[here today]

The term "negative bonding" came up in another thread and I just wanted to highlight that this seems to me a very descriptive term that I had not heard before -- at least I don't remember it.

I expect that I was negatively bonded to my family of origin, too.

Therapy, for me, did not help me overcome that -- it just replaced it. That may explain some of therapy's "addictive" quality, too.

I thought that I had a negative transference toward my last therapist, and told her that even but it sounds from what others have described that my negative experience was something different. I knew what I was feeling but I didn't "own" it -- in order to keep the relationship, I expect.

[Ididitmyway]

Yeah, it's a good observation. I actually read a book right in the aftermath of my traumatic venture with my last therapist. It's called "The Betrayal Bond" by Patrick Carnes. It talks about what you call a "negative bonding", which I'd rather call a "trauma bonding", but it doesn't refer to therapy specifically. It just describes our general human tendency to get into relationships that turn out to be exploitative and end up traumatizing us because we always attempt to "resolve" the original traumatic experience with primary caretakers, but we do it through other people. We are driven by the need to "repair" the original relationship in order to keep the bond that once was super important for our survival. But, since we often can't repair it with the original characters, we use other characters.

[koru_kiwi]

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

It just describes our general human tendency to get into relationships that turn out to be exploitative and end up traumatizing us because we always attempt to "resolve" the original traumatic experience with primary caretakers, but we do it through other people. We are driven by the need to "repair" the original relationship in order to keep the bond that once was super important for our survival. But, since we often can't repair it with the original characters, we use other characters.

good description. and since Ts are human too, they also are going to be (unconsciously) seeking out their old traumatic patterns in others, i.e. most likely with their clients, to repair their past defunct relationships. this is where i reckon it's incredibly important for a T to understand and have their own sh#t clearly sorted, especially before taking on particular clients who will have a tendency to stir up the counter-transference feelings of the T. just like my T often triggered my transference, i definilty know i had a tendency to do the same for him. many of the problems that arose in our relationship was when he didn't know how to handle those stirred up feelings appropriately in my therapy, often wasting time with repairing of ruptures of his creating for his sake and distracting from the work i wanted to address in my therapy.

[Ididitmyway]

Originally Posted by koru_kiwi

good description. and since Ts are human too, they also are going to be (unconsciously) seeking out their old traumatic patterns in others, i.e. most likely with their clients, to repair their past defunct relationships. this is where i reckon it's incredibly important for a T to understand and have their own sh#t clearly sorted, especially before taking on particular clients who will have a tendency to stir up the counter-transference feelings of the T. just like my T often triggered my transference, i definilty know i had a tendency to do the same for him. many of the problems that arose in our relationship was when he didn't know how to handle those stirred up feelings appropriately in my therapy, often wasting time with repairing of ruptures of his creating for his sake and distracting from the work i wanted to address in my therapy.

Sure. One thing I know though is that no one can sort out their **** completely in one life time, and, by that, I mean healing all the wounds during one's life. It's just not possible. All you can do is to be aware of what triggers you, to define it as your limit and not to go beyond it. All this talk about therapists needing to "resolve their own issues" is nonsense. No one can resolve their issues to the point that they will be immune to any triggers and transference reactions. All a therapist can do is to be aware of their wounds and what triggers them and simply not go there. This, like it or not, implies that the best thing a therapist can do not to let their transference to interfere with the work is to refer a client out if it feels like "too much" to handle emotionally. I know, many people will hate this proposition because terminations are painful and can also be traumatic, but the only alternative for a therapist is to continue to see a client who triggers them emotionally, which will inevitably lead to the therapist's transference getting the best of them, and THAT will cause a much worse trauma than a termination would.

I know that whenever it gets tough for a therapist to handle the work emotionally, the standard thinking is that they should deal with this in their own therapy, but, while it is certainly necessary to attend to their emotional state in therapy or otherwise, the notion that talking to a therapist will resolve counter-transference reactions is pure BS. It sounds great in theory, but it doesn't work in practice. If you are a therapist and you get a new client, who reminds you of your abusive father and that triggers your traumatic symptoms, you have to refer the client out ASAP for their and your own sake. Do not wait until the work proceeds to the point where the termination will be difficult for a client to handle. And don't hope that talking about it in supervision or with your own therapist will resolve the issue.

