Friday session looming

I have my session tomorrow and I look forward to it. I want to be there with her. An hour isn't anywhere near enough. I don't even need to talk, just to be there. I would love to just lay onher couch and sleep.. sleep peacefully and feel safe knowing she's there. Sometimes I arrive there with that fantasy in mind and feel dreamy-eyed, sleepy.

I saw this question on a thread somewhere here but not sure where and I lost track of it: who do you take to your session, the adult you or the child you?

If you take the adult you, how do you manage that?

Sometimes I can start out talking without feeling anything.

But then there are times, when we talk and I begin to let the feelings come, then I feel like a very small child.A those times, I can't seem to talk about the feelings or situations without feeling them intensely. I try hard to avoid feeling them intensely because all I will do then is cry and when I cry I look stupid and I can't talk and I can't think and I think it just ruins everything. So then I reign myself back in and there I am at feeling nothing again.

Will this get better so I can be an adult and have intelligent adult-like discussions instead of meltdowns that are point less?

I know I want to tell her about the dream I had that she was in and I know it is revealing of my neediness for her so at the same time I don't want to tell her.

I try to fight the feelings I have for her. The last session, during a silence I realized I was feeling close to her and I felt desparate. I couldn't look at her but fleetingly. I stole glances, finally resting my gaze on her open kind welcomnig face and then her forearms and hands that look so gentle and warm and secure. I don't want to have feel this. I don't want to have these feelings!! And at the same time I want her to come put her arm around my shoulders and hold me and let me hold onto her and cry and talk to her that way.

What good is all this neediness and desire to be loved by your T when it is not real? It is just frustrating and seems so pointless.

And I'm not over the last transference yet and in fact it still causes me daily pain because I want to be with her; she is secure and nurtuting and kind. .

I know there is an intellectual component to therapy and I am very intererested in that. I'm afraid I'll never ge there though if I can't get a grip on the desire to be mothered and taken in by the T. I want that love so intensely but it isn't real so how is it helping me?!

Just don't know what to make of it.

ECHOES

(((((((((((((((((((Echoes)))))))))))))))))))

I can completely relate to what you said above about wanting to have her come and just sit beside you, with her arms around you ... how comforting that would feel, yet how much you know that it couldn't really ever happen like that. I think that this is a very common thing for "us" to feel about a T or a important person in our lives ....

The desire to feel loved is a human and biological need ... if part of you feels like you never got that sort of love, or the love that you needed at one point in your life then it makes perfect sense why you would be feeling like this. Even if this wasn't a case ... your T is someone who probably knows a lot about you, and just that fact alone can make us feel vulnerable, or just feel like our feelings and thoughts need to be justified.

I wish i knew what to tell you about how to get around this .. but i dont know if its that easy. I myself am stuggling with something similar (with someone important to me, and my old T) and i know how hard it is to have all these feelings about someone yet be scared to truly acknowledge them (especailly to your T) and to yourself. Its scary when you feel so "needy" -for lack of a better word- ... but just know that its normal. Its okay to feel like this ... and things will become easier ... or at least i hope they do!

I guess i'm not helping much, but i just wanted you to know that i really can empathize with you, and that you are not alone.

Hang in there and try to be easy on yourself.
Jacq

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ECHOES said:
I have my session tomorrow and I look forward to it. I want to be there with her. An hour isn't anywhere near enough. I don't even need to talk, just to be there. I would love to just lay onher couch and sleep.. sleep peacefully and feel safe knowing she's there. Sometimes I arrive there with that fantasy in mind and feel dreamy-eyed, sleepy.

ECHOES

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I so wish I could just kick off my shoes and lay down on the couch to talk. I'm tempted sometimes but I don't know what he'd think...I think just laying there would make me feel closer to him. Just what he needs!

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ECHOES said:

I saw this question on a thread somewhere here but not sure where and I lost track of it: who do you take to your session, the adult you or the child you?

ECHOES

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I must've missed this. I'm thinking usually the child. I should research it though...I know he has said in the parent/child (couples concept) I've been the child....I was like what do you mean child?? Giggle

kid doesn't go very often.
i've been taking the angry teenager lately.

I hope today goes well for you.

I really relate to this ECHOES.....
Hoping it goes well!
(sorry so short )

Echoes, I hope your session went well. I'm a bit late with this.

For the most of the last year and a half, only the adult shows up at therapy. For a good portion of that time, it was even more than the adult-- it was the therapy colleague. I never wanted him to see me as a "patient."

The child has peeked out at times, in childish glares when I'm angry with him, or the way I refuse to look in his eyes, instead continuously fidgeting with a button or the lid of the cup I'm holding.

Lately, the colleague has made less appearances, and the adult is beginning to break down.

In fact, we spent a large portion of the last session actually talking about why I feel like a child.

I don't want the child to come through in session. I can talk about the child, but I don't want her to show her behavior in front of him. That might mean crying, and I don't cry in front of him. So when I have strong emotions, I show the "tough" side. It's somewhere between the adult and the child, but more like a defense so the child doesn't come out. I guess it is pretty childish, but at least I don't cry.

ECHOES, I hope your session went well. I think I read a post you made in another thread saying you had shared the dream. Good for you--hope it lead to a wonderful session. Hope you will stop by and say more.

I haven't brought my child to therapy for a couple of months. Earlier, we were dealing with issues relating to a particular ego state of mine from when I was a little girl. I could call up this ego state at will when I was in therapy, so both of us would be there. Sometimes we would dialog with each other and I, the adult, would speak to her and then report back to T what the child said in return, so that T could hear the whole conversation. Or sometimes, at his request, I would let the child speak directly to him. Sometimes my adult would nurture the child, especially at T's direction. It helped my child to have my adult take care of her. It would not be possible for any of my ego states to attend therapy without me, because I, the adult, am the controlling ego state. I think this may be a little different from what you were asking (I, the adult, feeling like I am a child), but I think it is as close as I have gotten to being a child in therapy.