[toffeellen]

Hiya
im 25. been in psych services since 2002. had one disastrous and very damaging psychotherapy (kleinian) between 2002-2003 have now started again with a different therapist..

Went to appointment half an hour early today. thought it was meant to be at 11am and actually it was at 11.30am. didnt realise till i came home. tdoc didnt say anything :S lol not sure what to say next week or just to not mention it

[Perna]

I'd mention it so at least your T knows you realize it. Maybe say "thank you for seeing me so promptly" or something too? I did that once; my T went away for 6 weeks or more and I forgot what time we normally met! I didn't think to call and ask (since she was away, my brain was thinking she was away until the moment I saw her again :-) so I took off work and just showed up and was several hours too early. But she showed up early too, guess she wanted to get some other work done LOL but saw I was in bad shape so just saw me anyway.

[toffeellen]

hiya

YEah I mentioned it to him. Asked him why he hadnt said anything.

(id been thinking it was maybe some way of testing to see if id say anything)

he said that when id turned up early it had put doubt in his mind. Hed thought that if id come then maybe that was the time and decided hed just trust me.
Then he asked me what id have done if he had said something. to which i replied that id have gone home and had breakfast (i live across the road from the psychotherapy unit)

Later on, this was one of the questions he viewed as challenging him.

[sunrise]

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toffeellen said:
YEah I mentioned it to him. Asked him why he hadnt said anything....

Later on, this was one of the questions he viewed as challenging him.

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That's very interesting, toffeellen. Maybe it was the way the question was phrased that was challenging, because it certainly doesn't seem like a hard question to answer. It sounds like you asked, "why didn't you say anything about my being early last time?" I wonder if that type of question can make a person feel like they did something wrong by not mentioning it? I know we all have different communication styles--my question probably would have been, "hey, did you know I showed up a half hour early last time?" And I'd probably smile when I said it, as if to say, can you believe I forgot my appointment time? and not put him on the defensive. There are situations where I am more direct, but I've found that for myself, too much directness can be viewed as threatening by some, so I try to moderate my communication patterns to help with that. (I can be kind of an intimidating person, so I need help from my language on that.)

[Perna]

I guess it depends on how you worded it, inflection, etc. My husband hates being "ordered" to do something. I remember when he got angry when my arms were full of grocery bags and I was frantic because they were heavy and slipping and I called to him ahead of me, "Open the door!" That was a command so he opened the door but not any faster and started lecturing me about how he doesn't like being ordered to do something :-) It was so odd-seeming under the circumstances that I was mostly curious and we had a really good discussion about it and now I'm more careful how I word things. I was accustomed to my stepmother and her commands and I suspect learned that way of speaking. With her she was supposed to be able to call "Jump!" and our response was supposed to be "How high?" :-) Instant obedience in other words.

So, now you know that "why didn't you. . ." may sound challenging to him (sounds accusatory to me as it was another of my stepmother's favorite traps). Might want to keep with the "I" statements, "I noticed that you didn't say anything and I was curious why not; did you think it was the correct time like I did?"

[toffeellen]

I think what i said was

'you didnt say anything! when i was early last week? (in surprised tone - atleast i thougt it was surprised) I just wondered why.

maybe it sounded reproachful?
not sure how to use hte pronunciation to show how i said it.

Would it still sound reproachful if i said

I was surprised you didnt say anything when i was early last week.

i guess that sounds a bit like 'im surprised at you - you bad boy you dont normally behave like this'.

hmm hard to know when its your tone or the way htey hear it.
i like just saying ' i was glad you saw me promptly last week'.

its going to be hard to change like hte way ive been programmed to ask questions. if they sound accusing im not sure how to make htem not sound that way.

[Perna]

Being "surprised," would, to me, make it sound like a set-up, Like you knew all along that it was the wrong time and were testing him?

In that case, I would have presented myself first. "I really got the time wrong last week!" and then either tease him, "what's your excuse for why we started early?" (which also links you together and shares the experience as if it was a happening on both of you all's parts) or continue on about myself, "I didn't realize it until after I left" and then just "wonder" "Did you realize it was half an hour earlier than our scheduled time?" That would keep him "humble" :-) without accusing him of anything "worse" than you're accusing yourself of.