Session Update

So, I had my session last night. First when I get there, a woman comes out of his office (client) and says 'bye John'...(made up name).

What?? I call him Dr. Blah and she's calling him John?? We had a thread on here about this before and at the time, I never heard a client refer to him by name...

We didn't get too deep into transference discussions but we did talk a lot about the kind of relationship I want to be in...I do realize that the feelings I have for him are what I'd like to have with someone...

I did manage to say 'well at least my latest behavioral activity means that I leave you alone between sessions!"

T said "I know, I've been replaced"...of course I told him there is no replacement...I jokingly wanted to say 'oh so it is okay to email or call you whenever I feel like it? Hee hee.

So I guess that I just admitted because he is not available when I need him (oh I mean when I think I need him)...I have found a distraction and he knows that I know, that he knows...what I'm doing...

Anyway, upon further analysis by me, the connection I am making is that I am avoiding the 'hard work' of therapy because it is 1) painful, 2) hard for me to talk about (transference stuff)and completely up to me when this gets resolved.

Great...

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almeda24fan said:
So, I had my session last night. First when I get there, a woman comes out of his office (client) and says 'bye John'...(made up name).

What?? I call him Dr. Blah and she's calling him John?? We had a thread on here about this before and at the time, I never heard a client refer to him by name...

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I would have knocked her out. Did I just say that? Um, I mean I would have smiled and said hello. Yeah. That's it. Sure. You can do one better-- next week say hello to him by a nickname... "Hey, what's up J-MAN!!" Can you imagine?

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Anyway, upon further analysis by me, the connection I am making is that I am avoiding the 'hard work' of therapy because it is 1) painful, 2) hard for me to talk about (transference stuff)and completely up to me when this gets resolved.

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Did you tell him this? It sounds like you did a lot of hard work so far... especially last session... don't beat the crap out of yourself yet... I think you're doing a great job. We can't always go so deep every single session, you know? It's exhausting.

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almeda24fan said:

We didn't get too deep into transference discussions but we did talk a lot about the kind of relationship I want to be in...I do realize that the feelings I have for him are what I'd like to have with someone...



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I like this! gotta go think about it now.

Pink, I know. I would've tripped her if I could

I guess this begs another question. I always wait to be told that it is okay to call someone by their first name. Maybe that is silly. He refers to himself when he calls me by first name and last name without the Dr. part.

Maybe all this time I could've called him by his first name but my fear of disrespecting him is there.

I'm like this with many adults I meet. For instance I called my husband's parents Mr. and Mrs. for a long time until one day they said 'it's okay to refer to us as mom and dad ya know'...

Mouse, that is what I'm thinking...how ever we feel about our T's is what we desire in our own life but don't have. Our T's seem perfect to us and this presents sort of an ideal relationship...I guess.

I need to think too

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almeda24fan said:
I guess this begs another question. I always wait to be told that it is okay to call someone by their first name. Maybe that is silly.

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I think it just shows you are somewhat formal in how you address people, and I think that's OK! If it really mattered to him, he would say, "please call me John." If you really want to call him John, but are uncertain how it would be received, you could always ask, "we've known each other a while now--would you mind if I called you John?"

I got my T the first time, relative new out of the box :-) she'd only been a therapist around 5+ years. Her first name is "formal" and "complicated" so I started thinking of her by her first initial and in my journal I'd refer to her that way, as "E". Well, one day I told her that. . . and she had a fit, going on how that wasn't her name, respectful, etc. So I got scared and switched, even in my journal to writing/making myself refer to her by her whole first name again.

So I see her 9 years, don't see her 9 years, and see her again (for 9 years) so somewhere in that 27 years, around year 22 :-) I "remind" her of that incident and tell her how scared I got, etc. and this time she reacts "appropriately" and apologizes for going off on me :-) and confirmed I had been using her initial as a "pet" name and that was great. . . but I still use her whole name and get anxious thinking about it.