Not wanting to go to session but needing it

I did tell them and they wanted to know her name to report her. I wrote my ethics essay on how she has broken several codes of ethics with me. One os my tutors was very kind and supported me this year, She knows I have struggled so much with transference and attachment issues towards my ts. She thought I should leave her but knew I would be devastated afterwards. She offered to support me through it but I couldn't do it.
It is validating when you are told that somebody has been horrible to you.

I would never yell at my clients, of course I can never say never but I know it is not in my nature to yell at anyone.
This is what t is trying to teach me, that I am important, that I do matter but perhaps this is a test to see if I actually am learning anything.

I'm not saying yelling at your clients like she yells at you. I was asking if you could yell back at her. The aggression response is important for life. Is it possible to get angry back at her in session?

Thank you Soccer mom, I did keep up with your story and your last t. I know that you were so attached to her and how hard it must have been to leave her and find a new t. My t sounds very similar to your old t.

Thank you for those kind words 1step
It it causing me great distress because I always feel judged and blamed.
I know you and others may not believe it but my t is a really good person, she doesn't mean to hurt me and perhaps I am sensitive. I bring out the worst in her. She has had a big loss lately and I am sure this is having an impact on her work.
In a way I am looking forward to doing t this favour because I will see her outside of session and know her a bit more. She wouldnt ask unless she had to. I am learning from the best, my tutors are really special and I have been incredibly blessed with them. I am going to be losing them this summer and I cant cope with losing them and t, that would be devastating. My relationship with t has been turbulent, what is most upsetting for me is that is not seeing it as I see it. She thinks everything is fine and doesn't understand why I am so upset. I know you have had some pretty bad ruptures with your t and so you have had your own upsets lately and so I thank you for your response

Thats such a lovely kind way your t put it. She has great empathy and patience.
I wish that my t would have some empathy for me sometimes. She tries to understand being gay but she always manages to really annoy me because she gets it so wrong. She really doesn't understand and so ends up being judgemental.

For the first part: NO, NO, NO....NO! You are NOT too sensitive!! You bring out hte worst in her?!? NO! I feel for you because I understand how difficult it must be for you when you are so attached, but please see that this is not your fault in any way. You are trying to rationalize it, as anyone would---but I have to strongly disagree. She is gaslighting you, big time.

ANd for the second bolded part: She will never see your side of it. I feel like her "sensitivity" towards you has only decreased. You know what the great thing about my therapist is? She is exactly the same each week. She is warm, and funny, and empathetic, and has had to tell me hard things, but has done so kindly and i have never felt rebuked by her. Keep posting here, and I hope our words sink in.

Also--meant to say, I am not saying your T is evil or anything, but she is royally effed up and needs to stop practicing therapy because she probably isn't only hurting you.

I too would love to know who else she engages in dual relationships with, because I suspect it's not just you

How are you feeling now Mona? You're the important one in all this , people are concerned about this relationship and we've aimed a bit at your T

My T is the same every week as well. He is nice and kind and empathetic. If he has problems in his personal life he does not let them affect his behavior in the room. He keeps all that to himself. He Encourages me to use my aggression response to say NO when I feel I need to even, and especially, to him. I am allowed boundaries just like he is. He would Never ask me to do a personal favor for him. He will not hurt me.

The first one I see is the least consistent person I have ever encountered. She has a memory like a sieve and can't seem to say the same thing twice - she is constantly contradicting herself.
The second one is fairly consistent and has a much better memory and it is much calmer to deal with her.
I love seeing the differences, but I would have had to leave the first if I had not found the second.

I love that you still see the first T, as she seems to have no good traits besides staying back...but i think that is what you want out of her, so it works!

My T remembers everything...and she says she doesn't take notes. I don't see how that is possible to do with all your clients.

I am feeling conflicted Out there, thank you for asking. I have decided to do this thing for t, I am curious about it and about spending time with t outside of session. I don't think there is anything sinister about her request but I am aware that this is all about her and her needs with no consideration to me!
And so there is the conflict. I love my t but she brings out the worst in me.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I know it mt just me, she is engaged in lots of different organisations and trainings so I know that there are a few dual relationships in those.
I really thought she was going to terminate me on our last session because how can you work with someone you compare to working with like pulling teeth!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Mona, I haven't been posting much lately, but I have read the things you have written lately about your T. It sounds to me that your therapy is going badly wrong. Therapy should be something where you experience acceptance and which somehow helps you to blossom. I think that you know that your therapy is not right? But you just can't quite believe it, you don't quite trust your own perceptions because it is hard to reject someone who you have placed trust in, and who we are attached to. I think we place a lot of belief in therapists that they know what they are doing, therapy needs us to do this, so it is really hard when we are confronted with a therapist who doesn't know what they are doing. Especially as the therapy relationship brings out our insecurities and makes us question ourselves.

