Chair or Couch? Sit or Recline?

my t does couples therapy and stuff too so there are two "main" client chairs and a less attractive extra chair that acn be pulled in. His L shaped desk is at the window across from the door and he sits in his comfy office T-chair at the bend of the L. He let me choose where to sit, but either of the client chairs are relatively the same in relation to him. i don't like it. The chairs kinda force a more relaxed body position than i feel comfortable with, and he is too far away. i can't ask him to move closer either.

My pdoc's chair is not as comfie--a little more formal, but he still has the pillow for me to hold onto. He also sits further away. In some ways it works because I feel free to sometimes get up and pace his office or go to his bookshelf when I feel upset and angry. I think his arrangement works well too. Our sessions are only 30 mins so I don't go as in depth about things, but I have had him around for several years and my T. is somewhat new. He has kinda filled in durring my transition to a new T.

It can't hurt to try something new in therapy. And yes, you can always go back to sitting up at any time - even up and down during the same session. My t asked me if I just wanted to try it for 2 minutes the first time and I told her I'd have to think about it.

After some time had passed, I called her between sessions and warned her that I would lie down at the next session for the entire time. That first time was terrifying. My t kept reassuring me she was right there and I could sit up at any moment. But I just needed to feel that feeling - whatever it was.

I might add, I see my t 3x per week and she is pyschodynamic in nature.

So what's the idea behind lying down anyhow? Is the idea that you'll react differently if you can't see your therapist? And is that supposed to be more genuine? Or maybe it's supposed to just be more relaxing to lie down (I wouldn't find it that way)?

I'm totally just curious here, not offering any kind of judgment. My own therapist has never suggested I lie down, and I think I'd feel really uncomfortable if I did. I'm just curious about the reasons for it.

Sidony

I dunno about reclining on a couch. My T doesn't have a couch in her primary office. But I have at times foregone sitting on the chair, and laid down on the floor and just stared at the ceiling. (I often sit or lay on the floor at home anyway.) And sometimes in that place laying there, it seems like i'm just laying there and speaking out loud to no one except myself and that i'm not being self-conscious about telling my thoughts to anyone but myself, because I'm not looking at my T.

sidony, I think it's supposed to allow you to project more if you can't see the T's face. He becomes more of a blank slate and you can project what you want to without being affected by his expressions, reactions, his nodding off while in session, etc.

I would not want to lie down with my therapist behind me as it would make me feel too distant from him. I love when sometimes we get really close, physically, with him in his swivel chair right on up to the couch where I sit, almost knee to knee. I also love looking in his eyes, although I can't do that very well when I am telling hard stuff. I just wouldn't want to do anything to introduce distance into our relationship.

That said, I think there is this one woman who sometimes has the session before me who lies on one of the couches (not my couch but the other one). I can see her indentation in the couch, and also T's chair is pushed right up flush next to her couch. So he is not behind her, but right next to her. Seems very cozy and unorthodox to me (because I have never experienced that). Whenever she is there before me, and I see this tableau when I enter his room, I think, "what have you guys been doing in here???"

I guess I find it helpful to see his interactions. It's more meaningful to me when I can see his face. And yeah I suppose I do play off his reactions, but he can see that. I'd feel like I was alone if I couldn't see him. And I don't want to feel alone in therapy.

Sunrise, that would bug me too if I could see where the previous client had been. I don't really care to think about his previous clients! I like the fact that a lot of days -- even though my therapy appt isn't until 11:20 a.m. -- I'm clearly the first client of the day (the lights are still off and he's unlocking his office). I like that he must not be a morning person.

Sidony

my worst times for flashbacks and feeling distressed and stuff is late at night when i'm trying to get off to sleep and early in the morning when i just wake up. i want to talk about this stuff with him so at those times... when i'm feeling distressed... i'll feel like he is there with me and so it will be okay / more manageable. i reckon that would be better helped along if i was lying down with my eyes closed. to be able to feel his presence like that so i can feel it at those times. not sure whether it would work like that or not. dunno.

part of it is about projection, yeah. what you don't know... you make up basically. and what you make up tells t a lot about you (your preoccupations and the like). lying down is typically used with a more 'neutral' theraputic technique too (less interactive) and 'abstinence' (which covers the obvious sexual thing but also REFRAINING FROM SELF DISCLOSURE which is similarly mean to get you making up stuff which is revealing).

i need a bit more interaction... too much neutrality and i start to go a bit crazy / psychotic / paranoid. need more reassurance. still. i don't like people looking at me. dammit.

