Couch 158: The Newberry Couch!

The mechanic emailed me last week to say a new motor would cost between AUD2500 and 3000. My car isnt even worth $1500. So I have accessed my super and will buy a half decent car from a sales yard.

Session in exactly 10 minutes and I'm already crying.

I know this this one will end up. I'm struggling on one session a week. The self harm urges have become stronger and more frequent. My brother is also in his second year and has January exams as well so I can't lean on him right now and I know he struggles just as much as me.

The erotic transfer died down but it's been replaced with the parental one again. I'm ashamed of my feelings towards him. I want nothing more than to just call him dad- but whilst he tells me that I was kind, that I had value and that he cared the truth is I don't really think that he would ever want a daughter like me.

I ordered him a gift card and chocolate for his birthday over the weekend.But he wasn't in and it was accepted by a neighbor. I feel like a fool- just creating additional problems for him.

*hugs Lemoncake*

The sidebar on drumming and therapy - is it positive? or meh? I've found it a helpful component of my therapy, then again, I do the drumming thing on my own too apart from therapy so maybe that's why. Just curious what your book says about it. That day when I got to t's and heard her drumming inside from my car, it relaxed me even just barely hearing it. Even without the journeying part, I find the drumbeat soothing.

For @@ and others who have talked about how children tell stories, this tale of the nativity narrated by kids, acted by adults, showcases their creative storytelling abilities:

Positive? It ends up saying studies show some correlation between drumming in therapy and improvement of depression. Then it finishes by warning that drum circles are social and not a replacement for a drumming therapist.

((((Lemoncake)))) and anyone else who wants.

Haha. Of course they want to ensure that people remember they need to pay one of them or at least revere.

Just read this in one of their ce brochures:

'Master specific behaviors that elicit trust, like a sing-songy, rhythmic voice; open, curious eyes; reassuring touch; and sounds of empathy"

Argghh - not the curious eyes..aaahhhhhhgggg

It sounds like they're training somebody to play with a baby, not do therapy.

"Sounds of empathy"--I wonder if that's like my current T doing the "Mmm" thing in an empathic voice when I'm talking about something difficult? (I'm sure that would drive you nuts, SD!)

My thoughts precisely when I read that.

I think there's an emoticon for the open, curious eyes.

This is pretty much 3 except for the touching. I always thought it was due to her actor parents and brief acting career of her own, but guess that was just prep for being a therapist.

And yet people get huffy and mad and so forth at me when I say those guys are trained in acting and manipulation.

And that eye thingy freaks me the **** out. Both in the little picture and when the woman did it at me - totally the creeps.

Oh, MC has explained some of his techniques to us, demonstrating how he does the "hugging from across the room" thing. So now when he does that, I think, "ah, he's doing the hugging thing." It's like a magician revealing their tricks.

Actually, no. What people get "huffy" about is when you say everything every therapist does is acting. I don't think anyone argues that therapists are trained in techniques that are at times scripted (thus techniques). Those techniques bother you; some of those techniques probably bother all of us at one time or another. I do not agree, however, that everything every therapist does is an act (which is frequently how you tend to put it). That's what people get "huffy" about -- the generalization.

Actually, no - that may be what upsets you about what I say about their entire presentation (although why you would care about my generalizations about therapists is beyond me) being an act (and I do believe what I say with commitment and fervor - no one else needs to agree with me but I stand completely and firmly behind this belief) - but many people - not just here - get huffy at any suggestion of manipulation or acting on the part of therapists. The first woman got huffy when I would point out she was manipulating and being wily. The second one would admit it.
Reading some of those people's articles shows how huffy they get when it gets pointed out by clients or lay people to them.

I don't really mind my therapist's tricks. Sometimes I give her crap about them, which she accepts good-naturedly. She does a thing that I call Empathy Eyes™ that I actually kinda like. I think we all have techniques for showing our concern. Maybe it's more natural for other people than it is for me, but when my spouse or a friend is upset, I am thinking on some level about the appropriate way to show that I am listening and that I care, either with a hug or a statement of validation or a well-timed "argh!" of shared frustration. It doesn't mean that I don't actually feel anything for them or what they're telling me.

E) a hostage situation

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

And yet it is a very useful thing to know there is a man behind the curtain.

One of my favorite non-stephen crane poems by Phillip Lopate:
We who are your closest friends feel the time has come to tell you that every Thursday we have been meeting, as a group, to devise ways to keep you in perpetual uncertainty frustration discontent and torture by neither loving you as much as you want nor cutting you adrift. Your analyst is in on it, plus your boyfriend and your ex-husband; and we have pledged to disappoint you as long as you need us. In announcing our association we realize we have placed in your hands a possible antidote against uncertainty indeed against ourselves. But since our Thursday nights have brought us to a community of purpose rare in itself with you as the natural center, we feel hopeful you will continue to make unreasonable demands for affection if not as a consequence of your disastrous personality then for the good of the collective.”

I believe it is because those guys see and treat clients as babies all the while denying it.

Pay attention, Pay attention - I want to yell. I believe that in not paying attention that way lies peril.
And not just enough peril, but way too much peril.

My T just said something like that a couple of weeks ago. There is a book written by her former professor that is hugely influential in how she does therapy. She told me I wouldn't be able to find it, so of course I had to track it down and read it. For a while I was pointing out what she was doing in session by name, and it was quite enjoyable when it caught her off guard that I had "read her playbook." I have forgotten a lot of it now, though, so she's back behind the curtain a little more. The stuff in the book was all pretty benign and well-intentioned, though.

The first woman denied and obfuscated and gaslighted to the bitter end. The last communication with that one was a textbook example. IF I thought she had done it on purpose, it would have been brilliantly cruel. But alas - I have come to believe it was mere laziness. I completely doubt any assertion it was well-intentioned.
The thing for me is that even though I read about their techniques and can identify them - I still wanted the woman to admit she did X to get me to do/feel/etc Y. And Y was never my response - usually my response was frustrated rage at how badly she failed. It always seemed to me like she was simply treating me like a moron both in the technique and because I did not see how Y would help at all - I wanted the explanation about how Y was supposed to help me in the way I wanted help.
That she was not harmful during my person's illness and death is simply because she could not be - I paid her less attention than usual. Even she could not make that situation worse nor could she humiliate me over how I felt about it. I don't recall her doing the techniques then - but I am sure she did - it was that nothing she did or said (I cannot remember a single thing about the therapist int that time period) registered. It was only more recently that I started seeing that she was talking and treating me like a slack-jawed yokel again - and so I quit.

I took the Flexeril at around 7:30 p.m. and was asleep by 8:30! Only 5 mg. But today I'm still tired and slightly dizzy! So how can I drive if the next day I'm still groggy? And pain is still there. Just took my 2 Advil. I needed to go grocery shopping. Now I don't think I can. So, I didn't sleep it off, but it definitely helped me sleep!

So is it about her denying your autonomy and freedom of self-determination? I think it's weird that you haven't been able to find a therapist who can help you. My sense is that you're an unusual client, but for a therapist with a certain personality type, I think that would be refreshing. Also, I think you would hate my mostly soft and squishy T. I find her to be a formidable foe at times, but I doubt you would.