crappy session

crap
crap
crap

I hear ya! What crap did you talk about? Or was t's response crappy?

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alexandra_k said:
crap
crap
crap


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listening..... talk to us.

(( ak ))

When you're ready... we're here.

just feel disconnected again. he tried to talk to me about process stuff. but it wasn't even about that really. he confirmed the dx. last week. we talked about this stuff a little but today the whole session was spent on it. i said the dx wasn't important to me at all. i don't think that there are these categories of mental illness to be found in nature and it didn't make a damn to me what he thought my dx was. i'm a PERSON and i want him to help me figure out how i can live a better life rather than treating symptoms of a dx category. he seemed relatively okay with that.

then it got all abstract. miscommunication. he doesn't really understand where i'm coming from. i get where he is coming from: trauma model. he said something about how it is important how i conceptualise what is going on for me and we didn't need to worry about the generalisability or otherwise of that. blahdy blah blah me doctor you patient.

i was like... 'what does any theorist do but generalise from their own case'?

i can hear the difference between 'i understand you conceive of things this way' and 'i agree with your conception'.

but the conversation was pointless really... so i mumbled something about how this degree of abstraction was pointless really there would be more concrete stuff that would be bound to come up and we could address things then.

he didn't get me.

i was like:

i don't believe that you need to meet them. doing that means i'm getting worse not better and i don't think it is necessary for you to meet them.

he said something about how he wouldn't ask for them directly.

and i said... yeah... but if they did appear then what? would you think that constituted progress? would you think that signified that i was trusting you more? would you feel excited?

cause that is where the rubber hits the road.

he said something about how he doesn't believe that trauma is necessary.

and i said... yeah... but if i came up with an account of something fairly clearly objectively traumatic then what? would you think that constituted progress? would you think that signified that i was trusting you more? would you think that my symptoms were thereby understandable?

cause that is where the rubber hits the road.

not sure if he got that or not. but anyway it doesn't matter. i was just getting really %#@&#! off. really %#@&#! off. that he doesn't take me seriously.

'yes dear i understand that that is the way things seem to you'

(though of course thats not really the way things are)

i can hear the implication thanks.

then something happened. my conception isn't all that different... just in some crucial rubber hitting the road respects. ontological differences... hard to say.

%#@&#! %#@&#! %#@&#!.

i might have to haul out some papers...

you going back on tuesday?

treat the person, not the diagnosis. i hope he's okay with that.

can you still love him a bit from last session? or is it not possible to hold these multiple feelings for him ?

hey. nah, we do every friday and every second tuesday. i went last tuesday so don't see him till next friday.

i hate me.

rational me. thats the problem. angry me. doesnt need him. got it all worked out and dont need him.

so %#@&#! frustrated.

its not about them, you see. its about making them go away not making them worse. need to work and they don't help.

its weird. i feel all weird. it fades.

i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it.

they are a strategy, you see. all the thoughts and feelings i can't cope with. the thoughts and feelings i'm too ashamed of. too embarrassed about. that feel too icky. numb numb numb gotta go numb 'cause i can't cope with them.

but sometimes i lose it and get lost in them. then later (once i've calmed down i guess) then numb numb numb and i don't / won't remember 'cause i can't cope.

its a strategy thats all. not very miraculous. just a strategy. 'a. thinks... k. feels...' just a way of admitting to what can't be faced. not me. not me. can't be me. and its a strategy and i know thats what it is. but i don't know what else to do with them all.

but its so %#@&#! transparent. its so %#@&#! transparent that its me really. but the only way i can face it is if its not me. but it is me and i can't face it. need to forget that its me to face it.

bang bang bang bang bang not me. i hate me.

:-(

and i've kept things going well before him and i don't need him.

and hes not making me worse i won't let him.

but i'm falling apart. switching... concealing. concealing.

i said 'what do you want me to say "hello i'm a"?''.. and he kind of nodded. and i'm like 'why? what good does that do??'

i don't understand
i don't understand
i can't not understand
i don't feel very good
i'm in a foul mood
i hate him
:-(

Sounds really difficult alexandra :/

I don't know what your dx is obviously, but I also don't see why it is so upsetting ... ? Is it being in a box? Why would it make you worse?

