Email response from T

I was referring to this part:
"The more you can sit with some of the triggers and sort through it and get yourself back on track....the better and healthier for you."

I'm not clear what in a therapist's training equips them to declare such a thing. A therapist's opinion or insight is no more valid than anyone else's, and in fact might be less reliable, since they are more invested in how it is received and because their training and indoctrination encourages them to believe that they possess powers of clairvoyance and omniscience that they likely do not possess. I understand that everyone has blind spots, and sometimes external feedback can be helpful, but giving advice is a very very tricky and perilous thing in my opinion. I experienced this kind of dynamic in therapy as instantly infantilizing and also aggressive and intrusive.

Also, to be honest I find this disturbing:
"Ts certainly can be qualified to advise clients on how to live their lives if certain behavior patterns are interfering with their happiness."

Rainbow,

I don't really have advice for you. And I haven't kept up on all your posts (in fact, I was not logging onto this forum for a few years there). However, I felt like I needed to let you know this: so much of what you write here reminds me of myself and my own challenges. You might hear that all the time. But every time I read one of your posts, I am continually thinking, "woah, we have that in common too?" I don't share a whole lot of specifics here, but it seems like we must be feeling some of the same intense pain, especially about T. I just wanted you to know that you are not alone in this struggle. Reading your posts sometimes helps me articulate my own challenges as well, so I thank you for being brave enough to share.

I agree DBT skills can be helpful. I have also recently been having a lot of difficulty remembering both what those skills are and how to use them when I am in emotion mind. T suggested two things. One, a DBT app, to be able to access skills any time. The other was to list a few particularly helpful skills on a bulletin board in my home. It sounds so simple, but I think this will help me a lot.

I wish you the absolute best, and I wholeheartedly believe it will not always hurt this much. Keep pushing through!:

I'll take a guess and say that's because you are not a trained therapist.

So you're saying therapists are indeed somehow qualified by their training to know what is best or healthiest for other people? Would love to know how that is possible, if you or a trained therapist can clarify.

Rainbow, sorry your thread is trying to get derailed rather than staying focused on your concerns.

You have a good therapist who understands your challenges with attachment. You know you will talk about this situation when you meet again and I suspect you will come away feeling a bit more settled. This is a hard time of year for you, particularly coming around the anniversary of your husband's passing. Take care of yourself and give yourself time.

I didn't word this well. Ts can be as qualified to give generic, common sense advice based on what the client has already expressed or shown. Advice along the lines of : "texting so and so may not be a good idea if you feel depressed afterward". A therapist isn't more knowledgable about these things, it's just that the conversations tend to come up in therapy.

In Rainbow's case, the T told her what she thought would be best based on what Rainbpw herself has expressed. She's not telling her what to do in her life, she's advising Rainbow to relate to her in a way that might be more helpful as it relates to her therapy.

No where in their training is a future therapist told they are better at life than anyone else. In fact, I'm confident many therapists think otherwise. They aren't told that their clients are helpless and they certainly aren't taught to treat them as such. What therapists are trained in is psych theory and how interpret and apply them in the real world. T's are taught coping methods that are shown to be useful, not to think they actually know what's "best" for others. They just know what might be helpful based on research and their experience.

I think in Rainbows case, her T's advice stems from their relationship. Rainbow, I'm sorry you're hurting but I'm glad you have a T that seems to get you and knows what can help in situations such as yours.

I am saying what I said: I guess the reason you don't know the content of their training is because you are not a trained therapist.

I will say, my T usually says "I have listened to many stories over my years, and this sounds like X, but I am no expert." I will maybe agree with what she is saying, or maybe I roll my eyes at her...but she remains open-minded, and okay with whatever it is I bring her.

I'm sorry you're so affected. I think your therapist's response is quite gracious, even though she does indeed really "get real" talking about sitting with your feelings before sending them away. Still, I think she combines that with empathy and good wishes for you. I say this because I know that, when I am feeling triggered or otherwise affected by something my therapist does, everything he says to me starts feeling much worse than I would otherwise think (and I perceive it as being okay after a while).