I wish my therapists had referred me elsewhere in the mindful and ethical way before things went south instead of dragging it to the point where it was impossible to terminate ethically.

[stopdog]

I tried to talk to the first one about negative bonding but she scoffed. The second one said she only worked for clients who did not set off her main issues. For me at least, the second one did not seem to have trouble with it. I think the second one was the better therapist for me although I was not particularly connected to her positively or negatively. The second one did not care if she was loved or not and the first one very much wanted it.

Originally Posted by koru_kiwi

good description. and since Ts are human too, they also are going to be (unconsciously) seeking out their old traumatic patterns in others, i.e. most likely with their clients, to repair their past defunct relationships. this is where i reckon it's incredibly important for a T to understand and have their own sh#t clearly sorted, especially before taking on particular clients who will have a tendency to stir up the counter-transference feelings of the T.

This is an excellent thought - I think this is exactly what happened to my first T towards the end. I know that I reminded him of his mother and the relationship with her in the end, I made that conclusion myself but he even told me at some point. Why did not want to let go of me and was chasing me even after I terminated "to work it out" (of course he claimed for my sake). "My" therapy was nothing but a bunch of countertransference reactions in the end and I did not really understand why the T was so after me instead of happy to get rid of a client who stressed him out so much to lead to extreme reactions.

On the negative bond from the client perspective, I did not experience anything like that with my family. I never felt bonded with my mom much after age 5-6 and with my dad it was one of the most positive experiences of my life. But I still got quite obsessed with therapy and it wasn't easy to completely stop interacting with the Ts, I emailed with both for quite some time even after I stopped seeing them. I could definitely tell that, for me, it was very similar to my other addictions, not to the the Ts themselves but everything around therapy and talking about psychology. In a way, my participation in this forum now is also a version of that, I think, although this is not hard to control and I don't overdo it to the detriment of other things.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

Sure. One thing I know though is that no one can sort out their **** completely in one life time, and, by that, I mean healing all the wounds during one's life. It's just not possible. All you can do is to be aware of what triggers you, to define it as your limit and not to go beyond it. . . .

I think that if T's explained that up front, it could help a lot. People coming to therapy -- even people who have been in therapy before -- may just not understand that. It's also an upfront way to help educate the client, if they might need that, about what a healthy relationship is like, and what human beings are realistically like. A kind of pre-emptive action, too, rather than just waiting for transference issues and unrealistic expectations to come up if they do and then dealing with the overwhelming countertransference, if that occurs.

It would also help, I think, if the therapists had, or accepted, more information about the pain, retraumatization, and consequent harm that can occur to the client because of their own issues and actions. They aren't perfect, but they can hurt people a lot. It can be devastating, and that is not at all clear in any of the informed consent statements that I have seen.

I'm still not at all clear about how that all happens -- what the pain from the failure and/or termination of my last therapy is about, what to do about it, how to "heal", whatever that means, etc.

I've ordered "The Betrayal Bond". Maybe that will help.

Here today, did you actually feel attached to the therapist(s) like many people who post about it here, or was it more "attachment" to therapy itself and wanting to get better? Because if the latter, I can easily imagine the frustration persists because therapy and the T got the in the of your goal for improvement and you still don't feel your problems are resolved completely.

In terms of how to heal from it, I am not sure it is possible any better than from other kinds of disappointments and betrayals in ordinary relationships. We can get to a point that it is not acutely painful but still a bad memory and sense of failure with something in which we invested a great deal of time, money, mental energy etc.

[Ididitmyway]

Originally Posted by here today

I think that if T's explained that up front, it could help a lot. People coming to therapy -- even people who have been in therapy before -- may just not understand that. It's also an upfront way to help educate the client, if they might need that, about what a healthy relationship is like, and what human beings are realistically like. A kind of pre-emptive action, too, rather than just waiting for transference issues and unrealistic expectations to come up if they do and then dealing with the overwhelming countertransference, if that occurs.

It would also help, I think, if the therapists had, or accepted, more information about the pain, retraumatization, and consequent harm that can occur to the client because of their own issues and actions. They aren't perfect, but they can hurt people a lot. It can be devastating, and that is not at all clear in any of the informed consent statements that I have seen.