OK well maybe I have some idea, i refuse to say D********N, I call it the d-word.

Hmmm ... good luck I guess ...

http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec15/ch197/ch197e.html

((Alex))

You are healing and need lots of hugs.

Why not just let yourself be today? For right now...it's okay to be gentle with yourself.

Hey, how about trying one of those relaxation tapes (in the guided imagery thread). They really work well for me especially when I am upset about dissociating in session.

It is so hard, the relationshp, sometimes we have to just leave it alone for a moment and focus on doing something good for ourselves.

Be good to yourself.

fear fear fear... the unknown, doing things his way, letting it happen.

trust trust trust... the unknown, doing things his way, letting it happen.

Try not to defend with anger and intellectual debate.

It is hard, ak.


ECHOES

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ECHOES said:
fear fear fear... the unknown, doing things his way, letting it happen.

trust trust trust... the unknown, doing things his way, letting it happen.

Try not to defend with anger and intellectual debate.

It is hard, ak.


ECHOES

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Much easier to say than do Echoes but excellent post. If only it was easier to release.

I eventually learned, when I couldn't get understood, to fall back and regroup and present myself in my T's language/way of being, try to get over to her neck of the woods so I could get understood and could understand her properly. It often doesn't seem fair to me but I still have to choose whether I want the rest of the world to understand me or I want to be "right" and in my own little corner, alone. What are you aiming for in your sessions? I want to "make sense" to others so put up with some teasing/frustration from my husband to this day and make myself stop and reroute thinking and words so he (and others) can understand. I'm my own translator :-)

Hang in there, alex. It will be so great when you are finally understood. It is a worthy goal to work toward, and I think there are multiple paths to that route. It's a journey! Good luck.

'The Gururumba people experience the state of "being a wild pig" (Newman 1964). In this state they run wild, looting articles of small value and attacking bystanders. The Gururumba think the wild-pig syndrome is caused by being bitten by the ghost of a recently dead member of the tribe. They believe that this releases impulses supressed by society and civilisation. The syndrome is treated as a disease by the tribe. The antisocial behaviour is tolerated to a quite remarkable extent. The disease either runs its course or is ritually cured. Wild-pig behaviour is largely restricted to males between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. At this age men are likely to be under considerable economic pressure following the acquisition of a wife. Wild-pig behaviour seems to occur when a man cannot meet his financial obligations. After a display of wild-pig behaviour the individual receives special consideration without denying the fact that the demands made on him are legitimate. The behaviour is an action, but it is not acknowledges as such either by the individual or by society. It is part of the wild-pig role that wild-pig behaviour is involountary.

In a recent book on multiple personality syndrome (MPS) Ian Hacking describes a form of social construction very similar to that seen in the Gururumba (Hacking, 1995). According to Hacking the modern symptamotology of MPS evolved hand in hand with theories of the disorder. By channeling their distress into forms recognised by current theory, individuals were able to gain social acceptance as "sick" and to receive positive feedback from therapists, support groups, and so forth. In the early days of the modern MPS epidemic individuals rarely presented with the full range of symptoms. Distressed individuals were "trained" in the production of MPS symptoms, first by expert therapists and later by a volountary movement of laypersons. Today, with the help of literature and television talk shows, patients are able to produce the symptoms without individual tuition. MPS has become part of the local culture in countries suffering from the MPS epidemic.

