Therapy and powerlessness

Sorry, can you give me an example of therapist as wounded healer motif? I can think of plenty of godlike-therapist motifs, but not wounded healer.

Maybe I don't watch enough TV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_healer

The wounded healer is sometimes the best choice of therapist

jungian therapy jungian therapist: Wounded healer

One of the articles says: "They [wounded healers] are at least a few steps ahead of the patient and able to guide the pathways forward."

Or, maybe they are a few steps behind the patient, and a ticking time bomb, only the patient doesn't know it. As the saying goes, hurt people hurt people, so I see no reason to think that a wounded healer is safe or trustworthy.

That was just a quick yahoo search - I did not go much past listing the first few that popped up.

Interesting quotes on power imbalance and termination...

"Neither transference nor the real inequality in the power relationship ends with the termination of therapy." (Herman, Gartrell, Olarte, et al., 1987, p. 167)

"In so many ways, the power differential and the patient's vulnerability persist, regardless of the termination of the therapy sessions." (Gabbard, 1989, p. 122)

Very true for me. Rather disturbing. The end of sessions for me only initiated a new a phase of therapy, one where all of the "therapy" takes place inside my head. But the experience of being exploited seems to continue on, as if still taking place.

Interesting quotes. That was the case with me and ex-T. He retired, gave me plenty of warning, was willing to talk about it endlessly. For six months I basically begged him to not leave me. After that time, he agreed that each session was re-traumatizing me so I quit seeing him. It took me almost a year to get over it. And I had 3 other ts I was seeing, one of whom I am very attached to.
Since I am seeing multiple ts with varying methods, it is also interesting that I am very attached to one, sort of to another (as in I will miss seeing her, but won't cry and suffer), and not very much at all the the third. I think it is due to both the styles and the sex of the ts. But that is beside the point. What I wonder is whether I will be able to terminate pain-free from the 2 that I am not as attached to. There is definitely a power differential going with both of them.

Sometimes, I'm super thankful,, well all the time,, that I have a super competant great T , now and all these things are manifesting and processing through, even the difficult stuff, i feel like a volcanoe going to erupt all the stuff I've pushed down for years but am afraid to because I feel soo exposed and vulnerable..so its crazy scary and good at the same time... woah!.. what a ride.. but well worth it..

I used to think that too and then I was abruptly abandoned. Hopefully yours will turn out better than mine did.

Me too.. Its super scary!!! Super!! The closer I get the more scared I get.. Sorry about yours .. ugh..

after a few sessions my therapist was talking about my walls, and being vulnerable and intimacy, etc.. ugh.. I didn't even want to hear those words.. it was difficult to even talk about let alone process through.. one step at a time. When you are taught all your life you don't matter.. it IS difficult to be intimate on emotional level.

The thing for me is until the woman explains why I would find it useful to be intimate with a stranger on an emotional level - like the theory behind what it would do for the reason I hired one of them in the first place - I have not basis for doing it.

Why did he think it was re-traumatizing? And would stopping more abruptly (like tearing off a band-aid) have been less traumatizing? These scenarios seem to me like traps, and at the end of the process the client has to chew off their leg in order to get away.

No matter when I stopped or how I stopped it was going to be traumatizing. I think he really tried to make his retirement ok for me. Your analogy of chewing a leg off is a good one. Anything short of me reaching that place (if it ever exists) where I was ready to terminate would be traumatizing. I went from twice a week to never.
As to how he thought it was re-traumatizing, each session was just a replay of my old abandonment issues. I'd get there and beg, bargain, try to manipulate, cry and generally feel horrible.

I would have the same conscious intention as you especially now, but with the last T the attachment/intimacy/obsession/addiction was not a conscious choice. She started feeding me what I always lacked, when i was at my lowest point, and after I had become emotionally exposed and invested, and that was enough to hook me.