In your posts you have said that you blame yourself, and that this has been a pattern with other therapists. It sounds like you are feeling that therapy can't help you? This resonates with me because it is similar to how I felt after my bad therapy experience. I doubted that I could ever have a successful therapy experience and suspected that I was too damaged. I manage pretty well in life though, so it was kind of surprising that I couldn't manage therapy. Now I have a good therapist, I find that I can manage therapy and I am getting a lot out of it, and my life is going well too.

I think that you manage pretty well in life too? You are embarking on a great career that should give you a lot of life satisfaction. I think you need to choose to believe in yourself and in therapy.

Therapy is about process and it can be a long one. There are days one doesn't want to get out of bed, go to school, go to work, do the chores but it is all necessary and part of the process. I was thinking about the difference between books and reality (or online relationships and real ones) and how with books and movies and Facebook, etc. we condense things and don't get the whole "fattened" picture of what makes up a True story; we only get the headlines/punchlines and not the underpinnings. My T once pointed out how reality is not like a book, in books "you don't go to the bathroom" for one thing :-)

Put in the time, go to the session whether you feel like it or not; I always found when I wasn't wanting to go and did, that the session turned out differently than I had felt it would. We can't really know/anticipate the future, all the feelings and thoughts, etc. beforehand are just our imagination, not "real". You have to go and see what is in the moment, what is real and how to work with that. Not going to a session, you "skip" that and don't get any practice/instruction on how to be real (which presumably is why you are in therapy?).

This really struck me as something a person in an abusive relationship might say in order to justify staying in that relationship (or to justify the other person's behavior).

ETA: This is not meant to judge you. I think that if it is, in fact, true that you "bring out the worst in her", then she's letting her countertransference interfere with your therapy. I don't know you or her, but the relationship sounds really unhealthy for you and I can feel how painful it is.

Thank you for your lovely post Brown owl, it really touched me because you instilled hope that there can be good therapy and no matter what happens in therapy life still goes on.
I manage ok in life, it has gotten easier to cope and I can manage my emotions better now that I understand and listen to them. I am glad that your t has enabled a sense of self that you can manage life better, I know my t isn't perfect but I have gotten really better since I began with her. I understand myself better, I think since the honeymoon is over and we have worked. Together for a long time now that she thinks it's ok to challenge me all the time. Perhaps I am not progressing fast enough for her, I feel I am going at a safe pace for me and I am happy with my progression.

Thank you Perna!

Thank you for your empathy and understand and it resonated with me about something a person would say in an abusive relationship. I have been in a few of those and I would always defend the abuser and blame myself, thank you for pointing that out to me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Have you read this? Parts of it remind me of your situation.
https://www.psychotherapy.net/articl...your-therapist

Thanks for posting this Stopdog, I think I had read this article before, somebody else had posted it. Back then I never considered it would remind me of t and I. The misastunment, ruptures without repair. Stone cold silence, no apologies or understanding. I remember being furious that this trainee therapist had stayed with this E therapist for so long, I kept think why?? I have been with my t for 2.5 years now and I still stay.
Perhaps one day I will see that I deserve better and move on. I don't think my t is as bad as this E woman but she is not a normal t (if there is such a thing) my t is a wounded healer and I think her past still affects her present!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Or is she just wounded?

I ask because my last therapist used that same term. Thanks to her (and another one before her) I came to see that self-annointed crown as a red flag. She brought an entire set of matching baggage to my sessions.

I feel sad for you, Mona. You know what you SHOULD do, but you are going to stay with your T anyway. You DO deserve better! Right now, not one day in the future!! I wish you could see someone else to work through why you are punishing yourself. Hugs.

Its always a risk seeing a wounded healer. I think once they are aware of their wounds they are more inclined to be gifted healers but when they are absolutely blinded by them, thats when it is dangerous to practise therapy. I think my t has awareness but she often ignores it. I am sorry you had two bad experiences, it took a lot of courage to still believe there are good t s out there.

Thank you Rainbow
When the time is right will work through this with a truly great t.