[here today]

Thanks once again, Forum.

I can express myself and learn from others here in ways that I could not in therapy.

Unlike some others, I do believe there is some merit in the psychoanalytic observations and abstractions that pass for “theory” in psychoanalysis. Lots of non-merit, too.

In particular, I wrote on stopdog’s recent poll on internalizing a therapist, that I had found my last therapist (several others, too) to be a “shaming, blaming, rejecting faker” and that I would certainly not want to internalize that.

However – the fact that I even wrote that allowed me to express a negative view that I saw or felt about that last therapist – AND

I can’t help but wonder if I don’t have already/still an internalized shaming, blaming, rejecting faker representing my mother, grandmother, aunts, and even the general female culture in which I grew up. Not directly, usually, but in non-verbal glowers of disapproval and emotional withdrawal.

In which case, I wonder if what I have needed was to “eject” what had been internalized, at least as much if not more than I have needed internalize something else.

Anybody else have any ideas about this, or experience with something similar?

[feileacan]

I have had many such experiences in my therapy. I have attacked my therapist countless times (few times even physically) and sometimes I have felt that there is so much ugly and dark matter inside me that needs to be ejected some how and that comes out with those attacks.

I have no idea how much I have it in me because this process definitely hasn't finished. Although it's strange to think that I haven't said anything bad to my therapist this week I'm pretty sure that even last week I told him how useless and stupid he is. Just recently I did not let him speak and send him to a... as soon as he tried to say something.

So far he has been taking it really well and there is no sign that this would change. So I guess that with his help I have been able to eject lots of bad stuff already. I'm pretty sure that this is just pure hatred towards my mother but although I consciously know it, I can't feel it. But I don't care - if I'm able to get it out of my system then it doesn't really matter if I can't consciously hate my mother.

At the same time I think I'm taking in as well. So the internalisation and ejection go hand in hand, at least for me.

I dfinitely believe that I had to get rid of all the negative junk my mother/parents and others put me through. Shame was my core. It was hard to voice the shame in therapy because that was being a trader to the family. I would share the shameful stories and then take them back, I was lying. A particular therapist helped me remove the toxic substances, but bits and pieces still hang around. They're just easier to deal with. I do believe it is important to eject the junk, but it helps to have someone or something in your life to begin to fill the abyss.

Here today, thank you for your thoughtful discussion threads that require deep thought.

I think I understand the concept and experience of internalizing people. I think it is a bit like transference: often discussed in the context of therapy, and many Ts like to work with it, but it is not specific to therapy and can happen there as well simply because it is a universal phenomenon for people (not saying it applies to everyone, but common enough). I think it is an essential part of developing our personalities in early life and building our social personas mostly unconsciously when we are very young. And I think people internalize the good, bad, ugly, and everything in between in these ways, it just requires relationships with people, especially longer ones. I can easily trace back a few people from earlier in my life that I internalized in some ways, and there have been both benefits and more negative patterns created this way.

I also had a pretty scary experience with my first T. He would be the last person I would want to internalize, but in the end I found myself reacting to him in some similarly manipulative and sneaky ways to his, which really scared the *** out of me when I recognized it because it was very uncharacteristic of me, never happened before. I am very glad that I stopped all contact with him even just to nip that in the bud. Of course I tried to look at it more deeply in ways the psychoanalyst might - was that effect an interaction with something else inside me that I may not be aware of and repressed very effectively, even with all most tendencies for introspection? Maybe, in some ways, as I am definitely not someone who behaves in hostile ways often, especially impulsively... but when looking at it in perspective, I did have similar ones (just less severe) before, on occasion. And they were all triggered by similar kinds of people/behaviors to my Ts. So that is interesting, but I don't think I need a T to investigate this, can use everyday relationships perfectly well if I am observant about it. I also think that there is a lot of truth and merit in psychoanalytic theories and approaches (why I got interested in trying it a few years ago), but also that many psychoanalysts take it too far, into overly simplified and generalized dogmas, plus it can get too stuck in the past and in the client-T relationship sometimes.

I think I also internalized some good things from my second T, mostly small things about his professional communication style that I really liked. They are subtle but I feel they have made me a bit better communicator in some ways. I found it easy to pick them up from him as we had so many similarities in general - I did not resist it and the little "tricks" I learned fit well into my already existing style and values.

