where does the rage/pain/shame/hurt/etc. belong?

In response to Walk Free's post entitled 'not sure how to title this' , (great thread), Mouse responded with something that I feel is so important, and we all know about it, I wanted to start a new thread because of it.

Mouse's comment, ''I had put the pain where it belonged'' really speaks to the heart of what good therapy is all about. It's about putting our emotions where they belong, assigning them their rightful place. So that we can heal from past hurts.

As most of us are struggling to 'put our emotions where they belong' I thought it might be nice to have a thread where we can share our 'expeditions' and 'explorations' and what conclusions we come to because of them. Our struggles in trying to understand our deep emotions and if they do stem from historical roots, can we make the connection?

And if and when you happen to succeed at 'putting an emotion where it really belongs' that would be wonderful to hear about those...

I'll share one of my own 'lightbulb' moments, one in which I was able to connect the dots....

I was talking to my t about something and I felt she was not 'hearing' me....this happened at the next session too....my anger began to build...the rage I felt was pretty intense....I was MAD! ANGRY! After a while I told her, ''I feel so alone so unheard so ANGRY that you are not HEARING me! It feels the same way as when my caretakeres did not HEAR me....'' It was such a significant insight for me at the time. I think most important was that I was able to connect the intensity of my current emotional experience to the days when I was a little kid experiencing the same exact feelings.

Once I had put my rage where it truly belonged I was able to separate the rage from 'back then' from the 'anger' that I was experiencing currently, and I was able to talk about it and process it. The 'historical rage' was no longer interfering; I had given it it's due and proper acknowledgement and returned it to its 'rightful owner' in its 'rightful era'

good post withit.. i have had a similar experience recently

Good post withit.... thanks!!

Withit, yes once we've found where the pain/rage belongs its almost like we've been up all night with a crying baby and finally we see the eyes of that tiny baby close, leading into a gentle sleep after so many hours of upset.

how?? i don't understand :-(
sometimes i think i see
it helps a little
but not a lot.
it doesn't stop the pain
for me

Did knowing why you were feeling angry with your T help you feel more heard or less anger toward your T or make it less legitimate?

I find that I may still feel unheard but that perhaps I turned up the volume because of past experiences?

SecretGarden, I was so out-of-control enraged....definitely the current situation was very real...and merited my anger....but once I came to the realization that ''I haven't been heard way back....and I"m having the same experience now, of not being heard...'' I was able to separate the past rage from the present anger, and I was able to view the present situation realistically. This realization was the catalyst for my decision to terminate treatment with her.

Alexandra, I'm sorry about your pain..

I'm not sure if I'm putting my emotions where they belong yet. I don't know... As far as my anger, I have found that I am unable to experience it without acting it out-- slamming things, throwing something, stomping my feet like a child, engaging in SI, etc. I understand that when I do this, my anger is not where it belongs. I get angry at T. I used to be unable to express it to him. Now I tell him, "I am pissed off at you. I don't want to f***ing talk to you about this right now." Is that putting it where it belongs? I'm not sure... I still act out my anger. I guess maybe it's in limbo right now...?

i read somethin last night :-)

it was talking about... dammit... i forget... see... when i asked my therapist what model he worked within (i didn't know how to phrase that any better) he said Self Psychology. He said it fit in well with DBT. He said that it needed to be supplimented, however. He said something about 'relational psychology' or 'family systems theory' or 'systems theory' or something along those lines. He did emphasise the Self Psychology though and I found that through google alright. The other terms are harder... I've forgotten which terms he said and which terms have popped up through google in a related way. Anyhow, the other stuff is harder. (Not much stuff on it that I can find).

Sigh.

Anyhow, I managed to find something on systems theory (or similar) last night. It had a VERY different view of analysis from the 'orthodox view' (Freudian).

See... The orthodox view is that the therapist doesn't say stuff all except to offer interpretations. The therapist is thought to be authorative with respect to the 'real' meaning of the behaviour / thoughts / feelings. The therapist is thought to (attempt to) attain complete objectivity and neutrality.

The orthodox view is questioned in a number of respects...

But the relational view... Was talking a whole heap more about how instead of interpretations being the mechanism of theraputic change the relationship is the mechanism of theraputic change. The notion is that both bring stuff to the encounter and a lot of stuff that the analysand does is of course in response to real features of the analyst.

There was something about modes of interacting in therapy...

In the beginning... the mode becomes the analysand being in the past and so yeah transfering stuff onto the analyst in virtue of past experiences. Its meant to be a fairly primitive form of object relationship because the analyst is viewed as little more than a stereotype that the analysand has formed on the basis of past experiences.

Then there is a shift...

I can't remember... I can't remember...

But eventually the idea is that there can be an experience near mode of interacting in the present. Where both the analyst and the analysand are able to respond to each other on the basis of what each brings to the present moment of interaction. This is meant to be theraputic for BOTH THE ANALYST AND THE ANALYSAND (though there is of course a power differential because the analyst has a view to helping the analysand get to there and not vice versa).

