[Syntactic]

My T and I get along wonderfully; she has a great personality and is very attuned in therapy, with a good sense of humor. However, because of some past issues, I'm scared of being physically close to her. It would be okay, except she thinks she's done something wrong, which she hasn't. Does anyone else have any experience with this, or tips for getting over it? I've talked with her about it and tried to let her know it isn't her, but that's hasn't really helped.

[atisketatasket]

What do you mean by physically close? Like you want to sit on the other side of the room? Or you don't want her to touch you?

I wouldn't worry about her feelings. Therapists should know that some clients want physical distance and it has nothing to do with them.

[Pennster]

My therapist has scared me sometimes because he's acted in ways that were reminiscent of things from the past. I usually just talk about it with him so that he understands what's going on and it tends to loosen the grip of whatever is up as well.

When you say it hasn't helped, what is happening? Is she not understanding what you are telling her?

[Argonautomobile]

Does she try to get physically close to you? It seems odd to me that she would do that without asking first if it's okay with you? Or does she?

Yes, I have had this experience, but was too embarrassed to say anything about it. My T picked up on this and very graciously offered to keep the door open during session. He maintains a solidly respectable four feet of personal space, and both of these things helped enormously. That and time. How long have you been seeing this T?

Be honest with your therapist, try and be clear about what it is you mean and want from the discussion.

I wish you well Flower.

[Syntactic]

No, my T doesn't try to get closer than a professional distance; it's more like my 'comfortable distance away' is all the way across the room. She's a very visual person, and her whiteboard is (to me) too close to her for comfort, so if there's a complicated problem, I can't draw/write it out for her without it being incredibly awkward. I also have an insane startle response, so if she moves too quickly, I jump and assume a 'threat evaluation' mindset, and end up dissociated for the rest of the session.

She's been magnificent about it, and hasn't violated any professional boundaries; it's just severely hampering our progress, on top of me being worried she'll take it to heart.

To be clearer, it isn't -her- that I'm scared of; in my mind, anybody in a position of power over me is dangerous. I would normally compensate for it by getting to know the person so I can manipulate them/our relationship if need be, but that's something I'm trying to overcome (and it would be extremely unhelpful in this case).

Pennster: I can't get over being scared of her, which is negatively affecting our work together.

Argonaut: I might try asking her to keep the door open, that may help - thanks! :-) I've been seeing her for four months now, and this is the primary roadblock.

Blurred: thanks :-)

I have complex PTSD and I find space a very frightful thing sometimes. The other day my T spoke to me outside the office. My back was pressed against the handle of a phone box and my T was too close. I felt trapped because I couldn't back away and put distance between us.

We talked about it in therapy too. She asked me if I want to move my chair closer to the windows, to the door, do I want her to look at me or out the window? Maybe you could have a similar discussion with your Twitter?

[Argonautomobile]

Originally Posted by Syntactic

No, my T doesn't try to get closer than a professional distance; it's more like my 'comfortable distance away' is all the way across the room. She's a very visual person, and her whiteboard is (to me) too close to her for comfort, so if there's a complicated problem, I can't draw/write it out for her without it being incredibly awkward. I also have an insane startle response, so if she moves too quickly, I jump and assume a 'threat evaluation' mindset, and end up dissociated for the rest of the session.

She's been magnificent about it, and hasn't violated any professional boundaries; it's just severely hampering our progress, on top of me being worried she'll take it to heart.

To be clearer, it isn't -her- that I'm scared of; in my mind, anybody in a position of power over me is dangerous. I would normally compensate for it by getting to know the person so I can manipulate them/our relationship if need be, but that's something I'm trying to overcome (and it would be extremely unhelpful in this case).

Pennster: I can't get over being scared of her, which is negatively affecting our work together.

Argonaut: I might try asking her to keep the door open, that may help - thanks! :-) I've been seeing her for four months now, and this is the primary roadblock.

Blurred: thanks :-)

This all sounds pretty familiar to me--and it sucks! I'm sorry you're having this problem, but I think it's awesome that you have a good working relationship anyway. A couple ideas--

It took me about 6 months to be comfortable in session with the door closed. So, you know, I think time could still help. Part of this is getting familiar with the other person, and I think the other part is just straight-up exposure. If you wanted to approach it that way, you could directly confront this fear via exposure--sit closer than is comfortable (but nothing unprofessional, obviously) and work on grounding instead of dissociating. My T and I go on walks around the clinic sometimes (exposure therapy for fear of medical settings) and, while it's not fun, it's helped enormously. Maybe try a walk? You'll be closer to T than is comfortable, but be mobile so you don't dissociate and feel less trapped.

Speaking of movement, I found that doing something like yardwork before a session tired me out enough to not be so flighty and anxious during session, which made it easier to do work.

As for startle response...This was another thing I was much too embarrassed to say anything about but my T picked up on anyway...He used to announce and ask permission before doing anything. ("I'm going to roll my chair over to the computer, if that's okay?") Which sort of made me feel like a crazy person, but I never had the chance to freak out about a sudden, unexpected movement, either. It helped.

Finally, I got better at setting my crazy-person boundaries in therapy. And it's sort of nice to be assertive in an environment where you don't have to worry about being rude or offending the other person. Therapy is the one place where it is 100% socially acceptable to say, "Dude, can you move your chair back about three feet?" so, you know, take advantage of that.

[skeksi]

I know it's hard to do, but try to remember that her feelings on this do not matter: yours do. She should be able to understand your fear and respect it, without making it about her and being offended (I'm not sure if that's happening or not).

I have been dealing with this with my T for a long while. Fear is a hard nut to crack! It's really been empowering for me to find the words to be able to tell him to back up, move clear across the room, etc. He is always 100% willing to acquiesce and will do things like avoid eye contact, warn me before he moves, etc. My sense of safety has never been respected before so this has been huge for me.

It helped a lot when I stopped trying to "get over" my fear of him and instead focused on working through it with him. It's like I thought my fear was getting in the way of us doing therapy work--but this IS the therapy work.