I'm still not at all clear about how that all happens -- what the pain from the failure and/or termination of my last therapy is about, what to do about it, how to "heal", whatever that means, etc.

I've ordered "The Betrayal Bond". Maybe that will help.

Sure. It'd help if consumers knew it upfront that therapists are very limited in how much they could help either due to their emotional limitations or their limited knowledge.

For starters it'd be important to let people know that psychotherapy is not based on solid science and that a large part of it is experiential, so do it at your own risk.

But that kind of a disclaimer should be done on a mass scale in order to have an effect, not through individual informed consents, because it is a MASSIVE paradigm shift.

By disclosing the reality of what psychotherapy is and what it is not, you are essentially telling the public that the professionals they are or about to see are not all-knowing experts, who are well-equipped to deal with any emotional and behavioral problem.

That isn't going to go well both with the public and the professional community. The public at large wants to have "experts" who tell them what to do to "fix" their problems and the professionals want to play the role of those "experts" because doing so feeds their egos. Works for both parties, so none of them is particularly interested in changing the status quo.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

Here today, did you actually feel attached to the therapist(s) like many people who post about it here, or was it more "attachment" to therapy itself and wanting to get better? Because if the latter, I can easily imagine the frustration persists because therapy and the T got the in the of your goal for improvement and you still don't feel your problems are resolved completely.

In terms of how to heal from it, I am not sure it is possible any better than from other kinds of disappointments and betrayals in ordinary relationships. We can get to a point that it is not acutely painful but still a bad memory and sense of failure with something in which we invested a great deal of time, money, mental energy etc.

Thanks for your question and the observation/intuition behind it.

Yes, my "attachment" has probably been to an idealization of therapy itself, as a vehicle to an (also probably somewhat idealized) goal of getting better/self-improvement.

It's very hard for me to see all of this very accurately -- I've been peering into the abyss for years, and do think I'm aware of some things but they may just be shadows or ephemera. And one of the things I have observed is that I don't "do" disappointment and loss. It's not just that I don't do them well, it's that I often don't/can't do them at all, emotionally. Which makes adapting/adjusting to new realities in the world a little. . .problematic.

I can and do try to overcome the emotional stuckness with realistic cognitive assessments of what is going on, but that's often not enough and, without the emotional component, it's hard for my cognition to get what's going on all by its lonesome.

But it very much helps to have you make that observation. Maybe it's like, since you observed it, I'm not all by my lonesome with it. Which makes accepting reality easier somehow. Or something, I'm not sure.

Anyway, thanks very much.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

Sure. It'd help if consumers knew it upfront that therapists are very limited in how much they could help either due to their emotional limitations or their limited knowledge.

For starters it'd be important to let people know that psychotherapy is not based on solid science and that a large part of it is experiential, so do it at your own risk.

But that kind of a disclaimer should be done on a mass scale in order to have an effect, not through individual informed consents, because it is a MASSIVE paradigm shift.

By disclosing the reality of what psychotherapy is and what it is not, you are essentially telling the public that the professionals they are or about to see are not all-knowing experts, who are well-equipped to deal with any emotional and behavioral problem.

That isn't going to go well both with the public and the professional community. The public at large wants to have "experts" who tell them what to do to "fix" their problems and the professionals want to play the role of those "experts" because doing so feeds their egos. Works for both parties, so none of them is particularly interested in changing the status quo.

Thanks for a very cogent observation and analysis about this very frustrating situation!

[koru_kiwi]

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

Sure. One thing I know though is that no one can sort out their **** completely in one life time, and, by that, I mean healing all the wounds during one's life. It's just not possible. All you can do is to be aware of what triggers you, to define it as your limit and not to go beyond it. All this talk about therapists needing to "resolve their own issues" is nonsense. No one can resolve their issues to the point that they will be immune to any triggers and transference reactions. All a therapist can do is to be aware of their wounds and what triggers them and simply not go there. This, like it or not, implies that the best thing a therapist can do not to let their transference to interfere with the work is to refer a client out if it feels like "too much" to handle emotionally. I know, many people will hate this proposition because terminations are painful and can also be traumatic, but the only alternative for a therapist is to continue to see a client who triggers them emotionally, which will inevitably lead to the therapist's transference getting the best of them, and THAT will cause a much worse trauma than a termination would.

thanks for sharing this. i absolutely agree with this...none of us will ever be done with our own healing and it is a lifetime process. and like you said, unfortunately all a T can really do is be aware of the things that may trigger them or be an issue. unfortunately, if they run into a client that ticks all those boxes, then the most ethical thing to do, so no harm is done, is to refer the client on, which also can open up a new layer of complexity or distress for that client.

