I am defeated per therapist

Told by a therapist that "I am defeated." Society has won. He said my life looks like a nightmare that I can't wake up from. Since I have no ability to make people in real life care about me and I have done everything in my power to make myself the best I need to stop trying and let the other side win. Go hide in a corner and accept defeat. That is what I am doing. That is what the therapist told me and I don't want to be label a non-complaint patient again so I will do what they say to do. If you are non-complaint they have ways to get you complaint - hospital stays, injectable meds, restraint rooms and chairs, water boarding etc. don't want that so I am going to follow their opinions.[/QUOTE]

I am sorry to hear this was said to you. He is WRONG. Their are therapist, a small few that eschew a lot of the above and will work with the the 'raw' you. Unfortunately, a big hurdle is finding one. Good luck to you.

I read your other post what type of therapy allows therapists to hold you? I thought that was a boundary violation? I did not think a therapist could touch you that way.

There is no therapy that I know of that allows touch (whatever that may encompass) or disallows touch. It's interesting to read the history of how touch got out of favor with therapist, then started to come back with the free swing 60's, and then the legal gurus and the insurance industries clamped way down, because of a bunch of unethical professionals. "Touch is the slippery slope to sex. If I remember correctly, a California.gov consumer agency puts out a pamphlet stating touch is not in therapy is a misnomer.

Touch is not for everyone. And, many therapist cannot do touch for their own personal reasons, and I give them that. The Worst in my opinion is the psychotherapist that starts touch and then takes it away without the consent of the client under the guise of doing what's best for said client. For those with abandonment/attachment issues this incompetence inflicts the same kind of trauma that we experienced during the attachment phase of growing up, most lily from our parents. I do believe most of our parents tried, but what they did give was not right or enough for us. Why should a therapist be allowed to give and withhold whenever he/she wants? What sense does that make?

I hope somewhere in this response is your answer. I paid a lot of ugly ducklings to find the right one to help me become a swan.

So did you directly ask to be touched. How did the subject come up in the discussion? Did she bring it up? What was the modality or name of the therapy?

Dancinglady, I've read many of your posts and I'm wondering if you're misinterpreting what was said to you. I've read your posts about laying in bed drunk and alone, about drinking being your only solace, and I have felt deep sorrow for you. I watched others trying to cheer you up, but there's really no way to cheer up someone who's drinking themselves to sleep.

When Ts are worried about someone's drinking they often use language that says you've been defeated by alcohol, it's time to accept it and to surrender to defeat, your will-power and efforts to be a good person will not help as long as you drink yourself to sleep every night.

They're not telling you to give up. But they are, indeed, telling you to accept defeat. Alcohol has beaten you. And if your other threads and posts are any indication, it sounds like you've been living a nightmare with the bottle as your only friend.

Last night I was rearranging bookshelves and a folded piece of paper fell out of a mystery novel I'd purchased at a second hand store. I thought, "Huh?" I didn't throw it out. It was The Promises of Alcoholics Anonymous.

I've been wanting to respond to your other thread, but didn't have anything to say that sounded supportive because what I wanted to say was that it was time to haul yourself up off your bed and get your tail to AA or to a treatment program because life offers much more than drinking oneself to sleep every night. Even to people who are living a waking nightmare. When alcohol is our only friend, it's time to admit we're defeated.

Jung would call these three events -- me wanting to say something to you about your drinking, that piece of paper falling out of a second-hand book last night and your thread today --"synchronicity." I kinda like that. If you hadn't posted today, using the language of defeat, and if I didn't have The Promises in my hand, I would never have responded to any of your posts about drinking. I didn't know what to say. Now, I do.

I wish you the best, Dancylady and I hope you'll come to understand that sometimes the only way to rise from the ashes is to surrender to defeat. I hope you have it in you.

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Is it possible he meant that you were acting as you were defeated and letting society win? Rather than giving his judgment that he thinks you are in fact defeated? Or maybe he wanted to see how you'd respond to that, to see if it would bring out the fight in you. Like, "I'm not defeated! I'm not ready to give up!" I would definitely ask him what he meant by that statement and what he intended to accomplish with it. Do you have an upcoming appt. with him?

Maybe he is saying that in the hopes that it will revive the 'fighting' part of you....

If he was, that shows that he believes in you.

No way! Before therapy, unless you were a kid, my policy was "stay back!" I come from a culture of touch,but my mom raised us to be very American.

I didn't even know touch was even done in therapy... until she touched me. When it happened, first it was my knee, then my arm, then my hand, and like another poster I felt soothed and comforted. This is what safety feels like? I'd never felt it before. I asked her in an email if she would do it again, and she said, "Of course." Eventually, it progressed to holding me, embracing me. And, now I have a life that I'm living and enjoying. I was told I give really good hugs.

Once, when we talked about touch, because of what was on PC, she said, she has her clients sign a release. I told her she forgot to do this with me, and she never had me go back and sign one. She seemed to never feel threatened by a client's actions, but this states licensing board likes to knit pick, so she crosse her T's and dots her i's, and feels strongly she can soundly back up all her therapeutic practices.

My former therapist is mostly a couples therapist (85% practice), and is big into sue Johnson's Emotionally a Focused Therapy (EFT), and uses other experiential therapies to work her magic. Sue Johnson (EFT) does tell those pursuing her methods they have to be able to TOUCH their clients.

If the therapist was attempting some kind of confrontation/paradoxical/tough love schtick and the client received it as a gut punch, it's therapist's responsibility to realize his royal ineptitude and rush in with apologies and correction. Sounds like the therapist has failed miserably here.

Dancinglady, I think the bottom line question is whether this therapist has been a problem or a solution. Assuming treatment is voluntary, therapy isn't servitude, the therapist has no crystal ball or omniscient understanding of your life or future, and just because someone says something doesn't make it true.

⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️ Thank you, misbella.

(((((((dancinglady)))))))

Amen to this. Thanks (((((((((((((((((())))))))))))))))))))))

I no longer wish to fight anyone, anything or anybody. My fight threw therapy has been taken away. I have been beat up in therapy about any type of fight.

Is it possible he meant that you were acting as you were defeated and letting society win? Rather than giving his judgment that he thinks you are in fact defeated? Or maybe he wanted to see how you'd respond to that, to see if it would bring out the fight in you. Like, "I'm not defeated! I'm not ready to give up!" I would definitely ask him what he meant by that statement and what he intended to accomplish with it. Do you have an upcoming appt. with him?[/QUOTE]

Absolutely not. I plan to stop therapy all together. This is not the first time a therapist has made me suffer so I am done. All of my therapy has been voluntarily so I am the one that wanted to get better. Get hit in the gut is not therapy. I can get regular people to do that for free.