Does anyone find it hard when they have really opened up and been personal, to have your t then be polite but professional.

I wrote a letter pouring out all my thoughts and feelings. Very personal, deep stuff. Then they text me soon after they got it, sounding very professional about changing the next appointment time.

It may sound dumb but the contrast just feels like a slap after being so personal.

Not sure if anyone will understand. Im not saying I dont want my t to be professional but its hard to be open then feel slapped with oh... thats right.. this is a business deal feeling right after.

[growlycat]

That is part of the reason I appreciate my t’s more open working style.

[DP_2017]

I've had 2 times where his email felt dismissive, I called them on it and now he wont reply unless he has time to write a proper response, I rarely email anyway.

Usually, he seems very understand and kind with stuff like this. I would hate it otherwise so I don't blame you for feeling frustrated

Originally Posted by Coming up tails

Does anyone find it hard when they have really opened up and been personal, to have your t then be polite but professional.

...

It may sound dumb but the contrast just feels like a slap after being so personal.

Not sure if anyone will understand. Im not saying I dont want my t to be professional but its hard to be open then feel slapped with oh... thats right.. this is a business deal feeling right after.

It does not sound dumb at all and I have definitely felt that slap you describe. You pour out what to you feels like your soul and what you want in return is not polite professionalism, but a little heart.

It is definitely a reminder that I am paying the person sitting across from me to teach me how to be vulnerable while they remain safe behind their role. But I have called my T on it a couple of times. I understand the need for professional distance so they can remain objective, but they can take that a bit too far in what I believe is self-preservation instead of what's best for the client.

[MoxieDoxie]

You bet!! Agonizing over writing about raw feelings and being transparent for it to be dismissed or not addressed at all! I become passive aggressive and say to myself..."Fu@# that I am not telling him anything anymore. He does not deserve it." Like that is punishing him or something. Who does that hurt? It only hurts me I guess.

I am not sure I have experienced this. She becomes tearful when I open up. It feels like she meets my personal with her personal. This is just as difficult for me to manage and understand as a professional response to vulnerability might be.

[wheeler]

Yes, after sending her some difficult writing she responded terribly. We talked about it later and she agreed and apologized. To be fair, sometimes it’s hard to communicate via email/text, although hers are usually supportive.

[zoiecat]

Personally I have never had this problem because my T does not work through email or text.

I have given him some of the worst of my worst several times in writing but I hand it to him at the beginning of session. He reads it immediately and responds in depth to everything I wrote. It will usually take the entire session and those have been some of my most productive times in therapy.

Occassionally when I have not had a chance to print it out I will email the Word doc while sitting in the waiting room and ask him to print it out as soon as I get into session.

Only once did I email him with my feelings prior to session and that was after a SI session where I cancelled the next session. He called to check up on me and insisted I email him either way prior to next session. I was experiencing a rupture that he was not aware of. Since he was making me email him, I decided to send the Word doc the day before and explained to him that I wanted to give him a heads up on what was going on in my head and I didn't want to put him on the spot by giving it to him in session. I did not expect a response. He was great the next day. He immediately addressed my concerns, apologized sincerely for his actions and told me how he planned on changing for the future.

In short, I always find it more productive and successful to let my T respond in session. Emails and texts are finite conversations. There is no connection or nuance. No opportunity for immediate feedback and for conversation and clarification. Yes, sitting with your feelings for a few days is sometimes difficult and painful but I find the results are well worth it. Besides, my T always says every time I sit with my negative feelings mindfully I get a bit stronger and more able to tolerate my emotions which afterall is one of the goals of therapy.

[AnnaBegins]

I felt exactly the same way with my T - used to hurt the most when I opened up about something that was really hard for me to share. It was like I took a huge risk and put myself on the line and opened myself up for his judgement and his response seemed to read like it was no big deal and it didn't matter all that much to him. I'm sure some of the time it was me reading into things or assigning way too much importance to something that truly wasn't...but even during those times, it hurt like hell and I had a hard time opening up again afterwards.