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

I know that whenever it gets tough for a therapist to handle the work emotionally,[B] the standard thinking is that they should deal with this in their own therapy, but, while it is certainly necessary to attend to their emotional state in therapy or otherwise, the notion that talking to a therapist will resolve counter-transference reactions is pure BS. It sounds great in theory, but it doesn't work in practice. If you are a therapist and you get a new client, who reminds you of your abusive father and that triggers your traumatic symptoms, you have to refer the client out ASAP for their and your own sake. Do not wait until the work proceeds to the point where the termination will be difficult for a client to handle. And don't hope that talking about it in supervision or with your own therapist will resolve the issue.

i agree and thanks for pointing this out. my ex-T had his own therapy before becoming a T and then when he was getting his accreditation to practice in my country he had to complete three years of ongoing therapy. he also had fortnightly regular supervision. none of those things were enough to ward off his counter-transference that was becoming stirred up. it may have helped him to understand himself better, but by that point, he had already reacted negatively or harmfully towards me and the damage to our therapeutic relationship was already done. it did nothing to prevent it from happening in the first place, and honestly, i do believe that he was a bit 'cocky' when he started working with me, thinking that he had already done all of the work he needed to do. what was playing out in our relationship was enough to find those deeply buried unacknowledged issues of his.

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

I wish my therapists had referred me elsewhere in the mindful and ethical way before things went south instead of dragging it to the point where it was impossible to terminate ethically.

see, that is where i believe the majority of the conundrum is. reflecting back, i know my ex-T should have referred me on as well, but by the time 'the sh#t hit the fan', it was too late. i was already deeply attached (traumatically bonded) and in such a 'fragile' state that if he would have sent me on, i probably would have lost all hope and 'offed' myself. so he was definilty in a difficult situation and walking a fine line. it just goes to show the complexity of this entire situation...wounded people trying to cure other wounded people. and due to my own (unsatisfying) therapy experince, i am doubting and questioning if this is the best or even ethical method to utilise...???

[koru_kiwi]

Originally Posted by here today

Thanks for a very cogent observation and analysis about this very frustrating situation!

:

yes...not only frustrating, but as i said above ,quite complex as well.

[here today]

Originally Posted by koru_kiwi

. . .i know my ex-T should have referred me on as well, but by the time 'the sh#t hit the fan', it was too late. i was already deeply attached (traumatically bonded) and in such a 'fragile' state that if he would have sent me on, i probably would have lost all hope and 'offed' myself. so he was definilty in a difficult situation and walking a fine line. it just goes to show the complexity of this entire situation...wounded people trying to cure other wounded people. and due to my own (unsatisfying) therapy experince, i am doubting and questioning if this is the best or even ethical method to utilise...???

OK . . .and. . .what is ethical to use instead? Maybe we/society and the mental health profession don't have a method to use that doesn't hurt people, sometimes in disastrous ways? But nobody wants to acknowledge that, for the reason Ididitmyway stated or other reasons?

It's a sad and scary situation, too, then, not just frustrating. Or maybe not primarily frustrating, as Xynesthesia suggested, but impossible (so far as current knowledge and methodology go) and hopeless.

Which is not to say that life is hopeless. . .but seems kinda like that. Especially if one had hooked one's wagon to the (therapy) star.

[Ididitmyway]

Yes, sadly, there is no established method yet that is proven to be safe and effective. I think, ways to make therapy safer (not 100%) safe are possible to find, but that will require to make a drastic shift into a completely new system and new type of training.