On this model... There is more therapist disclosure. In a way... My longing for NOT KNOWING about my therapist... Is pathological because what I'm doing is resisting seeing him as a person. It is so much easier for me to cast him in past roles / stereotypes if I don't see how he is different.

So the notion is that what you learn is... How to interact positively with people in the present moment. I think the middle step involves coming to understand (and process and work through) the resistences that we have for being able to interact positively with people in the present moment.

:-)

Alexandra, I don't want to know much about my t's personal stuff either. Right now I view her as an object. Yes, an object. I feel horrid even thinking it. How inhumane, to view a human being as an object

When I think about the rage/pain/shame/hurt I become sad because I have a lot of trouble reachiing and isolating these feelings. Sometimes I confuse them. My heart tells me that when I can reach one of these emotions I simply need to allow myself to feel what they are telling me, not to necessarily put them somewhere. Just feel it and notice it. As for my T, I think that he must practice self psychlogy also because my experience sounds similar to what Alexandra articulated. I do wonder about him as a person and have been feeling guilty about now acknowledging his feelings, or thanking him for his support. Hmmm.....
how to do this without choking?

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withit said:
Alexandra, I don't want to know much about my t's personal stuff either. Right now I view her as an object. Yes, an object. I feel horrid even thinking it. How inhumane, to view a human being as an object

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No! That's okay! It's the entire notion of object relations theory. The 'object' really translates to caretaker. In regards to the therapist, the therapist is an 'object,' meaning a blank slate to which you transfer and project your relational pattern onto. I personally do not believe that not seeing your therapist as 'human' is pathological. I have told my T that I see him as a blank slate, an object, if you will... this is how my work gets done. Of course he is a person, an amazing person.... But an 'object' in the uniqueness of the relationship.

well...

the first stage is jolly hard enough (IMHO). to feel anything at all. to feel anything at all. and then to be able to talk. to be able to talk about all the past crap. and then to be able to see how feelings and assumptions about and thoughts about ones therapist are (at least partly) based on that past crap. and then trying to be in the moment with ones therapist and seeing what it is that gets in the way and working through that...

%#@&#! mission huh. i guess there is a reason analysis is thought to take 7-10 years...

i am only just at the point of starting to talk about past crap now. that is hard. shame and stuff.

but... i feel cheerful now. something has lifted. i knew i was being childish and the like in feeling so hurt and abandoned right now. i thought that being authentic / making progress / being honest meant getting in touch with those feelings and thoughts. so... i wanted to be honest... without defending against it...

and i've been feeling pretty %#@&#! as a result.

but maybe... its not about that.

maybe its about being able to view him as a person. to acknowledge some of those feelings, sure. but not to focus in on them and feel them so very completely that i get lost in them.

i'm trying...

he DID sound excited about all this. if i stop focusing on me... his enthusiasm is kinda catchy... he was kinda like a little boy with being excited. like christmas was coming or something. thats kinda cute :-)

and i think he probably is feeling a bit bad about me (when he does think on me and i'm sure i must occur to him at times). and... i don't want him to feel bad / guilty. not really.

yeah... little feelings are still there...

but you know... defences are what enable us to function. they are important. defences ain't so bad. time to start using them i think...

BTW... i really do think that inability / difficulty seeing ones therapist / other people for what they bring to the present encounter... seeing them as an object... results from other people viewing and treating us as objects rather than as subjects when we crucially needed them to treat us as a subject.

people can't teach / show us something they are unable to do... and so some people never got the opportunity to learn...

but the cycle stops here.

hopefully... hopefully...

or hopefully... it improves somewhat at any rate.

sigh.

hey pinksoil.

i suspect there are differences between object relations theory and interpersonal theory (or whatever this is called). i'll try and find something on it that doesn't require a subscription to access.

Alexandra, I agree wtih you all the way....the first step is 'awareness' of our emotional experience. Then, to label our emotions, and that's a lota work too...noticing them....allowing them to be, to exist.....not needing to change them.....

I think when a current experience evokes a huuuuggeee reaction in us, that is when it behooves us to put the rage/pain/shame etc. where it belongs (in the past).

Please let no one fool her/himself when we are feeling current pain, hurt, etc. please remember there is very possibly a REAL reason for it. It is not always a trigger of historical stuff. I think it's VERY important to recognize the validity of your emotional experiences as they pertain to the PRESENT. Sure, my t was NOT listening. By all objective measures she was NOT able to hear me (due to her own unexamined or examined-but-unresolved transference). The anger I felt at not being heard by her was absolutely VALID. And warranted.
But, the intensity of my anger, the overwhelming sense of RAGE that I experienced was definitely an indicator that historical experiences were being re-awakened in me, and that accounted for the intensity of my rage.
Indeed in my mind I was able to separate the two, but separating the two didn't in any way make the current anger go away.
The current anger served to alert me to something. (The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner talks about anger serving a very useful function of alerting us to something that needs to be tended to). It alerted me to the fact that my needs were not being met, that I wasn't being heard. And if she could not hear me, I would do well to find someone who COULD hear me.

though relational analysis does seem to have arisen out of object relations theory. wiki says:

> An important difference between relational theory and traditional psychoanalytic thought is its theory of motivation. Freudian theory, with a few exceptions, proposes that human beings are motivated by sexual and aggressive drives. These drives are biologically rooted and innate. They are ultimately not shaped by experience.

