even though i might get it now if i took the risk? (i really dont think thats it cos i do risk slightly sometimes and it backfires. see the comment about being a postmodernist above). or am i so weird and warped and in a world of my own that no one can give me that attunement? or is it that i need so much of it no one can give me as much as i need because im too needy? grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. i hate how every question answered leads to 15 more that arent! well. sometimes.

i like what you said too alex about empathising with others being draining. well. not like but lol empathised i guess. hehe. i seem to empathise well since so many people confide in me but it is so exhausting sometimes i just need to back away and hide out. so i know i interact unhealthily in that sense because there isnt that refueling balance there. thats something i really really need to work out and get under control.

about stepping up the the plate as a friend to this guy i sort of did that already. i sent him several text messages while he was at home for the funeral just saying i was thinking of him, asking how he was coping, saying i was there if he wanted to talk when he came back to college etc. and got polite thank yous to each. i assume he wasnt saying much back because duh. its not like i was even featuring on his radar with all he had going on. but after i only found out he was back from someone else and he didnt contact me at all i began to wonder so i stopped texting in case i was just adding to his stress. maybe i should ask him for lunch after one of the exams this week or something...

anyhow. thanks so much for responding and no hassle if you havent read this insanely long waffle! cant believe im writing all this out 'in public'. guess i must be feeling safer here.
thanks again to everyone else who responded on this thread too. it means a lot. i think it makes me feel a bit... connected?

biiv, I think it would be great if, for closure, you asked him to lunch and talked about the shift in his responding to you, rather than to keep on wondering. What do you think?

biiv, your gay guy sounds like he may have a problem of his own. I've had that happen; I tried to make a friend in my apartment building 30 years ago and she was very friendly, talkative, had fun ideas but then she suddenly didn't notice me or "remember" having talked to or done things with me, etc. I got a bad "feeling" about her because her behavior seemed so out of anything I could imagine being my fault and in a couple months, a real friend moved into our building and after a bit was raving about this wonderful new friend she had and it was this same woman. I told my actual friend to "be careful" my actual friend was much younger and didn't have any experience living on her own, away from her parents, etc. and I didn't have anything I could quite put my finger on to tell her why to be careful but it turned out the other woman was on drugs and suicidal and in the end, my actual friend got hurt.

As someone said earlier, always trust yourself. It's actually all you have to go on with other people. If you can't remember saying or doing something that was "wrong" then it's likely the other person has some trigger happening and you didn't say or do anything wrong, it was their take on it. But if you have a clear conscience, can't think of anything yourself, always give yourself the benefit of the doubt. You're the only one on your side and so you should always be 100% on your side :-)

> my first thoughts on this were 'how do you tell if the response is genuine?'

it is really very hard to fake a smile. i can usually tell when people are chatting with me out of politeness (their eyes are wandering and they look a bit bored and they aren't really listening). in fact, different facial muscles are activated with genuine smiles and fake smiles. the majority of people aren't deceptive and the majority of people aren't good at being deceptive even if they are trying to be. the majority of people are looking for... moments of mutual attunement methinks.

moments of attunement can be as simple as mutual appreciation of a cup of coffee. a shared smile as a bird takes off. i think it is about finding / discovering things that are mutually satisfying. abstraction really helps because most people enjoy music and the mood altering capacity of it even if they have different tastes in the particular music they find pleasurable. similarly for art and the like. i find moments of attunement in disagreement as people catch me in an inconsistency (which i find perversely delightful) and they encourage me to broaden my thinking. i really do think that people are similar enough to each other for it to be possible for them to find moments of attunement. trouble is... some people resist moments of attunement / emotional connection to others because of their baggage (i tend to avoid them because i'm afraid).

> anyway where was all this going? right so im afraid to reveal an emotion or much of anything because i know i wont get the 'emotional attunement'.

it can be as simple as a sympathetic smile. like how infants flourish with attuned moments and don't do so well without it adults are the same. people vary in their capacity and willingness to engage in such moments, though. i tend to provoke hostility becasue in a way that feels safer to me. sigh.

> so ... am i looking for it from the wrong people?

possibly. or possibly it is about not appreciating the range and scope of possibilities for attunement experiences.

it requires... practice. therapy is supposed to help by providing such experiences (well that is one thought) and then you start to see when you pull away from them... and eventually are able to tolerate them more and get a grasp on why others draw away and appreciate not to take it personally.

> about stepping up the the plate as a friend to this guy i sort of did that already. i sent him several text messages while he was at home for the funeral just saying i was thinking of him, asking how he was coping, saying i was there if he wanted to talk when he came back to college etc. and got polite thank yous to each.

it might be... that he doesn't want to talk about it. i don't know. maybe he is trying to distract himself. i have no idea. (e.g., maybe he isn't so close to this person and feels bad for not feeling very upset about it or maybe he just doesn't want to talk about it). it was nice of you to do that though. maybe... you could send him one more and say that it would be cool if you could catch up sometime if he would like and that he could txt you if he would like to do that. yeah, it is putting yourself out there a little but then the ball will be well and truely in his court.

i haven't really explained the attunement stuff very well...

it isn't so very clear in my own mind.

it is pre-verbal.

and it is right hemispheric processing (emotional, intuitive etc) rather than left hemispheric processing (verbal, explicit etc).

moments of shared emotion IN THE FACE OF differences of opinion and the like. to disagree without being disagreeable. to share ones thoughts and perspective and have someone listen in an attuned way and then background ones thoughts and perspective and empathetically attune oneself to the others perspective.

a mutual give and take and sharing and exploring of differences in an atmosphere of harmony.

i see how it is supposed to go sometimes. i guess i am very emotionally sensitive and part of what that gives me is a capacity for empathy. trouble is that because of the force of some of my own thoughts and experiences i have trouble not being absorbed by them in order to background them and adopt anothers perspective for a time in order to empathise with them.

people vary in their ability and capacity and willingness... according to their hurts and the like...

but it isn't a particularly verbal activity. or at least it doesn't have to be. though i guess ideally emotions and reason working in harmony sharing and exploring similarities and differences in moments of mutual attunement and moments of reciprocal backgrounding of ones own perspective in order to attune oneself with the other.

and that is very rambly and repetitive. sorry... but i hope i'm conveying it sort of okay.

i think the idea is that one person can say 'i like rock music'. and the other person can kind of go 'uh huh, what do you like about it?' and listen as the person explains what they get out of it... and empathise with what they get out of it and derive pleasure from the person being animated in discussing it and think that it is wonderful that it inspires them in that way and helps them feel alive or whatever. and one has learned something about the person and what they value (what they get out of it) and one can attune oneself to that despite:

the fact that one hates rock music.

and then (ideally) that person would ask what kind of music you like and you can tell them all about what you get out of classical (or whatever) and they can learn about you and attune themself to your response.

but of course people vary in their ability to verbalise (some people find that moments of attunement are found in throwing a ball around or going for a run) and their ability to do this in a mature way (instead of reverting to 'NOOOOOO classical music SUUUUUUUUCKS'.

I really do think the world would be a better place if people worked on improving their ability to empathetically attune themselves to others aka: try to walk for a while in their shoes.

But it can be draining if the person is in a negative mood and / or if the persons experiences are very foreign to us... Or if the person doesn't offer much in the way of attuning themselves to us. That is why we tend to be drawn to people like us (the moments of attunement are indeed easier with shared interests) and drawn to people who we feel happy being around (because they are able to regulate our mood into a positive state, for example).