Couch 156: The Clock Strikes...

he said hed let me know if something opens up

On the topic of "what work does the therapist do". I am not sure what this would be called, but recently when I told t that she asks such hard but good questions, she said "they come from you, you know." That kinda made me pause. Like, they come out of her listening deeply or whatever she calls it? I'm not sure what she meant by saying that they come from me. I should have asked.

Yeah, sometimes I would think to myself "But she's supposedly this great T--if I can't get better with her, then it must be me..." But, as I suspected for a while there, I think she and I just weren't the best fit. Which, incidentally, is something she's said before about my mother and I, too. And I used to think MC would have been the best fit for me, but as an individual T, but have come to realize that's not the case either.

Not that I'm saying T2 is a perfect fit, either (if there even is such a thing!), but so far, he's doing pretty good. The flashes of arrogant douchebaggery he showed at one point there seem to have faded away. He seems more down to earth now. As far as therapeutic style, he seems more...collaborative. Like he's my partner in working through something as opposed to this expert up on some pedestal. And I haven't felt the slightest bit judged by him (despite sharing some pretty big stuff), unlike T1 and, recently, MC.

Of course, as H put it, he still has "new therapist smell" (like new car smell), so maybe this is like the honeymoon T phase. Then again, we've already had one conflict (when he charged me for the e-mail), so it's not like it's all been great. But we also resolved that quickly.

I’m reading my psychology textbook’s chapter on social psychology, and I just read this sentence:

“For example, let’s say a person identifies with the following groups: female, heterosexual, Catholic, and Greek.”

*looks nervously over shoulder*

Where is my tinfoil fedora?

How far is work from therapy? Can you cut your session short or ask work to show up 15 min late due to medical appt?

Our books must be similar! I'm on the Social Psychology chapter too - about to start the section called "Prosocial Relations".

I better line my fedora now.

its 30 minutes away. i cant ask to come late, we are in the holiday season. its not a big deal to me to miss the appt

...and her initials are @@." im sure its just a coincidence!

My T talks a lot about "good enough," a la Winnicott and Bowlby.

Oh i would have to kill him for that. Im kinda sensitive to misspellings of hipaa now. I have a contract manager who smirked at my fatness as he spelled it hippa. Then he went to his bible studies. Okay so im a glutton.

You made me laugh tho - i read "debauchery" for "douchebaggery" re T2 and my eyes went the etymology is probably similar!

Now where can I use the following sentence:

"The flashes of arrogant douchebaggery were displayed in abundance by that gormless twollop of a man."

I would use it to describe a therapist and put it in the active voice.
Irv Yalom for example:
"I read the gift of therapy by Irvin Yalom. That gormless twollop displayed arrogant douchebaggery in abundance"

Came back from walking the dog and went to get a drink and came back to the kittens tying th dog to a chair

Very industrious kittens, they are! Did they next go clean out the dog's food?

How many Catholic Greeks do you know?

Precisely my point.

Um...they’re both French...

Speaking of etymology. T and I were talking about the difference between feelings and emotions, because my psych instructor used the two words interchangeably in the description of what my paper should be about. She said I should call him out on it. Haha. But I don't really even know that I know the difference between feelings and emotions. So just doing a google search I found this, on differencebetween.com:

• Feelings can be suppressed whereas, emotions cannot be easily suppressed.
• Feelings are not easily shown on the face. On the other hand, emotions are easily shown on the face.
• Feelings are inexplicable in character, but emotions are explicable.
• Feelings are common in each one of us whereas, emotions differ from person to person according to a psychological study.

I'm still not entirely clear....

eta: here's another attempted explanation copied from some dude named John Voris, whoever he is: " feelings come from an unchanging belief about life that holds our identity together, while our emotions are purely physically based, subject to change and are basically reactions to life events."

I didn't know there was a difference between feelings and emotions.

I did, however, take a psych class in college during which we discussed the difference between guilt and shame.

For three hours.

And I still don't know what the difference is.

Omg that is just too funny! Im crying!

This explanation follows the one the woman gave:
Difference Between Guilt and Shame | Difference Between

I think of the difference between feelings and emotions as similar to nausea and vomit.

I'm feeling nauseous.

Can I quote you in my paper?

hahaha I give you permission to use it as your own, although I'd love to see ruh roh in an annotated bibilography one day.

Roh, R. 2017. “The relationship between nausea, vomit, feelings and emotions.” PC Journal, vol. 156, pp. 721-725.

The author takes on the age-old debate between the definitions of feelings and emotions with an innovative comparison of them to gastrointestinal functions and symptoms. Throughout, Roh’s evocative language and use of logical parallels persuades the reader of the correctness of the argument. There is an excellent bibliography on the feelings/emotions debate.

Eta: a number of senior academics I know sneak fake citations into their bibliographies. One never publishes an article without citing a work whose author’s name is also that of her dog.