Relationalists, on the other hand, argue that the primary motivation of the psyche is to be in relationships with others. As a consequence early relationships, usually with primary caregivers, shape one's expectations about the way in which one's needs are met. Therefore, desires and urges cannot be separated from the relational contexts in which they arise. This does not mean that motivation is determined by the environment (as in behaviorism) [i just want to say bollocks! behaviourism does not say that!], but that motivation is determined by the systemic interaction of a person and his or her relational world. Individuals attempt to recreate these early learned relationships in ongoing relationships that may have little or nothing to do with those early relationships. This recreation of relational patterns serves to satisfy the individual's needs in a way that conforms with what they learned as an infant. This recreation is called an enactment.

http://www.amazon.ca/Intimate-Attach...ion/1572302704

i'm pretty sure he was mumbling about that...

off to the library i go ;-)

I'd love to read that book....quite expensive though....

Sorry if I missed something but you terminated based on this difference. I am not totally sure.. but could you have worked this through with her on some transference terms or did it just flame you too much as in...ain't gonna deal with this (behavior) anymore. You did say that it did merit it ... though to a lesser degree... but perhaps that T just still did not get it.

Terminated after a year of not being heard. She did say that there's been a shift in her and that has resulted in her inability to hear me in the way that she used to.

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He said something about 'relational psychology' or 'family systems theory' or 'systems theory' or something along those lines.

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My T says he is "family systems theory." I read about it once on the Internet somewhere, but I forgot exactly what it is. But I remember liking it. My brain is shot, sorry. Alex, all you wrote about the relational view, both members of the dyad bring something to the encounter, etc., is totally what happens in my therapy. The relation is all important and I always strive for moments of true connection with my T. It helps me with my relations outside of therapy and my ability to connect to others. My T is (according to me) primarily humanistic, and these views fit that too. But he will say he is family systems, which is less familiar to me. And, yes, yes, yes, there is a lot of therapist disclosure. I've said this before many times here in this forum. the disclosure is totally a part of this therapeutic model. Sometimes therapists who work in this model get in trouble in court because they have expert witnesses, speaking from the psychoanalytic model, appear saying the T should never self disclose and this was the first mistake toward "other" boundary crossings. They are citing "evidence" from the wrong model so it doesn't even make sense to apply this to a humanist or a systems therapist. I love knowing about my therapist. He tells me incidents from his personal life that relate to my own difficulties of the moment and model to me ways of healthy being and also show me he is a human being who grapples with life's challenges too, just like me. This, in turn, makes it easier for me to share with him.

For the connectedness in therapy and other relations, I take as my model, "I and Thou" by Martin Buber. If I can have some moments of "I and Thou" relatedness in therapy each time, it is healing in itself. I don't really understand how. But my T does. And it works, so I go with it.

Am I making any sense? Sometimes things happen in therapy that seem almost mystical to me.

hey. i found a wiki article... yeah... i guess my t really is into this. i guess that is why he tells me stuff. i... ignore it. don't like it :-(. but i guess what i'm doing... is rejecting him :-(. dammit. and... i do do that. reject people. mostly 'cause i figure they will reject me. i figure he needs to retain a distance from me in order to remain non-judgemental. in order to care. so... i don't like it when he tells me stuff. damn.

with respect to boundary violations... hindsight is a wonderful thing, huh. boundary crossings tend to be interpreted as boundary violations in hindsight once it is clear a boundary violation has occurred.

yeah, you are makin sense.

Alex, I am sure your T has been "rejected" by clients before. Sometimes after a session (sometimes a long time after), I realize I have rejected my T. But didn't even know I was doing this. And I'm kind of horrified because I love him so much (in the best, non-obsessed sense of the word). And didn't mean to do that. But he understands. And is there the next time and there are new opportunities to accept or reject.

I do not believe a T needs to maintain an artifical "distance" in order to be non-judgemental. My T and I are very close, yet each time I experience his unconditional acceptance, no matter what I say. And there are times I have not wanted to share things because I thought he would think I am a terrible person, but it wasn' t true. He did accept.

Alex, give your guy a chance. He sounds great.

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alexandra_k said:
with respect to boundary violations... hindsight is a wonderful thing, huh. boundary crossings tend to be interpreted as boundary violations in hindsight once it is clear a boundary violation has occurred.

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The article I read said the focus in court (in the U.S. system) is often on these smaller so-called boundary crossings (e.g. self disclosure) because insurance usually will not pay damages for a sexual violation (I can't remember why, maybe it is excluded). So when the defendant is accused of sexual relations with a client, there is an intense effort in court to show other boundary crossings (according to the traditional psychoanalytic model as standard of practice, even if the T is not a psychoanalyst), such as self-disclosure, extending the length of a session, frequently scheduling the client for the last session of the day, meeting more than once per week, having an encounter outside of the office, extended phone or email contact, etc. I wish I could dredge up this article--it was really interesting, but it was late night Internet surfing so I know I'll never find it again.