i think he is pissed with himself for agreeing to do a phone session with me. i think he expected it to be fairly brief and awkward and ended up being surprised that we ended up talking for three quarters of an hour. his voice changes when it is time to wind down and he started doing that at quarter to. i figure he was still at home and he needed some time to get to work. he said something over the phone (after the initial niceties about how i was sick, yeah, and that sucked, yeah, and it all started over the weekend when...) about how if we had finished talking about that or... so of course i had to tell him something important :-(

i feel resistent. i feel like he is pushing... and pushing... and pushing... kindly. but pushing... and it just makes me want to back off and defend all the more.

:-(

i don't want to see him anymore :-(

just want phone and email and stuff. don't want to see him anymore :-(

[silentlyscreaming]

I wish my T would talk via phone or email.
Talking ftf makes things so much harder.
Sorry I can't say anything that'll help or make you feel better, but I can totally relate to how you feel.

If he agreed to do a phone session, wasn't that with the expectation that it would last nearly the time of an entire session? Why do you think he was surprised? It sounds as though you seemed fairly comfortable on the phone, do you think that's what surprised him?

I do that too when I feel my T pushing. I'm the type that blurts out stuff when I'm ready. Usually shut down the more that I'm pushed. Or give a hard time, sarcasm, all that.

Was it easier to talk to him? Without having to look...

[Lemon]

Alex, Why do you think he is pissed at agreeing to do the phone session? Did he say something that makes you think this? It's sounds like it actually was pretty successful and you were able to share things with him. Maybe how you felt about the phone session could be the beginning of a topic for your next session?

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I do that too when I feel my T pushing. I'm the type that blurts out stuff when I'm ready.

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Oh me too! LOL! I'm a total blurter and then I don't know what to do. Sometimes I even plan on not telling my T something and then i blurt it out anyway.

I hate that feeling of being pushed, but maybe its a good thing in the end. Sometimes when my T is pushing I actually physically feel like she's poking me even though she's way across the room.

[ECHOES]

I wonder if the absence of the face is leading to assumptions about what he's feeling and thinking. Perhaps seeing him has advantages after all?

[MissCharlotte]

((Alexandra))

Sorry the phone session was so difficult and I hope you are feeling better. I have decided that I don't like phone conversations but I've never had whole session on the phone. I would rather I could see T and he could see me. hehe -- I can feel his anxiety when he can't see/read my face. "Are you with me?" he says.

Did he say something that makes you not want to see him anymore? Can you call him again and discuss this?

Take gentle care.

> Sorry I can't say anything that'll help or make you feel better, but I can totally relate to how you feel.

hey. knowing other people can relate helps me feel better :-)

I'm not sure what he was thinking when he agreed to do the phone session... I thought that it would be the same length as a ftf session (an hour) but I think he was thinking it would be a briefer chat. Maybe half an hour. He started winding it down about then, though, and was off the phone at quarter to. I think... That he did the phone session from home and he needed to get into work for a 9am appt. Cause I asked him what number I should call and he said that he would call me (so he was probably at home).

I thought he was surprised because... We had the polite conversation about how I was sick and stuff and then he said something like 'well, is that it? or...' I think that we was expecting me to say 'okay, see you next week'. But I thought it was kind of a challenge. I thought he was saying 'if you don't have anything to say other than about your being sick then I'll ring off now so either you open up about now or this conversation is over'. So... I started opening up a little... I think... He was surprised that I did that... Yeah... Maybe he was surprised that I felt more comfortable on the phone than I feel IRL. I've been resistent to phone contact before so maybe that is why he found it surprising.

> Was it easier to talk to him? Without having to look...

Yes. Mostly... What I'm afraid of is him seeing my embarrassment. Because if he sees that I'm embarrassed then I get even more embarrassed and things escalate into an excruciating state. On the phone... I know he can't see my embarrassment - though I know he can hear it a little in my voice I don't mind that strangely enough. So... I have a bit more courage to talk about potentially embarrassing stuff.

I guess... When my mother saw that I was embarrassed she used to laugh at me. So... In person it escalates if someone sees and I spend much of my time dissociating from the feeling so I don't look embarrassed...

I'm not much of a blurter... Though I guess I blurted a little... I find it so very hard to talk about some things.

Yeah, the feeling of being pushed can physically hurt... I felt like... Either I had to blurt something or he was going to hang up the phone :-( But... I blurted. So maybe it worked after all.

:-(

It is hard to find the balance between doing the hard stuff and staying functional

:-(

> I wonder if the absence of the face is leading to assumptions about what he's feeling and thinking.

Maybe...

> Perhaps seeing him has advantages after all?

Dunno. I'm still not convinced... I don't think I was having a transference response. I think he was using a technique to get me talking.

I do worry that he feels a bit duped by the phone thing, though. I dunno... We do have these theoretical disputes sometimes... Last one was about whether it was theraputic for him to meet alters... This one is about whether it is theraputic for me to see him ftf... Dunno...

Maybe... I defend for a reason and that should just be respected. Maybe... I'll blurt when I'm ready to blurt. Not sure what good his pushing is doing. I push myself already... Don't I??

