[MissCharlotte]

I've been thinking of a lot of our posts lately and so often we find our way back to the topic of connecting with T. I began to think of the different types of connections we can have during the therapy hour.

There's the supportive connection when I am having a crisis. T becomes gentle and helpful.

Then there's the stern parent kind of connection when T doesn't let me hide behind my dissociation. He says, "Now what would happen if you weren't confused?"

There's the intimate connection when he's going on vacation and I tell him my heart is breaking or when he comes back and I tell him I missed him. This is the hardest of all for me.

There's another level of intimacy that I have only recently experienced and that is when I cry in front of T. I showed him a vulnerability I had never shown before. He was very gentle and connected to me in that moment.

Then there's the sort of intimate/supportive/firm combo T when I call on the phone. He is soft spoken, understanding and holding me to my end of the bargain simultaneously.

[WinterRose]

You're right.

Very tender.

Oh for the pain of connection that I desire and fear.

[Fuzzybear]

hmmm... interesting. DIfferent interpretation of what i mean by connection. Kind of the same but different. i'm looking first for an intellectual connection, like a fusing of brain.. hard to define but almost tangible when it happens.

the emotional connection.. i need that tenderness sure.. but for me it means he can see, he can hear... he can connect to what i can't openly give... then i feel the link between us.

i wouldn't tolerate a parent type connection at all.. oh boy, like to see him try that!

[MissCharlotte]

hmmm yes, the intellectual connection, forgot about that one and that is the realm I am most comfortable with, but T always brings me right back to the feeling world if he can.

And I suppose the parent connection requires clarification, sometimes he's the father and others he's the mother......

I think the parent connection is my favorite...my little girl feels so safe then. It's what I need.

Anyone else have others to share?

haha.. funny, my T is the opposite, he steers me away from the feeling into the intellectual.

i wouldn't accept any parent role, and that isn't meant badly, it's just me. It would create a huge rift. i need to feel more on equal level. My pdoc has been this way with me for ten yrs, always equal. Maybe it's because i don't accept an inner child theory. Whatever works.

i'm not trying to be offensive or argumentative by that. i am perfectly ok and accepting of others believing in inner child and parental connection. i think it's great when someone finds something that works for them. i'd be ignorant to think my own ideas were all there is out there.

[sunrise]

I love your list, sister. Great topic.

I don't feel a parent-child connection with my T. Although, as I've written in another thread, we have worked with a child ego state of mine in therapy, I have never felt a parent connection to my T and neither has this particular ego state. (I have learned to relate to my own younger ego state as the older sister or mother but not drafted T into that role.) I know this is a little off topic, but does inner child work mean relating to your T as a parent? (I thought maybe gerber implied this?) If so, I guess that would be another way it is different from ego state work, which doesn't require that (although it could include it).

Another type of connection I feel with my T: the male-female connection. I'm not sure I could bond this way with a female therapist. I strongly feel his maleness each session. I don't mean that in an obsessed way or that I want to have a romantic relationship with him, but yet there is a very powerful man-woman dynamic that, for me, is therapeutic. After so many years of a negative, demoralizing relationship with my husband, it was very powerful and healing to find a man who would be nice to me once a week for an hour.

I also feel a sort of connection that derives from the profound trust I have in my T. I trust him to always have my best interests at heart and to never do anything to hurt me. I don't question a lot of stuff he does because of this. I let him go where others don't. It's like this strong trust generates its own feeling of connectedness.

gerber, I also have a strong intellectual connection with my T. It is the easiest type of connection for me to make. I do enjoy discussing ideas with him. My T doesn't really try to steer me into the intellectual or the feeling. He lets me choose the path. The "fusing of brains": sometimes when my T really "gets" me, I feel this. As time passes and I know him better, I feel more and more that I "get" him too. This definitely has an intellectual component, but there is a feeling part to it too.

Another type of connection I feel: that between healer and the one being healed. I see my T as a healer, complete with a certain inexplicable, shamanistic element. It sometimes seems very primitive to me, what he is doing. I feel it is part of a tradition that stretches back through time, and in our own time, across cultures.

[MissCharlotte]

Sunshine said:

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I know this is a little off topic, but does inner child work mean relating to your T as a parent?

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Good question, but I don't think so. I believe that in my circumstance, it is what I need right now in order to heal. The lack of object constancy has something to do with a damaged relationship with my mother, or so I think.

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Another type of connection I feel: that between healer and the one being healed. I see my T as a healer, complete with a certain inexplicable, shamanistic element. It sometimes seems very primitive to me, what he is doing. I feel it is part of a tradition that stretches back through time, and in our own time, across cultures.

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Oh yes, Sunny, I think of T's room as the healing room. And he is definitely the shaman!!

[lauren_helene]

Sister and Sunrise

I agree with both of you! That is how I feel about T too. I have those levels of connection that you do Sister although we never mention parent/child or inner child.

Sunrise I also feel the male-female connection. Your description of that just might explain better to me why I feel that connection and that it isn't a bad or obsessive feeling but leads to healing.

I just love PC!!!