I don't think I "make stuff up" when I am lying down on the couch. That is not the purpose at all.

Lying down helps the client filter less. Your emotions can float to the surface more easily. The idea is that you will share more of these random thoughts, increasing your awareness of how your brain thought patterns operate. At first, I was extremely self-conscious. But it is the reason why I am there, to understand what goes behind this self-consciousness.

Although I cannot see my therapist, she is sitting in a chair just sideways to me. I can hear her smile, laugh, pause, frown, etc. I can feel her facial expressions without seeing them. If anyone has children, you know this feeling when you say something to your child and you just know their facial expressions.

I have free will. I can sit up whenever. In fact, when we were involved in a heated discussion a while back, my t encouraged me to sit up to help stop the flow of emotions.

It's not for everyone. I understand that.

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Izzyparker said:
Lying down helps the client filter less. Your emotions can float to the surface more easily.

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That's interesting. The prone position somehow facilitates this? Do you know why that would be? Is it because the brain has more blood coming to it if one is not upright? (same reason you are supposed to put your head between your knees when you feel faint?)

one explanation that has been offered is that it is a form of stimulus deprivation (hence internal states become 'more active' / dream like / free associating / tangiential / regressive).

what i meant by 'making stuff up' was to do with therapist abstinence (not disclosing personal information)...

if you don't know whether your therapist is married or not you can imagine him being involved in a heated homosexual affair... or you can imagine him being a family man with a dowdy wife... or you can imagine...

whereas if he tells you then that limits the scope of your fantasy. i mean... you can always imagine contrary to what you know to be true, of course, but if you don't know then eventually you will find yourself 'making up' a conception of him. of what is likely for him. which, of course, reveals a lot about you...

sorry...

so Freud's method of psychoanalysis involved the client lying down and free-associating. Freud prescribed abstenence for therapists where abstenence consisted of three things:

- No sexual contact.
- No self disclosure of personal information.
- No self disclosure of thoughts / feelings / responses.

That latter point... There the notion is that the therapist is roughly 'mmm hmm, i see... tell me more' and of course offering interpretations along the way as well.

So... Lets say you disclose something during your free associations. Something that you are really embarrassed and ashamed of.

One might (these days) expect the therapist to say something sympathetic and emotional like 'thats so horrible that happened to you' or 'thats not your fault' or something kind of... supportive.

For Freud, a therapist shouldn't do that. The therapist should remain abstinent / neutral. Mmm hmm... Tell me more...

But without supportive comments / without the therapist disclosing a little anger at the person who did that to you (for example) well...

I'm gonna get a little paranoid that therapist thinks its my fault or I deserved it. See?

These days most therapists don't practice that quite the same... Ego psychologists come closest to the Freudian notion of abstinence. Most other psychoanalytic approaches think that therapist self disclosure (of thoughts and feelings and responses and also of personal information) is useful sometimes. The controversy is then over how much self disclosure is appropriate.

It's not a physical response, but a psychological one. Alex's explanation above/below is on target. Without seeing the therapist, and with my eyes closed, I am in a more relaxed brain state. My seeing mind is turned off and I am operating in a more emotive state.

My t does talk and share her thoughts and feelings throughout. She has firm boundaries but she is not a blank slate. I like knowing little about her, but at the same time, I love figuring out things too.

"what i meant by 'making stuff up' was to do with therapist abstinence (not disclosing personal information)..."

Oh - thank you for explaining what you meant. I understand the context of your statement much better now.

No worries.

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Izzyparker said:
It's not a physical response, but a psychological one. Without seeing the therapist, and with my eyes closed, I am in a more relaxed brain state. My seeing mind is turned off and I am operating in a more emotive state.

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I guess I misunderstood. I thought you meant it was because of the act of lying down ("Lying down helps the client filter less. Your emotions can float to the surface more easily.") If it's not the prone position that's important, then why don't people just close their eyes while sitting in a chair? What is the benefit of lying down? Perhaps positive associations with sleep? Maybe it makes people feel more defenseless, which in therapy, might allow greater access to the unconscious. If you're in a chair with your feet on the ground, it's so much easier to leap to safety (think millenia of predator-prey adaptations).