From other relationships... I think the most massive, long-term influence in my life in this way came from my father - it is quite complex and mostly positive for me. Not only positive. And a few mentors from my younger years would come next. Luckily, I feel that not much stuck in me from my mom - she was a very insecure, sad and clingy person who, unfortunately, never found the close and loving bonds with others that she obviously craved. I detached myself from her massively when I was very young, 4-5 years of age and remained that way until her death, mostly. I would definitely do it differently now, with my adult understanding of her in retrospect. But what did remain from it, I think, is decades struggling to establish emotional bonds with females and understand women better, unless their interests and personalities are quite close to mine. I am aware of this now and try to go against the current, but do feel the current anyway. Probably this is an example for the lack of internalizing female figures early in my life?

I feel that the internalizing happens all the time and it is an important element of social learning and the development of our identities even when we do not recognize it's happening. I would even risk it may be part of how we can have empathy - an ability to imagine someone else's situation, feelings and thoughts. I think the development of it requires examples and experiences in social life and probably if someone is extremely isolated, resists social influences, or have too many bad examples and encounters, these abilities may not develop so well. And there is also the other side, when someone is too prone to focusing on others and feel for them at the expense of their own stability - I think that probably also has to do with inappropriate amount and quality of social interaction and learning in earlier life. But I digress a but too far now

Yes, thank you heretoday for starting another thoughtful discussion.

Some of my internalizations of others were dissociated off from the rest of me as introjects and emerged in the therapy followed by subsequent integration. This was one of the most difficult things I've ever gone through in my adult life. Becoming aware of the introjects (there were 2) was horrible actually. My T was helpful at first, but when they manifested fully with anger and all, he did not handle it so well. Part of it, I think, is the way he views dissociation.

You've discussed your dissociation here in the past, so I thought you'd be interested. I think the less compartmentalized form of this turns into the inner critic, or superego. I am really regressed in therapy, so I think the way my T works (ie, usually pointing out negative things about me and making everything pathological, which often came across as critical) caused some new internalization that added to the more diffuse inner critic I have. I didn't realize it at the time, unfortunately, but at least we are working a bit differently now.

Originally Posted by feileacan

Although it's strange to think that I haven't said anything bad to my therapist this week I'm pretty sure that even last week I told him how useless and stupid he is. Just recently I did not let him speak and send him to a... as soon as he tried to say something.

I am always intrigued by stories like this from people that have similar experiences and still keep going to see the same T for a long time. What keeps the motivation going? What are the benefits of experiencing these negative things on repeat, so much that one is willing to even pay for it? I am just asking because I am honestly intrigued each time I hear others' experiences with going to a T for a long time and experiencing a lot of discomfort, hateful feelings, even an opportunity to express these intensely on repeat. I stopped twice after quite a short while once this type of dynamic started with my first T as no matter how I looked and how he tried to convince me, I just did not feel any benefit and it made me worse worrying about stuff I did not have any significant issues with previously. Subjectively, I perceived the Ts behavior that triggered me as abusive and manipulative and I generally have very low tolerance for that even in everyday relationships. I guess for many people who find expressing intense negative emotions in therapy useful don't have bad/abusive therapists and I guess it is an opportunity for relief and understanding? I know theories about it, am just really curious in practical reality, what keeps people doing this type of therapy long-term. For me personally, if someone is a decent, open-minded person and is not hostile/manipulative with me, I rarely have an urge to attack them or to shut them down. And when I do, it takes quite a lot and a situation from which I feel I cannot escape.

[here today]

Thanks so much! You all have really given me some things to think about.

When my last therapist and I were working from a "parts" perspective, there were two potentially "evil" but presumably self-protective parts that I worked very hard to get to know, because a near lifetime of shutting them out hadn't worked.

Sounds a lot like your experience, too, maybe, Rayne?

It's also very interesting, feileacan, that your therapist takes it, and mine couldn't. But having gone through 18 months of darkness, including feeling a lot of hatred toward that therapist, and with the support of this forum, I am able currently both to love my female relatives, feel the enormous pain, and see how they behaved -- even if I first wrote about it with regard to my last therapist, for whom it is also true.