For once, I believe, the role of the community has to be strengthened. Private meetings between two people (therapist and client) in full isolation from the real world is a recipe for a disaster IMO no matter how "good" the therapist may be. It's very unhealthy for both and it has no transparency and, subsequently, accountability is greatly diminished.

I am not saying that all private therapy should be banned. Certainly, it is safer to talk to a therapist privately every now and then, but, I believe, the process is safer when a therapist is a part of some clinic that has many therapists on payroll, so if problems arise, they are resolved immediately through talking to a therapist's supervisor, clinical and executive directors, administration and switching to a different therapist within the same clinic if necessary. This type of a clinic should also have a 24 hr hot line for clients who are in crisis and who can't wait until the next session and need to talk to someone immediately. People would feel much more comfortable calling the hotline in their own clinic where they know many people and where their therapist works than calling some unknown crisis or suicidal hotline where no one knows them and no one gives a damn, frankly. In addition, the clinic should offer different types of support groups so people wouldn't feel like a therapist is the only one who "gets" them. It should also have connections with other communal resources like social and legal services (many clients struggle with economic and legal issues) and collaborate with other health care centers and providers. This is one version of how a comprehensive, communal type of care can be implemented. This approach, unlike private meetings with one therapist only, doesn't leave people high and dry and makes them feel connected to the world and supported by the world, at least in some ways. It also doesn't put the whole burden of "healing" someone on a therapist alone. In my view, it's a win-win for all.

Secondly, I also believe that a long term therapy with one therapist, the one that goes on for years, should be completely abandoned as a modality. While healing is a lifetime process, one individual practitioner or one method or one organization won't be able to do it all for anyone. If I were to do therapy again, I would only do a short-term brief counseling that deals with specific questions that people are trying to answer at the moment. I would put a limit on a number of sessions and would keep the focus sharp on the specific issues they want to resolve. There would be no place for "intimacy" and "relationship" stuff in this model (sorry "relationship" lovers ). Once the "course" is complete (most of the time, it'd be just a few sessions) they could see me again may be a year later, but not earlier than that. Surely, this type of counseling wouldn't go deeply into every single emotion, but I don't think it's necessary to go that deep with a professional. What you'd get from that kind of counseling is a specific insight/information that you can later discuss deeply on the emotional level with those who are close to you (family and close friends) or journal about it or talk in some support group about it. That, I think, would be much healthier than creating the inappropriate "intimacy" with the therapist.

[koru_kiwi]

interesting ideas IDIMY. i like the 'communal' concept as a means for getting the help and support needed.

Originally Posted by Ididitmyway

This is one version of how a comprehensive, communal type of care can be implemented. This approach, unlike private meetings with one therapist only, doesn't leave people high and dry and makes them feel connected to the world and supported by the world, at least in some ways. It also doesn't put the whole burden of "healing" someone on a therapist alone. In my view, it's a win-win for all.

this is not quite the same as your communal version of therapy, but i think it may demonstrate how having extra involved care can absolutely help with the burden of healing. my husband started coming along to my sessions, mainly for extra support in and outside of sessions and so he could obtain a better understanding of me, my therapy, and the relationship with my T. it was quite beneficial to all of us. my T had never tried this before, but was willing to give it shot (i requested it mainly because i was struggling often in the relationship with my T and felt my husband could provide an outsiders perspective and feedback. originally it was only going to be temporary). as my husband continued to attend every session, eventually the dynamics of therapy started to feel more like we were a three person team all striving to help me get to a better place. because of this 'teamwork', it worked well for all of us: i had the extra support and understanding both in and outside of my sessions, T didn't have to feel alone in the burden of 'healing' me, supporting me or having to try to meet my many needs, and my husband didn't have the burden of wanting to 'fix' me during the post session fallout because he now understood better how to approach supporting me based on the info he had from my sessions. we did this for 2.5 years until i successfully ended therapy.

so agreed, it was a win-win for all of us because it worked well for all of us.

[here today]

I’ve come to the conclusion, for me, that the foundations of my personality were in a sick social/family system and that psychotherapy has been inadequate to help me overcome that.

Overcoming that would mean – what? To find or develop other foundations for my personality?

I’m not a happy solitary plankton, able to drift and make my own food from sunlight. So, uprooting myself and yet -- putting down new roots – where? And how? Without a healthy personality to begin with – how to recognize a place where I might re-root myself, and how to get along with folks until the roots are established? It’s a conundrum, for sure.