[LonesomeTonight]

Yes, I've had this happen with my marriage counselor and ex-T. With MC, I've sent him some e-mails being very open about things, mostly transference stuff for him. He's generally very good in his responses--brief but caring. But there were a couple where it sounded, as I put it to him in my response, "like you're being a generic therapist responding to a generic client instead of you, MC, responding to me, LT." As if he'd looked in a therapist book of "How to respond when a client says x" and used that response. Ex-T tended to be very brief and not say much in her responses, so I didn't generally expect a good response from her. But MC tended to set the bar high for himself, so when he sent a very professional instead of personal/caring response, it was more difficult.

Just to clarify....

Its normal for me to drop off letters between sessions. Then he always goes over them in our next session. I had dropped off the latest letter for tomorrows session, then hours later he had txt with a slight time change. I am assuming the receptionist had since passed on the letter to him.

He doesnt reply, to my letters in txt but it was the fact that he didnt mention it and went straight into just being professional.

The time change is minimal I guess but the other thing that bothered me was feeling like are you postponing our time by an hour and half just to see someone else . Then I felt bad not knowing why he suddenly changed a set a appointment time.

It was just the combination of things that seem to trigger depressed feelings.Especially after being so vulnerable.

[nottrustin]

I have a few times. What I have found is that often when it happens I think it should be very clear what is going on, it is not. I tend to sensor my emotions in person as well as the emails. In sessions she is better able to read my emotions because she can read my body language and facial expressions. In emails that is not as clear.

[Anne2.0]

I've felt like this has happened when I would share my very personal journey when I was in the throes of deep trauma work, and he would hand it back to me politely without saying a word, or maybe the phrase "thank you for sharing."

At some point I mentioned this, and T explained that he didn't want to say anything until I brought it up first, as it was very personal, and he didn't want to impose his thoughts or reactions until I indicated I was ready to hear them. He was quite eager to talk about them when I did raise something I wrote about in my journal.

So when you say the T's reaction is like being slapped with the reality of the business relationship, is it possible you are interpreting respect for your in-chargeness of raising this material when you feel ready to (that T is just waiting for you and respecting your timeline) as something negative?

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

I've felt like this has happened when I would share my very personal journey when I was in the throes of deep trauma work, and he would hand it back to me politely without saying a word, or maybe the phrase "thank you for sharing."

At some point I mentioned this, and T explained that he didn't want to say anything until I brought it up first, as it was very personal, and he didn't want to impose his thoughts or reactions until I indicated I was ready to hear them. He was quite eager to talk about them when I did raise something I wrote about in my journal.

So when you say the T's reaction is like being slapped with the reality of the business relationship, is it possible you are interpreting respect for your in-chargeness of raising this material when you feel ready to (that T is just waiting for you and respecting your timeline) as something negative?

When it is raised in session, its usually fine and I dont feel slapped with professionalism. It was just probably the timing of the text, and time change that triggered me because what I wrote was so personal. I dont know... I just feel easily triggered right now.

[SalingerEsme]

I get really sad over this same issue, and I understand. It is so intimate, and we forget that one person has higher/ different stakes than the other, until some little thing reminds us - our personal; their professional.

[stopdog]

I never wanted a response to any thing I wrote. I wrote the woman to get it away from me. Her responses were useless whether in writing or in person. Not because of it being professional but because the responses were insane.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Coming up tails

I wrote a letter pouring out all my thoughts and feelings. Very personal, deep stuff. Then they text me soon after they got it, sounding very professional about changing the next appointment time.

Does't seem much different from the emotional withholding one might face in an abusive or toxic relationship. I found it humiliating and bizarre, whether via email or in person.

Vulnerability and clinical distance... there two things don't really go together, totally incongruent. And of course if you find it unpalatable, it's a sign of your emerging pathology, rather than a normal response to something freakishly unnatural.

Originally Posted by BudFox

Does't seem much different from the emotional withholding one might face in an abusive or toxic relationship. I found it humiliating and bizarre, whether via email or in person.

Vulnerability and clinical distance... there two things don't really go together, totally incongruent. And of course if you find it unpalatable, it's a sign of your emerging pathology, rather than a normal response to something freakishly unnatural.

Maybe you should be my therapist....

Im falling for your reasoning