[feileacan]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

I am always intrigued by stories like this from people that have similar experiences and still keep going to see the same T for a long time. What keeps the motivation going? What are the benefits of experiencing these negative things on repeat, so much that one is willing to even pay for it? I am just asking because I am honestly intrigued each time I hear others' experiences with going to a T for a long time and experiencing a lot of discomfort, hateful feelings, even an opportunity to express these intensely on repeat. I stopped twice after quite a short while once this type of dynamic started with my first T as no matter how I looked and how he tried to convince me, I just did not feel any benefit and it made me worse worrying about stuff I did not have any significant issues with previously. Subjectively, I perceived the Ts behavior that triggered me as abusive and manipulative and I generally have very low tolerance for that even in everyday relationships. I guess for many people who find expressing intense negative emotions in therapy useful don't have bad/abusive therapists and I guess it is an opportunity for relief and understanding? I know theories about it, am just really curious in practical reality, what keeps people doing this type of therapy long-term. For me personally, if someone is a decent, open-minded person and is not hostile/manipulative with me, I rarely have an urge to attack them or to shut them down. And when I do, it takes quite a lot and a situation from which I feel I cannot escape.

The answer is the one you also wrote out yourself - although I experience intense hateful feelings to my therapist these feelings don't stem from him or what he does, these feelings come from inside me and should be really directed towards my mother and father who basically completely abandoned me emotionally. My T is very decent, has never done anything that would be even close to abusive or disrespectful. However, in my therapy sessions I'm not the rational adult I'm in my everyday life, there all sorts of transferences emerge.

There have been periods when the transferences/projections are very strong and then I've seriously considered breaking up with my T. Then again when I'm able to see things more objectively, I understand that I've been extremely lucky with my T and the chances that I would find a better T in my country (even among psychoanalysts) are quite dim. I've realised that the few others who are available here are more traditional Freudians and that's not something that would be useful for me with such an early trauma background. I would also not dare to see anyone else with less rigorous training, especially when I now know how many intense emotions I bring into this treatment - I would not risk with a new therapist who very likely would not be able to tolerate my hatred.

The other aspect is that usually my projections are not that strong. Usually these intense feelings only surface during my therapy our and I'm able to leave them behind when I'm leaving. It has not always been that way but sure it makes everything so much more easier.

What's the point in repeatedly experiencing these negative feelings? The answer to me is obvious - these things are part of me, they have been suppressed for decades but they have nevertheless always been part of me. While suppressing these intense negative feelings, many good feelings have also been automatically suppressed. I realise that if I want to start experiencing more good and pleasurable I also need to learn about those bad things. I don't know any other way of learning about them other than via experiencing. I think I'm very lucky that I have a T who understands that and who provides me the room were I can experience these feelings, even if it occasionally means that he has to do heavy boundary forcing.

[feileacan]

The other aspect is perhaps that I'm really going to therapy to treat this early interpersonal trauma. I don't have any other objective, usual mental health problems - I don't have depression or anxiety or substance abuse. I'm not bipolar or schizophrenic. I'm fully functional at work, I have some personal relationships but I'm extremely introverted and I don't really desire more friends. I'm not seeing a psychiatrist and I'm not taking any medications.

[here today]

Originally Posted by feileacan

I have had many such experiences in my therapy. I have attacked my therapist countless times (few times even physically) and sometimes I have felt that there is so much ugly and dark matter inside me that needs to be ejected some how and that comes out with those attacks.

I have no idea how much I have it in me because this process definitely hasn't finished. Although it's strange to think that I haven't said anything bad to my therapist this week I'm pretty sure that even last week I told him how useless and stupid he is. Just recently I did not let him speak and send him to a... as soon as he tried to say something.

So far he has been taking it really well and there is no sign that this would change. So I guess that with his help I have been able to eject lots of bad stuff already. I'm pretty sure that this is just pure hatred towards my mother but although I consciously know it, I can't feel it. But I don't care - if I'm able to get it out of my system then it doesn't really matter if I can't consciously hate my mother.

At the same time I think I'm taking in as well. So the internalisation and ejection go hand in hand, at least for me.

I've been thinking about this a lot.