A similar explanation might be given of the syndrome found in a number of southeast Asian societies and referred to as amok. This syndrome consists of indiscriminate attacks on others and usually culminates in the killing of the person who runs amok. Amok is traditionally triggered by perceived dishonor. Cases are cites of Westerners living in Asia running amok, presumably by example. Once again, this can be interpreted as a disclaimed action. The man running amok is not pretending to be in a frenzy, but he would not be in the frenzy unless he had learned that this is an appropriate response to certain unbearable social pressures. He is acting out a social role, part of which is that he is not in control of his actions. It might be argued that a similar syndrome now exists in Western culture. Men who believe that none of their options alows them self-respect exhibit a rather stereotyped pattern of behaviour, probably derived from contemporary action films. They shoot at a large group of people, not necessarily people associated with their misfortunes, before being shot or shooting themselves. They purport to be "out of control" and are treated as such by society, yet their behaviour is under the fairly precise control of a recently developed model of how one might behave in such a situation.
...
There are at least three important senses in which categories can be socially constructed. First, there is the trivial sense in which all concepts are socially constructed. In this sense, the concepts of electron, magnesium, and clade are social constructions, as well as the concepts of citizen, member of parliament, and licensed dog owner. None of these CONCEPTS can exist independently of a community of speakers and thinkers, and each was created by a socio-linguistic process.

In the second, stronger sense, citizens, members of parliament, and lisenced dog owners are social constructions, whereas those referred to by the second list are not. The CATEGORIES electron, magnesium, and clade would exist (their members would have certain properties in common) whether or not the concepts of those categories had been formulated. The elements described by the periodic table do not need the activities of a community of speakers and thinkers to make them differ in atomic weight and number. Modern systematics was not needed for evolving lineages to speciate. The category of MP's, however, depends for its existence on the formulation of the concept of a member of parliament. Were it not for the sociolinguistic activities centred on this concept, the members of parliament would have nothing in common to differentiate them from nonmembers. According to Hacking the same is true of multiple personality syndrome. The potential to develop MPS could have developed very differently. Another society might make something very different of the individuals who are now made into sufferers of MPS. That society might also make some cases of MPS into one alternative way of being and others into another alternative way of being. This way of grouping would find as much justification in the occurring phenomena as the current groupings. Hacking describes his view as DYNAMIC NOMINALISM. Dynamic nominalism differs from simple nominalism in that the members of a category do share something over and above the fact that they are members of that category. However, the fact that the members have these shared properties reflects the existence of the category and the social practices in which it is embedded (Hacking, 1995).

The third sense of socially constructed is the sense expressed when someone remarks that a thing is "just socially constructed" and infers from that that no such thing exists. It would be natural to say this about Newman's condition of ghost possession. Ghost possession is not a category like electron which exists independently of our social practices, but neither is it like member of parliament or licensed dog owner. Most people would happily admit that the only difference between MP's and non MP's is that we as a community treat these people in a particular way. This realisation has no effect on the social practice in which the concept of MP is embedded. But it would make all the difference in the world to the Gururumba if they believed that the only difference between wild-pig men and other men is the decision of the men to be wild pigs and the decision of the community to treat them as such. The Garurumba practice of ghost possession rests on a collective pretense that this is not the case. Socially constructed categories in this third sense are social pretenses that cannot survive the realisation that they are merely our inventions. The general acceptance of Hacking's analysis of multiple personality syndrome would have a corrosive effect on the social practices of the modern MPS community. Another Western example of this third sort of social construction may be the social construction of gender. Our social practices have been transformed by the growing acceptance that traditional gender characteristics are not the inevitable effects of biological sex.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Emotions-.../dp/0226308723

Examples of implicit looping kinds include categories such as demonic possession and being possessed by a wild pig. The notion is that when we believed in these concepts then our belief in them and our social practices around them results in opening up new ways of behaving that are stereotypic of the category. If we take a person to be a member of the category or if they take themselves to be a member of the category then this may cause them to behave in ways that are stereotypic of the category. Members of the category are thus able to be identified as members of the category in virtue of sharing certain stereotypical properties in common. What is supposed to be distinctive about these categories, however, is that they cannot survive our realisation that they refer to looping kinds. The notion is that once we become aware that the properties are due to our social practices then we cease believing in them and we inevitably alter our social practices so that the individuals no longer display those common features. This phenomena is probably best conveyed by way of Ian Hacking's characterisation of Multiple Personality Disorder which he takes to be an 'all too perfect illustration of the feedback effect' in implicit looping kinds:


'We tend to behave in ways that are expected of us, especially by authority figures – doctors, for example. Some physicians had multiples among their patients in the 1840's, but their picture of the disorder was very different from the one that is common in the 1990's. The doctors' vision was different because the patients were different; but the patients were different because the doctors' expectations were different. That is an example of a very general phenomenon: the looping effect of human kinds. People classified in a certain way tend to conform to or grow into the ways that they are described; but they also evolve in their own ways, so that the classifications and descriptions have to be constantly revised. (Hacking, 1995, p. 21)'.


Hacking thus maintains that in the case of implicit looping kinds there is a tension in that possession of the concept and our social practises around this are the mechanism that both stabilises and destabilises the property cluster. With respect to the stabilising function he considers that individuals symptoms are shaped because when the clinician applies the concept to the patient this results in the clinician having either implicit or explicit expectations of the symptoms they expect to find in the patient. This changes the way that the clinician relates to the patient and is thought to lead to the patient exhibiting the symptoms they are expected to exhibit. Another way this can happen is if the clients apply the concept to themselves and thus come to exhibit symptoms that they believe to be stereotypic features of the category. In this way the concept and our social practices stabilise the symptoms that the patient exhibits as they come to behave in ways that are consistent with the stereotype.


Hacking also considers how our social practices can have a destabilising effect, however. He traces how the stereotypical features of Multiple Personality Disorder have evolved through time. Hacking tells a complex story of destabilisation and he draws on a variety of factors including political and theoretical, which lead to our beliefs about the concept evolving and the symptoms evolving in response to this. Some examples he has of this effect in the case of MPD include how many alters are thought to be typical (one or several or over one hundred); whether there is one or two way amnesia; how long it takes to switch between alters; and reports of abuse. It thus seems that the change seems mostly to be a function of a change in the theoretical views of clinicians. This led to a subsequent change in how they related to their clients and what kinds of symptoms they expected to see. Hacking seems to regard implicit looping kinds as having some homeostasis but the homeostasis is less stable than other kinds of socially constructed and natural kinds in that awareness of their status as looping kinds will result in the dissolution of the category.

___________________________
it DOES matter what his conception is.
it affects me whether he likes it or not.
whether he is aware of it or not

Did you tell him that you hate him? I told mine that today. I thought of you during my session-- because I felt like he just wasn't getting it. And it was crushing. Because he usually gets it.

What do you want from him?

i didn't tell him that i hated him. i don't hate him really. i was just feeling really frustrated with him. he knew that i was feeling frustrated with him. at some point he was like 'well it doesn't really matter what you think about it' and there was some kind of appeal to authority. then he was like 'whats going on' and i said that i was feeling frustrated because i don't think he understood what i was trying to say. but that it didn't matter. and he was like 'well it does matter how you conceptualise your experience though maybe your thoughts in general...' That didn't help so much. I was like 'well i guess it is hard to talk about it so abstractly like this. i guess it will come up along the way with more concrete issues'.

what do i want from him?

i don't want to be DID person number three. i don't want to be a little notch on his way to becomming an 'expert' for treating 'it'. i don't want to switch in sessions just because some theorists think it is important. i don't want to be part of the conversations about how unique and special people with DID are. i don't want to be part of the conversations about how fascinating the whole thing is and how different the alters are from each other.

i don't believe that alters 'acting out' / 'taking over' is necessary for progress. i think it is an unnecessary regression.

i think that it is important for ME to be able to admit to the thoughts and feelings and stuff AS ME. rather than attempting to circumvent the trust and the like so that i / they act out the stuff that i can't face. i don't see how that helps things get better. i think it has more to do with making the symptoms more flamboyant / extreme so that successful treatment looks more 'miraculous' in contrast. wow look how bad this person was they went from that to this. i don't want my that to get a whole heap worse to make the this at the end of therapy look better. i just want to get better. make me larger. not shrink me first so we can marvel over just how much larger i get.

