In Session Today : Part III

T lives fairly close to his office (which is 15 minutes from me, but it's an area we tend to go out in), I think, and I recently mentioned a restaurant H and I go to regularly. He was like, "Oh yeah, that's a pretty good place," and I was kind of like, "Uh-oh, am I going to run into him there?" At least MC and ex-T live relatively far away...though recently we mentioned a different restaurant to MC that's near us, and he also said, "I've been there, it's quite good," I had another "oh no" feeling, except we don't go there that often.

MC used to live in the area (before we started seeing him), and he said he used to be at the mall with his daughter when he'd run into a client. If the client talked to him first, he'd introduce him/her to his daughter, saying they were a friend. Eventually, his daughter caught on and would say, "are they a friend or 'a friend'" (meaning a client). I'm not sure how I would have dealt with running into him and his daughter at the mall, so glad they live further away now (well, and his daughter is off at college). And based on MC's wardrobe, he may not have been in a mall since he lived in the area...

I don't really care if people know that I see T1. I refer people to him and tell them that I see him. His "office" is in a small house on a farm that his family owns on a fairly busy road. Anyone who drives by there between 8 and 9 on Mondays or Fridays has seen my car there.

But yes, in a town our size, most people know what H and I do for a living. And that it doesn't involve office buildings in the nearby cities. And I think small town people are probably nosier-they might well ask "how did you meet x?" and that could be awkward.

T lives about 15 minutes by car from me. Yet I've never run into her out n about. She said one time she wouldn't acknowledge me unless I said hello first. If I were a t and someone asked how I knew a client I would probably say "oh, we met at a conference" and leave it at that. Not really a lie. Therapy is kinda like a very personal conference....

It's kind of ridiculous that my therapist sometimes looks up if I see her in the building or outside and sometimes acts like she doesn't know me, because she has no waiting room and I am a sitting duck outside her office as people walk by, look at me, look at the sign on her door and once I even had my picture taken accidentally when I left an appointment in tears and walked into a wedding procession outside her office. So I really don't understand this business of not letting people know we know each other. I have also had people stop and talk to me until she opens her door. I am numb to it and don't care. It's just interesting to me that this (not acknowledging unless the client acknowledges) is a thing.

Finally moved to a better place in my therapy.

T and I both agreed that my asserting, advocating, or even arguing who I am when I feel he misunderstands, mischaracterizes, or projects upon me (of course he doesn't think he ever does the latter ) is a good thing because it indicates that how/what he thinks of me doesn't affect me as much now.

This week I told him about some mistakes I perceived he made and he didn't get defensive though he was snarky here and there (I didn't get upset about the snarkiness because he actually admitted this ) His accepting my anger and disappointment, etc. about it allowed me to move on to deeper stuff. When he didn't get defensive or ostensibly angry, I froze up in fear. I had a dissociated experience arise at that point--it was a fear that my father or brother, couldn't discern which, was going to "get me" later for having asserted myself. I released the fear memory from my body.

I left with some more clarity about how things played out with my sadistic father and brother. I was always in a state of hypervigliance, not knowing when one of them would harm me again. I feel more aware of how much I blocked off as well as the degree of trauma. It's kind of scary thinking about it now. But its ok because I feel safer with T now, knowing he can tolerate and contain my anger and distress.

It makes him seem stronger. It was a good session.

It looks like I killed this thread.

I was thinking how it seemed like a new part surfaced over the past 2 weeks. At first I felt it as a teenage part, but just realized it's a part of me that feels I deserve to live and also be treated good.

But where could that part have come from? Perplexing.

This thread isn't as active as, say, the Dear T thread... You didn't kill it.

Maybe the part that knows you deserve decent treatment is surfacing only now because this part feels it's possible to obtain that from your T?

Why come forward only to be bitterly disappointed, might be how that part of you has felt in the past. But here is a guy who can handle you having negative feelings and still treat you with respect and decency. I could see where that would awaken this part of you, like watering a plant.

This makes a lot of sense!

MC today. Really nervous after last Sunday's phone call and last Monday's session, especially because it would be over 2 weeks till we could see him again due to holidays/his vacation. H spent first 10-15 minutes filling MC in on the past week. I found myself having trouble looking at MC, like I kept looking at H, then the floor. Was trying to get up courage to talk about what was bothering me.