Things were/are a little different for me. My vindictive, attacking responses were kind of dissociated, in their own separate "part". Along with knowledge of what triggered them, which included a feeling/awareness of "hurt" inside me. AND, importantly I think, awareness of negativity in how people treated me sometimes. It was like I was just cognitively oblivious, blind.

Do you feel any "hurt" at or around the same time as you attack your T?

"Hurt" can also lead to hate, I expect. Does that ring true for you?

I reexperienced the "developmental trauma" of feeling/being rejected by my last T and definitely hated her. Still do sometimes. That feeling also connected up several months later to feelings I had had as a child, but dissociated. I can now experience both hate and love toward the female relatives and "role models" whom I felt rejected by, or the memory of them, who were around when I was a child.

But I haven't internalized anything else yet. May never? I'm old so maybe that makes a difference, too.

The theory of self psychology suggests to me that what I may need now is some "alter egos", people somewhat like me, who are easy for me to empathize with because we are similar and vice versa. Or something like that.

I'm definitely not a perfect person, and in fact somewhat of an oddball temperamentally. So it's been kind of hard.

Still, it would be nice if my kind of "personality disorder" could be overcome in some way. I'm still working on it.

Are you looking for anything in addition to the ability to experience a fuller range of feelings? Any changes in social relationships, etc.?

[feileacan]

Originally Posted by here today

I've been thinking about this a lot.

Things were/are a little different for me. My vindictive, attacking responses were kind of dissociated, in their own separate "part". Along with knowledge of what triggered them, which included a feeling/awareness of "hurt" inside me. AND, importantly I think, awareness of negativity in how people treated me sometimes. It was like I was just cognitively oblivious, blind.

Do you feel any "hurt" at or around the same time as you attack your T?

"Hurt" can also lead to hate, I expect. Does that ring true for you?

I reexperienced the "developmental trauma" of feeling/being rejected by my last T and definitely hated her. Still do sometimes. That feeling also connected up several months later to feelings I had had as a child, but dissociated. I can now experience both hate and love toward the female relatives and "role models" whom I felt rejected by, or the memory of them, who were around when I was a child.

But I haven't internalized anything else yet. May never? I'm old so maybe that makes a difference, too.

The theory of self psychology suggests to me that what I may need now is some "alter egos", people somewhat like me, who are easy for me to empathize with because we are similar and vice versa. Or something like that.

I'm definitely not a perfect person, and in fact somewhat of an oddball temperamentally. So it's been kind of hard.

Still, it would be nice if my kind of "personality disorder" could be overcome in some way. I'm still working on it.

Are you looking for anything in addition to the ability to experience a fuller range of feelings? Any changes in social relationships, etc.?

I'm wondering what you mean by saying that your attacking responses were dissociated. For me, my rage (and also other stuff) is/was dissociated as well - in my non-therapy life I barely ever got angry to anyone, mild frustration was the most I experienced. The things I've experienced in therapy are/were definitely coming from a part unknown to me before starting therapy. For a long time I could see that things happened to me in therapy and I could remember and recount them afterwards but I couldn't connect to them emotionally. I mostly still can't but while previously I absolutely couldn't reflect on anything while in those (I would say borderline'ish) states, now I've discovered that I can at least a little bit, which is a new thing to me. It seems to me that when you talk about dissociated experiences you mean something different?

It actually took another therapist (whom I saw because of a temporarily moving) to realise that my self is fragmented and consists of parts - not in a DID kind of way, but still parts that don't have much connection between each other. While seeing him I had several dreams and I made few spontaneous drawings that according to him expressed very vividly the inner fragmentation. I think my T (whom I had seen 2 years before this move) thought that I'm much healthier than I really was - just because I was fully functional on the outside. I came back and over time I was able to convince my T with the understanding I've obtained about myself with the help of the temporary T.

It seems the attacks to my T have always been related to some hurt but the hurts of such a huge magnitude that it's even impossible to understand at that moment what they are about. It's the hurt of feeling completely invisible and non-existent (and you can't say it because you're not existing), of feeling locked into a too small place where you don't really fit in and don't have enough room, the feeling of being completely alone in the world and no one seeing it. Then the anger has been about the T not seeing/sensing it (while I'm not displaying any sign of any distress, but the distress increases and increases and finally it gets out of control). The anger and rage has also been related to him instilling hope into me as if pleasure from closeness and intimacy with other people would be possible for me and my own judgement at that moment that there is an invisible but unbreakable glass wall between me and this pleasure and my belief that he doesn't see it. Things like that.

