Attachment work or abandonment work?

this truely resonates for me. the chaos, confusion, drama, fear and pain that the so called 'relationship' with my ex-T stirred up turned out to be the catalyst that propelled and encouraged me to get the hell out of that relationship as quickly and as unscathed as possible. it also inspired me to regain a sense of empowerment and control in the therapy and the relationship.

It was such a mind ****.

She'd get sucked into our issues, prob had some counter transference, and then would back out of and put therapist face on. So, when I brought up the patterns I noticed, she denied it.

At one point, after I had divulged my attachment to her, I pointed out a pattern I noticed: when she became uncomfortable w/my feelings of attachment, she'd get super clinical...the polar opposite of what she usually was. She used her clinician side to keep me at bay and it threw me off. When I told her thi, she denied it, "I'm always clinical, you just don't see it and I show it when appropriate." Yeah, that's why she always acted like that when we talked about my attachment and I could feel the discomfort from her towards me. I felt like crap. I watered down my feelings to not push her away or be too much.

our last session was this weird side to her I had never seen: it was like she was a robot. No matter what I said, I was met with a cheery "okay." I didn't know who the **** I was talking to and it was hard to watch. I sat there, debating about asking her...knowing she'd just chalk it up to her clinician side. She broke character only to tell me she didn't want to lose me, she wanted to keep me, and that she was having to discuss me and our relationship in her personal therapy. She was reacting to me standing up to her. Then, the mask came back on: okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Cheery, leveled voice no matter what we discussed,
from my attachment to her, to a phone call earlier in the week, to our billing situation.

I felt off my footing. Being so attached to her, I noticed everything. She felt unsafe and trust went out the window. There I was being very honest and laying my feelings on the line, and she's using her "clinical demeanor" when she saw fit, weaving out of her regular self and back to keeping me at arms length. She had admitted to me I was a person she could be herself around and see her for who she was when she wasn't on the clock.

I don't think she did it to hurt me, intentionally, but the attachment plus that seriously felt crazy making. It felt like ****.
It never felt good.

I posed my attachment-abandonment question to Jeffrey Smith on his blog. I think he avoided the main point. The mother is not present with the child for just 1-2 hrs per week.

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me: Dr Smith, wouldn’t you agree that therapy attachment work puts the client in more of an abandonment state than an attachment state, given that they are away from the attachment figure (therapist) almost all the time? And isn’t this liable to trigger a sort of chronic separation distress in many clients? Seems antithetical.

smith: Thanks for the comment. This warrants a post in itself in response. Let me just say for now, that in childhood development, it is the coming and going of the attachment object that leads to internalization and object constancy. I think therapy can provide a safe environment to do this development work. Simply fulfilling a need does not result in the original trauma being healed, nor does withholding fulfilment.

I looked up the author of that quote, and read about a type of therapy called primal therapy and realized that sounds like my Ts approach. Reading about it made the hair on my arms and neck stand up.

Janov has been an outspoken critic of talk therapy. I agree with most of his criticisms and I'm glad someone in the psych world is challenging this stuff. I have no opinion of his primal scream thing. Here is one quote that cuts pretty deep, but certainly fits my experience...

"And when we get that daddy and mommy that should have been, we stay in therapy. It is then a permanent act-out on both their parts. The doctor gets the glory and adulation, while the patient gets a kind, concerned doctor/parent. It is addictive for both and that is why it lasts and lasts."

Yup. I think it's rare when someone actually benefits from it. And how do you gauge success in therapy, anyway? Is it just when you feel you don't need it anymore? Are relationships more successful? Is the person more successful overall? I've read most people felt they were healed when they didn't need therapy anymore, but life is full of challenges and obstacles (and growth on the other side of that); how long do you get trapped in the microscope of your own life? When does it end? (I'm not talking about severe cases, only attachment trauma that doesn't include the more concerning issues).

I dunno anymore...

I was around when Primal Scream therapy became popular and I don't think it's effective as a way for most people to get in touch with and process deep emotional stuff.

But the observation about talk therapy relationships -- yeah, that seems right on for me. I was very vulnerable to that, at a level my rational intellect didn't reach.

my ex-T fed off the admiration and glory i was serving him. and i was obsessively dependent on the crumbs he fed me in return. he loved it until the day when i dared to 'bite the hand that feeds me'. what i thought and felt was something important to explore in my relationship with him, he took as a wounding criticism and withheld the crumbs as punishment.