More “healthy” people, with more complete adult personalities, may be able to do that, but I have not been able to. I don’t qualify as disabled exactly, but my participation in and ability to contribute society has been very limited despite my best efforts.

I definitely support the communal idea. As a whole, I am an adult, with economic resources and emotional defenses that allow me to function somewhat as an adult, but “parts” of me are, or have been, still a baby or stuck adolescent and need to grow in a “healthy” environment, if people (and I'm willing to try to contribute to that) can figure out what that might mean. But what I think is needed is more than what the support groups I’ve been to currently offer, although one free-form group I lucked into recently has helped a lot.

When this idea has come up before, some have said that they definitely do not want to be “forced” into a group situation and that individual therapy works well for them. That’s awesome – for those for whom the current system ain’t broke, don’t mess with that. But for me, it definitely hasn’t worked. With consequences both for me and for the society, I think, to which I cannot contribute well, despite my best efforts.

In what way do you really consider yourself deficient, HT? From what I have learned about you, it sounds like you had good education and a decent career, a good marriage, children, now retired... Those things are generally considered good social and life successes by many people. What do you feel was or is missing? In what ways do you want to contribute now but feel incomplete or limited?

Just asking because I, for example, am pretty much an introvert, never married, don't have any family now, but have had a very interesting a pretty successful career so far and several really great friendships and other personal and professional relationships. Introverted but definitely not socially inept and many people give me the feedback that I am a very good communicator. I have also overcome some truly serious issues and complicated situations in my life. Yet, if you just analyze my life with conventional expectations and standards, there are many things weird and missing. But I don't miss those at all and no desire to become any more conventional than I currently am, that is what's most important. The times when I feel somewhat disabled are when I am depressed or have bouts of low motivation in spite of having great opportunities and resources all around, but those are not truly objective perceptions as my mood (depression, anxiety) colors them heavily.

What does it mean to have a complete or sufficiently developed personality really? Also, on your note that "you don't do loss and disappointment" - but in your posts, you tend to seem quite chronically disappointed and feel lacking... somewhat of a contradiction. If you mean external loss - I also never tend to grieve people or things as much as I often see from others and can't even fully empathize other that based on my imagination. Is it really a bad thing? I am not sure, I actually think it makes life easier often not to experience deep sadness very often about external things, not to get stuck in those kinds of feelings in debilitating ways. I know very well that I am not compatible with certain kinds of people due to this, but I've just learned to surround myself with those that are compatible and don't expect me to do what is overly alien to my personality. We all have limitations, some coming from life experiences others just general biology (inborn).

[here today]

Thanks, Xynesthesia. I don't write much about the deficits and "failures" I'm embarrassed about. A "shame" issue, I guess.

Yep, we all have limitations. I have been touched by the stories of George Herbert Walker Bush -- tragedy and failure and he endured. A "great" human life, who cares about the greatness or not as a president.

I'm feeling like I can use him as a role model in a way. That's progress maybe for me, to be able look to other humans to bolster the "twinship" pillar of my self, as Kohut would put it. His theory may not apply to the development of some personalities but it feels right to me and so I have used that, too, to encourage myself to feel "twinship" because I think something got undeveloped/disappointed/stuck back when things tried to develop back in my childhood. IF, that theory makes any sense to anybody else, which I understand it may not.

Thanks for your encouragement and understanding! That's "twinship", too.

Kohut's Self Psychology is one of the psychological theories that has influenced me the most as well (my last T said the same about himself, too), but we discussed that before. I did have several really great and influential twinship experiences in my life and also a few misperceived and failed ones, and I know how much those things can contribute to development, both good and bad and everything in between. I have also used public/historical figures, writers and artists whose work and personality seem to click with me in the way you describe above about finding a role model and inspiration. It usually starts with a sense of familiarity in that person's expression, work, thinking/emotional/communication style, whatever I have access to. Then it's narrowed down with time and with more information. Sometimes I have to conclude that my initial feeling of familiarity and shared values was quite wrong and better to disengage from that person or model. For me, one common factor that tends to lead there is when I have direct interactions with someone and I find out they are very hypocritical and/or passive aggressive - I just can't stand that. My mom was not abusive but was prone to passive aggression and lacked ambition, and I dealt with a few of those as an adult as well, mostly out of necessity, in professional life. Very frustrating, inefficient and emotionally taxing. No way to develop positive association with people like that. I usually have a strong reaction to it internally but do not always voice it, sometimes I just reject the person and never reconsider too much - did that with my mom as well quite early. I guess that is better than the other way around (being rejected and abandoned).