i don't want him thinking that i don't want to switch because of lack of trust in him. i don't want him seeing it as a defence.

he can think i'm misguided if he likes...

but i want him to respect that i don't think that switching in sessions constitutes progress.

though of course his trying to coax me to do it... his happiness if i actually do it (she trusts me!) are of course factors that make switching more likely to happen. This DOES MATTER. it matters a whole heap. its my %#@&#! life. part of this is distrust of 'authorities' sure. but it is MY life. MINE.

same issue with respect to trauma. you read about the 'trauma of objectively sickening severity' that is supposedly a cause of the disorder. then surprise surprise people come out with all kinds of stuff. 'i canibalised and ate over 100 people' etc etc etc. of couse the 'party line' is that 'this disorder isn't miraculous' and 'trauma is in the eye of the beholder' but therapists reactions / responses show you what they really think.

and the epidemic persists...

and i want no part in it.

its about helping me get better. its not about treating a dx category. its about helping me.

alexandra, I am struck by how clear a vision you have of a path to healing for yourself. You have specific thoughts on what will and will not work. This is so far ahead of many clients in therapy. You need a T with the courage to allow the client to choose the path, accompany the client, and help along the way. Humanistic T's believe that contained within each person is the knowledge of how they can heal. Is your T up to allowing you input into the best path for you?

What does your T say when you share your ideas for how you can get better? Does he think they will not work and aren't worth the effort? Maybe the two of you could agree to try your ideas for a while and see if they are helpful. If not, alternative approaches could then be considered.

hey. i was just thinking that part of it might be him trying to reassure me that he is competent. some of the stuff i said in the emails was about how my father didn't seem to know what to do with me etc. he does this little thing sometimes... basically talks about how wonderful he is. initially i was like 'LOOK at the ego on this man!' but i was kinda surprised... then i kinda realised that what he was probably trying to do was to take the idealising transference. to show that he was okay with it. that he could handle it. that it was okay for me to idealise him. now when he does that i guess i think 'ok he thinks i need to idealise him now'. he typically isn't too far off. maybe that was what he was trying to do here with the 'me expert' line. trouble is that he does kinda rely on the dx categories for his expertise... sigh.

i guess there aren't many differences in the application. thats kind of why i ended up saying 'it doesn't really matter'. i meant that kind of in the sense that maybe we would be better off just dealing with particular issues as they arise. part of the frustration... it actually got to me rather. the confirming of the dx. i'm not sure what i think. i guess i just think that i make up stories as a way of coping and making sense with my life. for me getting better means not having to do that anymore. but no i don't want him to talk to them directly. i don't want to have to refer to / think of them as 'other' and i don't want to behave like they are 'other' either. i don't think that doing it for a time in order to get better justifies it. i want to start working on it now. not later. not once he has had his fun meeting them and all.

part of it might be my worrying a little about his being a crank. i know he isn't a crank.

why does he want to work with me anyway? why does he have an interest in this stuff for? last time we got near this issue he kinda puffed out his chest and said stuff about how he loves helping people and genuinely likes people getting better. you go god. whatever.

sigh.

mostly... i just don't see. i just don't see why he wants to talk to them instead of helping me say the things they would say were he to talk to them.

thats it. thats my problem.

Alex I admire your insights! I like also how you know what you want and don't want...I need to give that more thought too!

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i was just thinking that part of it might be him trying to reassure me that he is competent.... he does this little thing sometimes... basically talks about how wonderful he is

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Hey, my T does that too. In certain situations, he will begin his "look at the fantastic training I have had and all the skills I have learned" speech or sometimes the related "look at the people I have helped and how highly sought after I am" speech. I never felt these speeches were bragging, but more informational in nature. Once I had heard them a couple of times, I began to look more deeply into why he inserted them into just that moment in our sessions. I decided they were meant to be both reassuring and convincing, kind of a way to appeal to my intellect that he really is very qualified, that he can handle the challenges we face, that I can trust him with this difficult process. But I often wasn't getting the message. I was thinking, oh T is telling me his background/training again, ho hum... But the message really was, "sunny, sunny, sunny, please trust me with this, I can do this, I can, and I want to help you, please let me." When I finally got that message, it was powerful, and it played a big part in convincing me to trust him completely and let him do couples with me and my husband. We've only had one session, but T handled it really well.