Did your therapist usually respond in a detailed manner before? As far as I understood your situation with what she was wearing, this was about your feeling triggered, not about a therapeutic mistake she made or a misunderstanding to be clarified. I think the different clothes in and out of session sound like a symbol as well as a path to exploring your fantasies about her role in your life, the needs that are fulfilled by this fantasy, the rejection and grief you feel. It seems to me that all this is way too complex for an email. It is deep therapy work. So perhaps her not acknowledging it might have to do with the need to explore more. At least this is how I think about it.

I hope you can clarify this the next time you meet and have a good session.

I agree with this. My T won't touch anything deep/triggering in an email. If something actually triggered me she will encourage me to support myself but she won't discuss the trigger with me until session

Also I've found it very helpful to imagine my T reading her messages to me outloud. They often sound much more caring and supportive in her voice than in my own

Thank you! That's a good analysis and I agree that 3 parts were triggered. No, my T has not wanted to change anything other than the emailing.

I agree that email isn't helping me but it's hard to give up. I've emailed my T for the 6 years I've been seeing her. We've changed the rules a few times. She used to answer in detail but I also used to write less. I never emailed more than a couple times a week, though. For a long time, I could email but she didn't answer. That was a mutual decision but when my husband got sick, she answered again because I needed more support.

A couple of months ago she suggested journaling and not emailing. I tried but it's hard. I am going to try again because she is getting firmer about it. It is a big deal for me because it reinforces the reality of our relationship. It feels like a stab to my heart but I have to accept it. I don't know how but I have to. Thank you, Jane.

Thanks, ruh roh. I've always attached to unavailable people in my life and gotten hurt by them and when I began therapy, I used my Ts the same way. I'm not sure if I would act that way now. I still get hurt when people seemingly reject me, and I want a lot of attention. I'm getting better at being aware of my triggers in real life. It seems with T, all h---- breaks loose though!

I like IFS better than any other technique but a lot of sessions we just talk and do SE. All my Ts knew I had trouble separating from my mother so maybe that's what they meant that my needs weren't met. It does make more sense to me.

I have struggled with emails between sessions with both of my Ts. The first one handled it really poorly I think, in a very inconsistent and messy way. He would go through cycles of telling me no email communication, then other times inviting it and getting engaged in it in ways that were far beyond a therapist's role. It really did not help me and often would drive me nuts.

Current T allows emails as much as I want to send them, and encourages it somewhat, but he keeps a minimalistic and practical stance in a very consistent, predictable way in the quantity and quality of responses. However I desire more interaction with him, I like this much better in the context of therapy. I also find it much more helpful than previous T's messy ways to foster positive change in my habits. Of course it is not always pleasant and far from linear, I go through cycles of writing lots to him about random stuff and then tempering it and keeping it focused and minimalistic myself. The key element for me that, I feel, facilitates progress, is his consistent behavior. I think that if he fed my desire for more (and more varied) email interaction, that would do more harm than keeping it low key and practical. The way it works for me, I think, is that it allows me myself to regulate my emotions and expression rather than trying to influence me externally. So I get to examine my feelings, reactions, desires etc on my own most of the time and we can discuss anything in sessions. But my T is not there to provide constant attention and companionship, is more a guide and a person who maintains a certain kind of relationship with me in order for me to discover stuff about myself using the relationship. Of course sometimes the maintenance of the relationship involves that he purposefully triggers me with some words or gestures. One thing I've noticed is that I am much less reactive to these things than I used to be, not only in my expression and contact but also internally. I feel that I have become more stable and less affected by my environment and events, or at least do not project my feelings into those so often. It often takes white knuckling but after a while it has become much more even and manageable.

I think it's common to misinterpret or misunderstand things in texts and emails so it is a wise suggestion to limit emails to emergency and wait until the session. If emailing and reading responses is triggering and not as productive as a session it's wise to limit it. I think this t has wise suggestions.

Now what if you type but not send and kind of keep it as a journal but not like journal she suggested but more like in a form or email? And what if you post on
Here when you get tempted to email?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think it's hurtful when a T's responses to emails start to change. First 4 yrs, I got paragraphs which then dwindled into sentences. Ouch. It's all about the consistency. You give emails, you take them away, you give them back... It's all triggering.