The sometimes tricky thing about it though, for those of us who can be inspired this way, is finding the right people (either role models or equal relationships). I think often great difficulties and failures are the result of trusting the wrong people and spending a great deal of time and energy on trying to make it work with them. Obviously what can happen in therapy as well. It definitely makes a big difference what kinds of people we were surrounded by early in life, before our independent personalities and sense of self developed, and this is almost luck, not a choice. For those who did not have good luck in that sense, of course it is not easy to figure out how to choose the right people later on and a sense of familiarity can also come from our worst parts and failure-prone personality elements, which is not the best way to be inspired. I think this is related to how our own values develop as personal values very much determine choices and the sources of motivation in life. For me, my perceived or real failures usually don't come from deficient values, I think, more from a discrepancy between my values and efforts to manifest them and my potential. And I am not sure there is anyone else to blame for those things but how I choose to do things (or not). So here is one area where I tend to benefit greatly from associating myself with people with high ambition and achievement, the so-called 'doers'. And one reason why talk therapy had very little benefit for me as it will not bridge the discrepancies between awareness and action by itself, it mostly just adds to the awareness part.

Like you, I get a lot out of community as well, and I wasn't always aware of this. Up until ~my mid 30's, I mostly thought I was not much of a team person and despised social structures and hierarchy. I think it was in a large part because I had not been exposed to truly good communities before that, including not having much of a family other than my parents and a cousin. It changed dramatically with my last job and taking on responsibilities I always avoided earlier. I am still learning that there are just as many potential sources of such social rewards as forms of communities, including online ones like this. But it all takes efforts, getting out there, taking risks etc instead of just waiting, dreaming and hoping.

[musinglizzy]

Thank you for sharing your book! I had a couple of Audible credits, so I just got it!

[Myrto]

I agree with a lot of suggestions made here in order to protect clients. Lots of good ideas. The thing is, I don't see how any of that would ever be implemented because therapists have zero interest in changing the system. Why would they? It's too good a gig. They get to claim credit anytime someone "benefits" (however vague that is) from therapy, they get to blame and dismiss clients when it goes wrong, the "training" is ridiculously easy (the recurring joke is that people who fail medical school and law school go then study psychology) and they get to be loved, adored and worshipped by their clients. In my country two years ago, the governement decided to make psychotherapy safer for clients since it's not a protected profession and any charlatan/cult member/guru can claim to be a psychotherapist. What happened? Well psychotherapists campaigned and demonstrated against that project of law. Claiming it was outrageous they were now recquired to have a university degree. How outrageous! And they managed to bury that law. Even though it was to protect clients and make that profession safer and more legitimate. Even though therapists all claim to have their clients's best interests at heart. So yeah I don't believe for a second that therapists have any desire to change the system that benefits them.

[here today]

I got my print copy of the book "The Betrayal Bond" yesterday.

OMG. Glad to have had it recommended, glad the author wrote it -- but for me to have been so loyal to "therapy" for so long. Ugh.

It explains why I would seek out someone to "tell my troubles to" -- over and over again, expecting a different result. And DID eventually get a different result. "No more therapy", although my last therapist recommended only no more therapy WITH HER, and gave me a referral.

As the author tells about himself early in the book, he kept going back to a girlfriend who kept betraying him. One of his grad school advisors said, likening his behavior to Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football, "There is a cure for this you know." "No more football."

[koru_kiwi]

Originally Posted by here today

I got my print copy of the book "The Betrayal Bond" yesterday.

OMG. Glad to have had it recommended, glad the author wrote it -- but for me to have been so loyal to "therapy" for so long. Ugh.

sounds like you are finding this book insightful and helpful. thanks, think i will take a look at it too.