H said that was all he had. I glanced at MC and said I still had some issues about the past session/phone call. He said OK. He said he'd exchanged a couple e-mails with T (they now have permission to communicate), but they were really more about talking about a possible meeting with the three of us than anything substantive. That he hadn't talked about what happened.

I said I'd figured they'd talked and had been worried about what MC had told T. I started crying and MC picked the box of tissues up from his desk and handed it to me. I pulled out a tissue and said I was concerned he'd told T something like that I was crazy. MC said he wouldn't ever say something like that, might talk about my anxiety and reactions to things. But not that I was crazy. I said I was just afraid that what MC would tell him would make T not want to see me anymore. MC said he's never gotten sense that T had doubts about seeing me. I said I hadn't either, but just was afraid of what he could share.

I cried through most of the rest of the session. Will try to just summarize so this isn't a novel. Brought up confusing boundaries. MC tried to explain, but ultimately admitted that some of his boundaries were unclear. How he might define them a certain way in his head, but adjust it for something else depending on the circumstances. I said it was confusing how at one point something was fine to talk about him, but then not at another point. He said maybe he should have made them more clear, particularly between couples and individual (like if he's addressing something with just me via e-mail or phone). He explained how talking about process was OK if he's talking to me individually, like "how do I deal with transference," but less so content. Which was rather confusing and vague (won't try to explain further here!).

H gave analogy of referee calling a game, that if he decides at beginning to call it a certain way, then shifts partway through, it can be confusing. MC seemed to get that. H said how if he had a certain (unspoken) boundary with outside contact, then he let me push that boundary, but then suddenly wanted to go back to how he originally had it, that could be upsetting to me. I said how that felt like a rejection because it was a change. MC seemed to understand. But said again how he wasn't rejecting or abandoning me.

I said how now I don't know what boundaries are, how it's like an electric fence, where I won't know if I cross them. And if I do, what if then he would reject me? He said he wouldn't do that and that he could give me numbers if I wanted, but was reluctant because they aren't strict. I asked for them, and he said 15-20 minutes worth of outside contact a week, but that it's flexible and depends.

Near end of session, I was talking more about how he'd said my contact that week had "bothered" him, how I didn't understand what bothered him that week as compared to another, because it's not like I was calling him in middle of night (or at all), mostly really brief e-mails, just looking for particular answer to question. Had he even read them all? So was it about the one longer e-mail? The quantity of e-mails/texts? (even though just 1/day) He said it was mostly about the "misunderstanding" regarding the longer e-mail. Which I took to mean, from the phone call, that he'd thought it was about romantic rather than platonic/paternal love. (And I appreciated him not calling that out specifically in session.)

What was interesting to me, and I don’t know if this was, uh, a Freudian slip, is that several times toward the end of the session, I’m pretty sure he meant to say “transference” but said “countertransference” instead. So maybe that just kinda slipped out subconsciously?

He seemed genuinely concerned that we might not want to schedule with him again. Like he was saying how he hoped he could keep working with us but he didn’t know how we felt about working with him. And at the end he was asking if we still wanted to schedule, and seemed concerned.

He was also saying how, a year or two ago, I might not have been able to talk to him about the type of stuff I brought up today. I mentioned the anger/criticism on the phone, and he said that showed growth, too. How a year or two ago, I might have not just not shared my anger, but not admitted it to myself. Or would just turn it inward. But now, I'm sharing it, even with the threat that MC could get mad at me in return. So it's good that I'm doing that, not thinking if someone is mad at me, they'd reject me.

There was some other stuff in there, too, but that's the main gist, I think. He kept reassuring me that he wasn't abandoning or rejecting me (one of my big fears with people in general). I kept saying how it felt like it, because he was taking something away, and he kept saying how I could still contact him, and it didn't mean he was going anywhere. I think just how he was talking to me and looking at me, it started to sink in more...

He asked if we wanted to schedule, and we said yes. So we're set for Jan. 3 (he offered Dec. 30, when he'd be back from vacation, but Sat. is kinda tougher for us, so just went with the Wed.). Shook H's hand, then mine, said, "It was good to see you," and I said, "You too." He walked behind us to the waiting room, then said, "Take care" to me (H was already in the bathroom!), and I said "You too."

why would if you had felt "romantic" love vs "platonic" love make everything so much worse for him?