Anyway, I think they sometimes have a reason behind their "I am skilled" speeches beyond just the simple one of communicating competency.

I have also received from my T the reverse speech, I guess designed to keep me from idealizing him too much. He will sometimes say that there are better therapists out there than he is, that he is not the "be all end all" in therapists, etc. (Ha, ha, these speeches haven't helped at all, since I still think he is the bestest.)

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i guess there aren't many differences in the application. thats kind of why i ended up saying 'it doesn't really matter'.

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Even if the application is the same, I guess the reason it really does matter is that you aren't being understood.

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mostly... i just don't see. i just don't see why he wants to talk to them instead of helping me say the things they would say were he to talk to them.

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What does he say when you ask him that? Why does he say he doesn't want to try what you suggest and not talk to them directly? Do you think it is because he has tried that for a while with you and isn't satisfied with the rate of progress? It seems from some of what you have written, that you and your T are still working on the therapeutic alliance, so maybe it is premature to give up on the approach of not talking to the others. Your T just returned after a month's absence. Seems so soon to rush stuff.

>> mostly... i just don't see. i just don't see why he wants to talk to them instead of helping me say the things they would say were he to talk to them.

> What does he say when you ask him that?

er... i didn't think to say that at the time. took this thread for me to get to there. yeah. thats where the rubber hits the road. i guess i'll have to argue with him about that next week lol.

> Why does he say he doesn't want to try what you suggest and not talk to them directly?

so... i guess he doesn't know. although... i have said before that for me... it is about making me bigger. so i can face this stuff.

> Do you think it is because he has tried that for a while with you and isn't satisfied with the rate of progress?

aw :-(
i dunno... i think... he has been thinking a bit. i think it surprised the hell out of him that i was so upset about his time off truth be told. i think... he didn't know i was so attached to him. i think... he didn't expect me to attach to him very well. but for me... my abuse issues are mostly with my mother not with my father. i have significant difficulty getting attached to females. with guys... i tend to attach quickly and its very intense. i guess he didn't know that. i think he didn't realise how much of a connection we actually did have... how much i was bringing along in therapy in order to help make the connection happen... how much i was making a conscious choice to try and trust him by answering all of his questions to the best of my ability... until i withdrew all of that on our first session back. i think that gave him a hell of a shock to tell you the honest truth. he seems to have been thinking about things since then. tried to make an effort to show me he understood about some of the little things. he said we had had disjointed therapy up until now but should have a pretty straight run over the next few months... stuff like that.

> It seems from some of what you have written, that you and your T are still working on the therapeutic alliance, so maybe it is premature to give up on the approach of not talking to the others. Your T just returned after a month's absence. Seems so soon to rush stuff.

the way he seems to see it is that this is the next step though. that this is something to work towards. my letting him meet them. thats not a goal i have. thats not a goal i'm prepared to work towards. i'm prepared to work towards integration. but not like that (because i don't believe it helps that).

AK, you are quite a deep thinker, I am not quite sure I 'got' it this time....Are you saying he is trying to do things ''his'' way, and you want to be in control of what is discussed in session? I get the impression that at times you feel he is treating you as an 'experiment', a 'dx', a 'case study'. And you, rightfully so, want him to hear you on your own turf. If that is the case, I'm totally with you.

Has this been an issue before or did it just come up?

How long are you seeing this t?

Just reread your initial post in this thread....you don't want this therapy to be about gratifying 'his' needs....you want it to be totally about 'you'. Is that it? Are you sensing a narcissistic need on his end?

yes. having trouble at the moment... not doin so good. not sure what to say... sorry.