Maybe for me things are different - I don't remember the feeling of loving my parents. In fact, I don't remember the feeling of loving anyone when I was child. Didn't even know that love exists. I discovered the childish love towards a parent in therapy and I also discovered parental-like love in therapy. These discoveries were very important to me to understand what is or should happen between me and my kids. These experiences gave me the framework that I had completely missing. Although I instinctively made many things right with my kids, I did not understand the child-parent relationship conceptually. I was certain that by the age of 3 my kids don't want to have anything to do with me (as I remembered from my own childhood and I thought it was normal).

I have discovered that I have two concepts of "mother" in my head - one is stemming from my childhood and related to my own mother and the feelings related to this concept are ones of irritation, disgust, boredom and such. Previously, when someone talked about something about mother (whether his/her own or in general), this concept was activated and I couldn't understand how people want to do anything with their mothers. Now I also have another concept of mother, which has emerged based on the maternal-parental love I have experienced with my T and which I can also relate to when I think about how my kids relate to me. This concept does not activate automatically though, I have to consciously choose to activate it but I have it and I think this is a very concrete internalisation artefact related to my T.

Do I have any concrete goals other than experiencing fuller range of feelings? Not really. As I said I'm extremely introverted and although I have some people in my social circle, I meet with those people perhaps once per 2-3 month and I don't really have any close friends besides by H. Being with people drains my energy, I guess because I present some kind of facade I believe they want to see - I have absolutely no idea how to honestly present a fragmented self socially. I also do not worry about not having particular goals. I believe that the goals come when I'm ready for them and it's pointless to have goals for which I'm not ready anyway.

[SalingerEsme]

Originally Posted by feileacan

I and sometimes I have felt that there is so much ugly and dark matter inside me that needs to be ejected some how and that comes out with those attacks.

. . . People’s mistakes. Dark matter.
The sky just before evening.
One boat in the Atlantic.
A handful of balloons going all the way up.
The few places in the world where it’s raining
as you read this. As I write this.
As I read this out loud and somewhere
what is expected does not return.
The last lamp in an old house.
How I’m not sure if I’d like to end on an image
of someone turning it off, turning it on.
Silences. Between the waves and beneath them.
People’s mistakes. People’s mistakes

Dark Matter | Harvard Review Online

[here today]

Originally Posted by feileacan

I'm wondering what you mean by saying that your attacking responses were dissociated. For me, my rage (and also other stuff) is/was dissociated as well - in my non-therapy life I barely ever got angry to anyone, mild frustration was the most I experienced. The things I've experienced in therapy are/were definitely coming from a part unknown to me before starting therapy. For a long time I could see that things happened to me in therapy and I could remember and recount them afterwards but I couldn't connect to them emotionally. I mostly still can't but while previously I absolutely couldn't reflect on anything while in those (I would say borderline'ish) states, now I've discovered that I can at least a little bit, which is a new thing to me. It seems to me that when you talk about dissociated experiences you mean something different?

It actually took another therapist (whom I saw because of a temporarily moving) to realise that my self is fragmented and consists of parts - not in a DID kind of way, but still parts that don't have much connection between each other. . .

Thanks, feileacan. This does sound very similar. 8 years ago I eventually got a diagnosis of DDNOS as well as PDNOS. These DSM categories have now changed I think, but there are others with the same idea. In the literature DID is tertiary structural dissociation and my therapist thought I had secondary structural dissociation.

I'm glad to hear that your therapy, and therapist, seem to be working for you. I fell apart after my late husband died. But my kids are grown and seem to be doing OK, thank goodness. Not perfect but their lives seem to work for them. At least for now. I'm very grateful. I also tried to compensate rationally -- didn't know exactly what the problem with me was, then, but I had had an eating disorder as a teenager so I was careful in trying to note when I was not doing "mothering" very well, according to what I knew rationally and instinctively.