Relaxed brain states: being with my therapist actually puts me into a more relaxed brain state. I don't know how he does it, but I know it is deliberate, a cultivated skill.

i think it is partly hypnotic... something about lying down probably does have associations with sleep... i hear what you are saying about getting some of that while sitting up, though.

my therapist has a very hypnotic voice. when i first arrive he is kind of light hearted but as we start to get into the session he becomes more 'floaty' and rythmic and more softly spoken... i'd be temped to say sleepy but too deliberative for that... sounds quite hypnotic. he kind of does that gradually, though.

then changes his voice back to normal when he says 'our session is nearly up' which sounds fairly boomy and cheerful in contrast and he tends to move from leaning forward to back in his chair and we chat for about 5 minutes about more mundane stuff (to reorient me, i guess). the first time when his voice 'snapped out of it' it gave me a hell of a fright. i figured i'd been gyped or something... hard to explain... he is more gentle with the re-emerging and reorienting now...

its weird though...

sit "indian style" (why do they call it that-it seems wrong?) on a leather sofa across from him coffee table in between. When I get stressed out he has a big pillow on the sofa that I basically hide behind...i like looking athim wheni talk to him. not just becasue hes hot, lol, I like th interaction...we dont really do psychoanalytic, more cognitive behavioral.

My T's office has 3 chairs, and a small couch. The one chair is her desk chair though... I've thought about asking if I can sit *under* her desk... I have a thing about feeling safe in confined spaces...
Anyway... The couch is across from the 2 other chairs. She sits in the chair closer to the door. I sit on the edge of the couch so I am directly across from her. I typically sit straight, but as I get nervous/shut down, I sink into the couch.
My littles (alters) have come to love laying down on the couch, and the therapist brings her chair right up next to the couch as it makes them feel safer.

My therapists office has 5 chairs....4 of them are for his clients and I hate them. They are typical plain office chairs and I can't seem to relax in them. I sit in the chair next to the door and he sits in his big comfy office chair next to his desk. His chair has wheels on it and he wheels around in it sometimes..wheels to his file cabinet, to his shelves and then around to go to his computer. I want to sit in his chair sometime just to see if its as comfy as it looks.

Jbug

I remember one session, my therapist invited me to go into the office ahead of her as she got something from another room. And I walked in and sat in her chair. It was sort of fun to do. And when she came back she sat in my usual chair. I think she suggested I would be good at being a therapist (she has said it before...but that seems to be putting the "carriage ahead of the horse").

Eventually I got self-conscious and uncomfortable and had to move back to my normal seat.

Chairs and seating can be a funny thing really. I sit across from my pdoc/T face to face in similar chairs. He has a love seat kind of couch to the side between the two chairs. Occasionally I have felt inspired in the middle of the session to change to the couch or back. I have not figured it all out. For a time I was trying to think that when I more emotional I would sit in the chair and when I was feeling stronger and wanting to move forward I would sit on the couch....then it got confusing...so I have gone back to the chair for the works. Who knows what will happen in the future. He seems to deal with whatever I wish to do on locating myself. (Last time he made me get up at the beginning to move the chair back to where it "should" be.... a little OCD sample..lol.) There have been times I have wanted to lie down on the floor in a fetal position but have not done that... but talked about it.

Maybe on Friday I will change the seating arrangement a bit and try sitting in his lap.

just kidding

maybe... just maybe... I can attempt to mix in a little couch-work along with engaging face-to-face.

It's very scary to me!

I have no object constancy. It will feel like he's not even there.

I told him that. He said, "Do you think I won't talk to you if you are on the couch?"

I hate when he does that. So practical. I hate when delivers a point that I can't argue. And he will see me straining, lol. Straining for that counterpoint... but I can't deliver because I know my argument will be completely ridiculous because I tend to make stuff up just for the sake of having that counterpoint.

If I ever go back next week I think I will sit in the waiting room and leave the door to his office open. From that vantage point I will be able to see him in his chair. We can shout to each other or better yet, use our cell phones.



Or I could stay in my car in the parking lot and he could look out the window from floors up, while we chat.

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sister said:
If I ever go back next week I think I will sit in the waiting room and leave the door to his office open. From that vantage point I will be able to see him in his chair. We can shout to each other or better yet, use our cell phones.



Or I could stay in my car in the parking lot and he could look out the window from floors up, while we chat.

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Hahaha, amazing. I love it.

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pinksoil said:
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sister said:
If I ever go back next week I think I will sit in the waiting room and leave the door to his office open. From that vantage point I will be able to see him in his chair. We can shout to each other or better yet, use our cell phones.



Or I could stay in my car in the parking lot and he could look out the window from floors up, while we chat.

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Hahaha, amazing. I love it.

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I do too. Sister... you are quite amusing.

Actually there was a time that I was about 10 minutes late... way unusual... and I told him I thought of calling him on my cell to start the session...