Couch 111 - The Simple, Clear, and Informative Couch

Yes, the limits, and I explained that's where I was coming from to t this morning. I really appreciate this conversation y'all, it's helping me figure out my feelings about all of this. T wasn't mad or upset, just sorta seemed offended. I explained to her that I didn't mean it in a derogatory way, was just trying to express my feelings, my confusion, my inability to squish my feelings for her down into the framework of the 'therapy hour', and stuff like that. I think I am going to re-work the poem and email it before my next session.

Eh, it is partly artificial in the way MobPsy said. I am not sure all therapists themselves understand the artificial aspect of it, which is a problem.

And I come back to my T asking me to pretend that he was my friend instead of my T last session. I couldn't play that role. I was too uncomfortable with it. I couldn't let those feelings in. I was afraid that the desire of it would be too much for me... Like I wouldn't be able to put them away and I'd be stuck vacillating between a pleasant fantasy and a painful reality...

Exactly! She doesn't 'get' the artificial aspect of it! Which I in turn don't get, since she has her own t, wouldn't you think she'd know what I mean? Sigh.

Anyway. Gotta go grocery shopping. Later couchies!

It's not just about them, right? Who I am in therapy and what my therapist sees of me is very limited -- not just in terms of what I share (let's assume I'm spilling my guts out non-stop) but in terms of context, sheer time limits and all that good stuff.

So, it's a heightened emotional lab (or theater to use my earlier analogy) as I see it.

Neither my therapist nor I are all of who we are -- even if she were to give me unlimited contact now and forever, no-holds-barred, it still wouldn't be the same.
We'd still exist within a frame -- the 'relationship' would be within a frame.

That doesn't make it artificial -- just as I don't see masquerade as artificial.

In fact, I see that as illuminating truths that are otherwise completely hidden in ordinary, seemingly open life (and, I think that is why masquerade / theater etc have such power in stories, our collective psyche anywhere in the world).

And, that's how I think therapy at some level functions as well -- in that little lab which doesn't resemble everyday life, things come to the fore which are completely missed in the seemingly non-hidden world or life outside.

But, to not acknowledge this paradox I think does a major disservice to not only the client but also the therapist's work and the effectiveness of therapy itself -- insisting that it is really 'real' (as in no different than what happens outside) actually denigrates it in some ways and to me feels like a poverty of imagination.

As, I said earlier, I'm running into this with my T as well and sometimes I wish we could both shut up and just read poetry or great literature for a bit and talk about metaphor -- as else, it feels like words are both too much and not enough and we get caught up endlessly in parsing out their meaning only to land smack dab at places within ourselves that defy all attempts at verbalizing.

And, so then we're back again attempting to forge some sort of an uneasy compromise that doesn't feel like bean-counting the meaning of a relationship but also doesn't expose us alone and unaccompanied to the raging wilds of what many of our relationships (especially for those of us who haven't had a large number of positive experiences) look like.....and where the therapist by the very nature of therapy (and since paradoxically, they are oath bound to care for us) cannot join us.

(Okay, I will really quit going on about this right about now and actually do other things with my evening or what's left of it).

I don't particularly like using the term artificial either, even though I do get it. I think it's too glib-sounding... Too much of an implication of fakeness for my liking.
On the other hand, when you synthesize something in the lab, it could still be called 'artificial', but you take great care to get it just right.

/in which Shakey creates her own chemistry-based therapy nomenclature

That was sheer eloquence right there, awkwardlyours, thank you thank you. So how i feel.

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I think it is all artificial and acting and the therapist is other. I have told the women that. As far as I know, they did not get especially offended.

I think if you're a therapist in therapy, your experience may not be the same as a non-therapist's. To you the therapeutic relationship is normal or natural, because that's how you've been trained to see it.

I don't get the "artificial"...its purposeful in my mind, not artificial. I mean, let's take my dog agility coach for example. She knows some stuff about me-- we talk during and before class. She's seen me cry when my dog struggles ( I have a brilliant agility dog with SEVERE performance anxiety that I don't really understand as he has never been punished. ). She sees a competitive side of me a lot of my friends don't. Our relationship is structured around competing and training my dog and doesn't expand to all areas of either of our lives. But its real. It just has a specific purpose and that purpose places constraints on our relationship (,I pay for her time, she has a freedom to criticize me that my friends usually don't ie I dont take it personally)
To me there is nothing fake or artificial about my relationship with my T. The relationship just has a purpose and constraints designed to allow that purpose to be fulfilled. For example I can't be trying to meet my Ts needs. It removes the freedom the relationship gives to explore my own needs. She can't allow herself to bring her own feelings about stuff too powerfully into it for fear of disrupting my process. Its not fake. Its just designed yo meet a need and the constraints make that possible. I gave a number of dysfunctional relationships ..obviously I need something different to learn to NOT be dysfunctional.
My T would be offended if I called our relationship artificial. It definitely isn't. It just is what it is.

Today I have vaccuumed, done 4 loads of washing, started cleaning the youngest room and its not lunchtime yet. Gotta love a bit of hypomania.

The therapeutic relationship confuses me...but then any relationship confuses me.

I didn't exactly call it artificial. I wrote in a poem that it "masquerades as personal". And when I read the snippet of poem I had written (and scribbled out, btw) she seemed a little offended. I was merely trying to in some way put words to this confusing relationship and my feelings for her. maybe in retrospect trying to talk myself out of my feelings. i don't know. I wish I had been more eloquent. My feelings seem to defy explanation.

I think I just had an epiphany.

Today at t while we were talking about my use of the word "masquarades" in my poem, t said something about projections.

I think I just realized what she meant. I think that I am projecting these loving feelings on her, that I never had for my mother when I was little, and when I was little, I didn't have very many words, and that's why I can't explain them???

In the words of t earlier: "Hmmm."

Wow you have been busy!

Back when I was first in T it was hard to see my T's caring because I was accustomed to hearing caring words that had no true care behind them from both my ex and my mom. It was hard to believe that he wasn't pretending, just saying stuff. That's what got me into so much trouble with previous T. She didn't understand at first that I couldn't believe her. But that *was* my projection. It took a long time to see that, and I had to sit with my disbelief for all that time...
But the drama that we're discussing here, that's different. That's real. Life itself is a drama, if you will.

I could use some of that. I haven't gotten a darn thing done this day. I've been stuck in my head all day

Me too, couch sister!

Hoping it will be warm enough to swim tomorrow. That always helps get me outta my head.

But...cant you just have loving feelings for her because you love her??

My old apartment was right next to the pool and I could swim at night when the kids were asleep. It was lovely...

I enjoyed the discussion of the therapy relationship from different perspectives. I can't add to the discussion, because I never felt I had a relationship with any of mine. And since I'm on my own now, I have no desire to enter into any relationship of any sort, either personal or professional.

I took the kids out for DD2's upcoming 8th birthday, cuz no way are we going out on a school night. DD1 is amazed by DD2's sarcastic nature and biting remarks. I'm amazed it took this long for her to display, since I'm pretty sarcastic and DD1 is the queen of the biting comment. How else is the kid going to act? *shrug* It isn't particularly funny in public, though. Methinks more lessons about behavior are in order.

Good night Couchies.

I... don't know if I can or not. I don't think I can let myself. This is very vulnerable territory for me.

Egad no wonder I practically ran over her trying to get out of there today.

I suppose it is lucky or at least good that I found two who don't get worked up when I tell them I realize they are acting and are not real to me and that the thing they try to create is artificial. I can't imagine why they would care one way or the other how I see it. They get paid either way.