I'm not entirely sure, especially because, I mean, when I first told him about the transference a couple years ago, I thought it was just erotic (he kinda helped convince me it was mostly paternal). And a couple times since then, I've admitted that it's not all paternal/platonic. So this shouldn't be new information for him.

I think part of it was that he also mistakenly thought I was looking for an individual session during the phone call. And he said that if it had been romantic love, it would have been unethical for him to have had an individual session with me. (I then informed him that I was not looking for an individual session anyway!)

I have to wonder if he feels stranger about it now that he's widowed--it just seems he's been different about things with me since then.

I also really wonder if there's a bit of countertransference at play...I suspect some paternal for sure, but maybe something else, too? It's hard to explain, but the times it's just him and me (like H leaves session to go to the bathroom or when I'd run into him in the waiting room while there for ex-T), it's like there's this different energy that noticeably seems to shift when someone else (like H) comes back in the room. It may entirely be in my head, but I don't know...

But, yeah, I get your point that he should be able to handle my having romantic feelings, if that were the case. I think he just wouldn't want to keep that from H, where if it was all paternal, might be more OK to talk about just with him... It's all very confusing. Plus as a T, he should realize how romantic and paternal stuff can overlap, like tied into childhood. Like maybe it's more of an Oedipal/Electra thing than more adult feelings.

A therapist may understand how romantic and paternal stuff can overlap, but a spouse may not, even though they may say they do when explained to them. He has to negotiate these conversations with utmost care while your H in the room. IMO>

True, it might be hard for him to explain it in a way that H would truly get it, not just say he does. I mean, I know quite a lot about psychology, and it's still kind of weird to me. Like, I can alternately (or sometimes at the same time) wish someone could be my father and my romantic partner?

It's just confusing because, as MC admitted yesterday, he hasn't been consistent with boundaries, like what's OK to discuss with him on the phone/over e-mail vs. in session with H, for example. I do tend to show H the majority of our e-mail exchanges and give recaps of the phone calls (maybe not every single thing, but the main stuff we discussed). So I'm not trying to block him out. It just helps sometimes to share some sort of transference-type thought with MC first before also sharing with H (whether in session or not). Which I know is probably not the best thing to be doing, but MC also has let it happen for a while...

I suppose it could be a case of MC reevaluating how he's practicing with us (especially now that I'm seeing a new T) and realizing that he's set some bad precedents, but I'd rather he be open about that. Which I guess he was yesterday a bit...It's just still difficult and confusing when boundaries change, whatever the reason. Because that can really damage trust. Like, if you changed this, then what else are you going to change? When? I don't think MC understood at first why a change in the boundaries felt like a rejection, because he kept saying "I'm not rejecting or abandoning you." Then I think he started to understand as I explained it more.

I'm realizing the importance and value of a therapist setting more clear boundaries, including around outside contact, from the outset and sticking to them. This is how my current T is, and I felt annoyed by them at first because I was used to looser boundaries with MC and ex-T. But now I'm realizing their benefit because they help prevent these sorts of misunderstandings and shifts in boundaries that can feel painful to the client, especially if they don't know why they're happening.

Imo, we are in therapy to safely probe and thereby strengthen the painful parts, not to avoid them. Avoiding them in t just leaves us vulnerable to the same weaknesses IRL.

There is something to that--dealing with/expressing my anger at MC, for example, helps me deal with anger better in real life--I can sort of practice with a T (who is supposedly about to deal with my anger).

However, at the same time, if a T can avoid these things by having clear, consistent boundaries, then the client can focus on real issues. And certainly, other issues can come up between a client and T--I just feel like the boundary one comes up frequently on here and is preventable. Sure, a T can make exceptions to a boundary, like if a client is in crisis (I think that's part of why MC didn't want to set a clear defined limit yesterday), but there needs to be an actual rule, of which both the client and T are aware, to allow exceptions.

Plus, if you go by what you said...then, hey, maybe a T should be emotionally abusive to their clients to help them deal with emotionally abusive people in real life. But I don't see how that would be good or appropriate...

I don't think you're being serious here, but there is a difference between letting pre-existing stuff float to the surface vs. creating new stuff in session. It's an important distinction.

Abusing someone in session would be adding new 'stuff' (highly unethical).

When you emailed MC the day after the "love" email and clarified that you meant platonic/paternal, I get the feeling you did that because you were worried you had said something inappropriate. This is likely because professing your love for someone other than your husband - your marriage counselor, no less - is fraught was difficulty. I think, however, that your feelings ARE romantic... and that's ok. It's scary to admit because he is your marriage counselor, but your feelings are what they are.

I think what you're trying to say is that you think he has romantic feelings for you, as well. It's hard to say out loud, I know. I don't think you'll ever know the truth. If he has feelings for you, he won't share it with you because it would be unethical. If he doesn't have feelings for you, he won't share it with you because his job is to focus on you and your H, not him. If he was an unethical therapist, he would have already divulged this information to you - thankfully, he is not.

I think you need to spend more time working this through with T, not MC. The answer is not with MC.

Oh, I completely agree, I was making a particularly extreme statement. But I got the sense Una was saying it was OK for a T to be vague about boundaries rather than clear, because they shouldn't avoid bringing up issues.

I would argue that MC already is behaving unethically, albeit in subtler ways than divulging the nature of the countertransference. I don't think it's ethical to be so inconsistent on boundaries with a vulnerable client, or to chop and change on whether or not individual contact is okay. And the implicit encouraging of you to stay in MC also feels a bit manipulative, LT. I know you haven't solicited this discussion in this thread so if you don't want us commenting on it, please say so.

I worried that it was unclear. I felt like I had to clarify, because "love" can mean so many different things. I don't know that I was 100% sure what I meant even, what I was feeling. Because for weeks (maybe months?), it had seemed like the transference stuff (whatever it actually is) had been fading (which I'd told T and MC), and I felt this sort of emptiness. Then I went to that concert, and it was like I felt this rush of feelings and felt compelled to share them (live music can have a cathartic effect on me). In retrospect...I should have posted on Dear T instead of e-mailing. Or saved the e-mail as a draft and revisited it in the morning before sending.

When T read the e-mail I'd sent MC, he said it very clearly sounded like a love letter, how all that was missing was, "Let's run away together!" I was like "Oh ****" because I hadn't realized it had sounded like that. And T, in that session (an emergency one after the MC phone call and before our session with him) kept asking me how it might have felt for MC to receive an e-mail like that (both on a professional and personal level). It's a topic I wish I could have actually talked to MC about, like I should have apologized for it, for putting him in that position. But of course, I'm not doing that in the middle of a marriage counseling session...Especially when I'm not even sure what I was feeling or what the intent was. (I'd told him I just wanted him to say it was OK that I felt those things, to which he said, in his response, "Of course it's OK." Which is what he says about *any* feelings because we can't control those.)

What's interesting is that up until I'd showed him the letter, T (who I've been seeing 3 months and to whom I've talked quite a bit about MC) said he got the sense it was all just paternal feelings/transference for him, that any sort of romantic sort of thing was more how children idolize and "fall in love with" their parents. So he thought it was like that, even as I'd expressed fears that, at least at one point in the past, it was something else. So clearly I need to explore that topic more with T.

Putting this in trigger warning, just in case



Yeah, I definitely need to spend a lot more time talking to T about it...

Oh, it's OK! (I'll definitely say something if it gets to be too much.) Part of what really bothered me about the change in outside contact (even though he says he's not taking it away, just limiting it more) is that he KNOWS that's a particularly vulnerable area for me. He knows how I reacted when ex-T made that change. He also knows that one of my great fears (about everyone, not just him) is that something I've been doing has been bothering somone for a long time but they haven't said something (though he claimed this only bothered him that past week...) He knows because this is a topic that's come up numerous times in marriage counseling, mostly regarding H (and some stuff going back to my parents).

Something I told T last week is that it's especially painful because MC knows what my weaknesses and triggers are, and yet he institutes that anyway, at the end of a contentious phone call, no less--if anything, he should have waited until session, and ideally done it in a moment when I wasn't already upset. I told him (MC) that it sort of felt like he was bothered by my expressing anger at him in the phone call, so he was almost like, "Oh, I know what will hurt LT back--I'll limit outside contact!" Of course he said it wasn't like that, how he'd been thinking it before the call and wouldn't do something like that...but I don't think he considered how it could feel on my end.

And yeah, I was also unsure how to deal with his saying last week how we should keep seeing him so that I could see he wasn't abandoning or rejecting me, to see what a relationship like that was like. It almost felt like, "Well, if you don't stay, then you'll lose your chance to heal from this." Almost like he's my savior or something... He wasn't putting that much pressure on yesterday, but did say he hoped to keep working with us but wasn't sure if we wanted to keep working with him. (Ex-T, meanwhile, when I announced I'd made an appointment with a different T who I was going to try seeing at least temporarily, she wished me well, said she'd miss working with me, but didn't seem to be pressuring me to stay at all.)

To go back to your first comment--the fact that it's in subtler ways also seems to give him more deniability. Like he can say, "Oh, I allowed that 45-minute call in the past about transference because it was about the process of dealing with it, but what you wanted to talk to me about now was more content, so that's not OK." (Even though he's definitely talked to me about content before...) And that's not a hypothetical example--He did actually talk to me for 45 minutes at one point earlier this year, which struck me as kind of odd, because a paid 45-minute individual session isn't OK, but an unpaid 45-minute phone call is...

As I said to you before, to me the content vs process argument makes no sense because it is impossible to talk about the process without talking about it in relation to the content. Which shows, since you say he has talked about content before. Of course he has. You can't have one without the other.

Lt, I am completely hooked on the story of you and MC. From here in the frozen, snowy Northeast, it does have the feel of a romance, a romance that never can be in real life. That central tension between MC and you is then always triangled. If you read family systems therapy, the triangle functions to ease pressure off the primary relationship. Obviously it would be ideal to society's script if the central tension existed between you and H, but was triangled to MC to relieve the pressure in the marriage, but the story here n PC doesnt read that way. We also have new and old triangles" You MC, and new T, You MC and old T, but where is H in that? Are there also triangles with like. . . H , Old T , and MC ? I doubt it? There is a you , H, and D relationship of 3's but is it a triangle? Anyway I really appreciate the updates and look forward t how things are going.

I wish LT's MC would have been good enough with boundaries -- consistent, professional, and having thought it all through in advance -- to be able to see her individually and continue with the marriage counseling. About 5 months into marriage counseling with my husband I started seeing our T individually, and we did not have any issues with this. I don't think all T's should do this, or are capable of doing this, but I think when they can, it can be helpful. I would expect that LT and her husband might actually have more time or attention when in session to focus on themselves, and meanwhile, a consistent T with good boundaries can help examine where the transference is stemming from.

Unfortunately I am not sure MC has shown that he can be that rock solid, consistent and professional guy that can handle both therapy relationships. I'm sorry LT, this is a really tough situation.

When you have had individual time with MC in the past, like the long phone call, does it make the transference stronger? It's interesting that what seemed to bring on the "love" email was something external. Yes the music may have reminded you of him, but it wasn't actually anything he did. Which makes me think it's really an idea, a concept, an idealization, something like that that your feelings stem from. Hopefully you can discover it with your T, I just feel frustrated on your behalf that it's not more possible to address it with the very person who's bringing it all to the surface-- MC!

I don't believe in the concept of romantic transference. It seems so silly to me, and I would be put off by a T who uses that or who separates the transference into those categories.

I've read a lot of your posts, and it sounds exactly like an oedipal complex. It's not paternal or erotic. It's both at the same time. Every girl goes through a stage 4 or 5 where she starts straying away from her mother, and her father becomes the center of her world. Think about it, maybe observe a little girl of that age excited while playing with her father. They have behaviors like a person in love and can seem infatuated.

But if the father is rejecting, or not accepting the daughter's love fully (it can be due to the mother's jealousy or many other things), it can linger through adulthood. I have this issue but my T is not warm and 'loving' like MC can be, although he was from time to time in the past... I think MC plays into it a bit--he lets you have that 'special' relationship like father daughter. The act of breaking from the traditional marriage counseling by doing individual counseling with you mirrors that special relationship. That triggers your oedipal feelings. Anything rejecting or close to it, will trigger it too.

I don't mean to project my issues on you and hope it doesn't feel that way. I think it's good to work through this with your new T and suspect that much of it will transfer to new T as long as MC quits playing into it...which will feel very rejecting as his last move (understandably) already has.