[justbreathe1994]

Random question/curiousity, do any of you find reassurance from your T to be helpful? I go back and forth as sometimes her reassurances never feel like enough or she'll say no to reassuring me about something (like that she cares, for example) because she wants me to reassure myself. Anyways, do you guys find it helpfu? And if so, what sorts of things do you like getting reassurance about? The t relationship? Your hard work? Etc

[stopdog]

It would not be useful for me. I don't think the therapist knows enough to be reassuring. I mean why would I believe the therapist?

[WarmFuzzySocks]

Yes, I find it helpful when she points out the progress I've made or reassures me that I won't feel this way forever.

[stopchewinggum]

It depends what you mean by "reasure." If my T were to turn all heart warming on me, I'd think she was going senile! If it was just "this is normal" or "what else do you think you could have possibly done," then yes, that is helpful. I have impossibly high expectations for myself.

[DP_2017]

Yes it is, for me it's been a huge area I've noticed progress. Example... when I first emailed back in May, I would constantly apologize any time I emailed and say "Im sorry to bother you" and he always kindly told me, I am not a bother, eventually, I believed it, I never say it anymore, I email if I need to without reservation.

There is other similar situations

[healinginprogress]

Yes, I appreciate and look forward to reassurance from my T. She reassures me in pretty much all aspects of my life, from my work in therapy, to my interactions with others (because of some family neglect/emotional abuse, I question pretty much everything about how I interact with others), to my health.

I don't generally look for reassurance from anyone, but appreciate if something significant is acknowledged. I usually only take it well from people whose opinions I respect to start with, otherwise it has no effect on me or even negative. So I appreciated moderate doses of positive reinforcement from the T that I liked/respected, but from the one I did not click with, it mostly sounded as empty, contrived words or even manipulation.

[toomanycats]

Yes, I find reassurance helpful. I am working hard to not use it as a primary coping skill, though. But, we all need other people; we all need reassurance sometimes.

I tend to look for reassurance from my therapist when my fear is specifically related to something about them: e.g., wanting reassurance that something I shared did not make them think I was a bad person or disgusting; wanting reassurance that my therapist is still there.

[Spangle]

My t tends to reassure me when I actually need it. I don’t tend to ask him, but he seems to know when I really need it.

[Swimmersusan]

Yes, for me it's a huge help. I go through stages where I feel like we going to abandon me before I'm ready, I'm too much for her to handle, she must be annoyed with me etc... without her reassurance on these particular topics I think I would have run away at one point or another. As time goes on I'm getting better with it, but every now and then the self doubt comes in and once again I look to seek the reassurance

[LonesomeTonight]

I definitely find it to be helpful in the shorter term and, to some extent, in the longer term. My marriage counselor (MC) tends to provide reassurance (that he's still there, that he's not angry at me, that he won't reject or abandon me, etc.), which I find to be helpful and comforting. But then he'll say he needs to stop reassuring me, because then I just get caught up in that cycle where I'm looking outside for reassurance. (Which I admit is easy to do...) What I need to do is to learn to reassure myself. Which is much easier to say than to do. Yet he still tends to end up reassuring me if I'm looking for it... I do think his reassurance is helping me become more secure over time, both with him and with others (like H).

T2 has done something helpful at the end of the past two sessions, after I told him a few weeks ago that I worried I'd shared too much and he wouldn't want to work with me anymore. The last two sessions, he's ended by saying something like, "Nothing you've told me during this session has made me not want to work with you. Unless I'm hit by a bus or stuck under something heavy in the basement, I'll be here for our appointment next week." I think of that as "preemptive reassurance," since my fears of rejection/abandonment don't tend to pop up until after the appointment. The past couple weeks, I've just tried to replay what he said at the end of the session to remind myself, and it seems to be working.

[alpacalicious]

I would like reassurance from a T, but then i think I would hate it at the same time...like I feel treated like a child, and this bothers me. My previous T was very reassuring, and I never liked her...I felt like she was watching me as if I were a "sad puppy" with pity and I didn't like it. I never felt really challenged. I think I need more harsh words to see through my BS.

[junkDNA]

Yes it was and still is. But I became totally dependant on it and it started to get detrimental.