Hey... It isn't that I'm terribly averse to seeing him ftf. I mean... I look forward to the sessions considerably... I'm glad that I'm in therapy and I'm glad that he is my therapist. He hasn't said or done anything to make me want to terminate or anything like that.

It is just that... I'm a big fan of email and chat and... As it turns out... The phone. I thought the phone session went really well and if there was something suckful about it it was that it was 15 minutes shorter than our usual session. But the thing was... That I don't know that he was particularly comfortable with it. I think that he places a LOT of emphasis on body gesture / posture and eye contact and physical presence kind of stuff. Whereas I'm a much greater fan of tone of voice and even... The absense of tone of voice... Just words words words. I've seen how amazing friendships can be online. How you can anticipate peoples emotions and thoughts in a chat encounter. How you can notice that something is wrong from very subtle cues. You can do all that without physical presence and you can even do it without tone of voice.

I think his beef is that he is big on emotional processing and he thinks (and he would probably be right) that i defend by switching into rational / intellectual processing. but he doesn't see how i have emotional relationships with other media and he doesn't know (i don't think) that it is possible to do that. That if we were to do therapy by email and / or chat and / or phone (maybe) that I would be able to tell him some of the stuff that is really hard / embarrassing... And that yes I would be feeling it. That I could allow myself to feel it all the more without him observing me. I don't think he understands...

But he thinks I'm defending... So... Who knows....

I really can't believe how much I relate to your experiences- it's quite uncanny.

anyway, maybe this won't seem like you but, I've found when I've not wanted to see the psychologist anymore -- there is a feeling of my fragile-inner self needing protection.
--- thoughts go through my head, "is he mad at me? will this cause him to distance himself from me? oh, I couldn't take THAT-- don't pull away from me! Maybe it's not as safe as I THOUGHT! maybe... maybe I better pull away before it hurts too much!"....

I know that feeling "pushed" can be an awful and scary feeling-- like being told to jump off the diving board when you don't feel confident enough to swim to the side safely. ...... however--- just maybe--- sometimes, we are pushed in ways that are uncomfortable in order to help us in ways that we (knowing and holding tightly to our comfort zone) might not push oursevles on our own??

I saw my T. for almost 3 years (quit a few times in that three years), and then abruptly quit 8 months ago-- have been emailing ever since and only went face-to-face once in that 8 months time. After about three months of us writing back and forth(I write about once a week-- to the point-- one or two paragraphs-- about many different problems I have going on in my life)... he wrote and told me-- "others have abandonded you, in your life, but I won't".... that really scared me!! I've pushed on and we are still writing, once a week, and I'm still scared.

I can very much understand the want to email or phone. Connections are difficult for me. I get nervous when I ponder that maybe he doesn't think of me but only when he hears from me--- and I also get nervous when I ponder that maybe he does think of me even when he doesn't hear from me...... ...... I often put myself in "can't win" situations somehow-- .....

there is so much more I'd like to explain here-- just wish I was better at getting things out of my head and understood by another...*sigh*.....

mandy

yeah... sometimes self disclosures feel like i'm giving him my heart to hold in his hands. such fragility and vulnerability. that he could destroy me with an inadvertent reaction of distaste or repulsion. such vulnerability.

and all the while he is sitting there kind of pleading with me 'trust me. trust me. take a risk. its okay. you can trust me.' and he is so very careful. he knows how especially sensitive i am. but it is still hard. i can't. i just can't seem to do it at the pace he would like.

it feels... too intimate, somehow.

i'm not sure what i think about his pushing me being a good thing. i guess i think that i will push myself when i am ready. i guess i think that i will do that. i guess it is hard for him because initially i did disclose quite a lot of hard stuff. but then as i started to feel attached to him i backed off a bit in person and started disclosing even more intimate / personal stuff by way of email. relational trauma is hard. it is something that is re-experienced in therapy, i guess. even his kindness is triggering. brings it to the fore that i haven't had much of that before.

thanks for sharing your experiences. it can be hard to get stuff out sometimes... takes some courage, huh. thanks for your response.

[pachyderm]

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mandyfins said:

there is so much more I'd like to explain here-- just wish I was better at getting things out of my head and understood by another...*sigh*.....

mandy

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Uh. I think you did pretty well. Quite pretty well.

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sometimes self disclosures feel like i'm giving him my heart to hold in his hands.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> YES! is that ever the truth!

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
and all the while he is sitting there kind of pleading with me 'trust me. trust me. take a risk. its okay. you can trust me.'

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> yep, that too. Mine casually said, "some people have thought of me like a father figure, I would be OK with that if you also wanted to think that way"..... to which I stared blankly off toward the corner that I so often "visually" escaped to.

Well, one can be pushed but yes, one must be ready or it might do more harm than good... at least, that's been my experience.

I do so very much hope, that you will find a means to which you are able to communicate more openly from your deepest parts of your inner being, with your T.-- be it email, phone or even f-t-f. yes, it is very hard for some of us to "get stuff out".
thanks for replying back... means a lot to me.

and gee... thanks pachyderm! </font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
I think you did pretty well. Quite pretty well.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post"> I really appreciate that. I often have so much that I want to convey that it doesn't end up being understood the way I meant it, as I accidentally leave parts out, or veer off on a tangent that only seems to make sense to me. ..... oops! a bit off topic .... please-- carry on......