Emails can work great when both people see the value in them and they don't cause misunderstandings--so it is possible. In rainbow's case, it looks like her therapist is deciding that emails aren't helpful, so she doesn't make her email responses very useful--it's almost like negative conditioning. The messages have been mixed. At first, r8's therapist said she did not have to stop, and now she is encouraging it. I find it troubling, but I'm not there to know the in person dynamic.

It's worth being curious about--trying to sit with feelings--but this email is more directive and parental. So it has the opposite effect of empowerment, placing r8 in the child role. Seems confusing to me. Maybe I'm reading it all wrong. I just hope you work it out with her, rainbow.

And also when both take care over their words. I've only really emailed one therapist - No. 3, for support during the 5 weeks between seeing her in-person and seeing No. 2 in-person. She's thorough, clear, and obviously doesn't dash them off. In fact she might be one of the best email correspondents I've ever had.

But I think if our emailing had been a long-term thing, eventually it would lose its usefulness and also both of us would stop taking so much care with them.

My T never wanted to allow email in the first place. It was mutual to change the rules about it. She always said she didn't want to do therapy via email. I understand why so emailed what she did this time. That's what she's been saying for a few months now in session too. I thought emailing was the greatest thing about therapy. But it's not the email per se that's the problem!! It's the reality of the relationship. It's what email meant to me, and now I have to accept that my T is a professional, not someone to email like a friend, and that therapy stays in the session. The core stuff is what my problem is. Email is the manifestation of that. Am I making sense? I'm kind of depressed about it all right now but living my life.

My T is so careful with words that she sort of phased out most email replies. I am difficult to read and rarely ask for help ( for example if thinking about suicide I.might say "my thoughts are a bit dark")
I also tend to read between the lines of what people say/don't say.
My T decided the emailing was valuable but she thought it was too challenging to write a helpful response on her side. She felt she couldn't really tell where I was for sure through my writing. So now we discuss my emails in session, and I tend to reserve emails for questions about HOW to do something rather than feelings.
At first I was hurt but I've come to recognize it spares a lot of hurt feelings on my side. I miss my email responses sometimes but I see the wisdom.

If it's common sense, why pay a therapist to give it? When I wondered out loud about how a T is qualified to do this, I was asking a rhetorical question. There is no answer. A person cannot be trained to have more common sense or wisdom about life.

Also, the hypothetical example you give above, as well as the real examples given by Rainbow, sound to me very much like an adult talking to a child. Adults in healthy relationship just do not say such things. Her T did not acknowledge the original difficulty that prompted Rainbow to write, which is also patronizing.

If Rainbow feels hurt and rejected, that speaks for itself. Why rationalize this as a necessary step to some future enlightenment? I've been talked to this way in therapy a little, and it felt quite damaging to self-respect and autonomy, unless I protested.

If I were the T, I'd say -- pay no more attention to the horses**t coming out of my mouth than you do your own inner wisdom. Trust your gut first. Of course that would be giving advice...

Years ago I'd email T from my mind, and then in the reality I get a reply and it's like the 2worlds collide. The real ams the fantasy didn't fit.
Is better now. I'm emailing her the real person.

Thanks for all of your posts, divine. I call and email friends when upset but it's kind of embarrassing to say, " I'm falling apart because my T went for a walk after my session and I was triggered by seeing her." I actually did tell 2 friends: one listened and the other said to quit therapy. I have 2 friends who understand me, and I have a friend I met online who I email. As you can see, I also start a lot of threads when I feel this way! I don't have constant contact with T. Email is one after my session, and she replies once. That used to work fine but then she told me processing my session in an email with her isn't heading in the direction we want. Similar to what she just emailed. The email from her I posted didn't come out if the clear blue! There's a history behind it.

Thank you very much, HH. I read some of your threads. I want to send you a PM when I get a chance. Yes, I need to look at my DBT notes.

Actually I think it's not a rhetorical question, and does have an answer - which is that the qualification comes not from any intellectual merit, but from the authority invested in therapists by society, by clients, and by therapists themselves.

It's kind of like whoever gets elected president has by virtue of being voted in access to nuclear codes, however qualified that person might or might not be objectively.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk