Intimacy in a theraputic relationship

I've had silences that lasted 10 to 15 minutes. Maybe longer--there's no clock, and I usually take my watch off for therapy, so I don't often keep track. Never a whole session, but my therapist and I have talked at length about a recurring fantasy I have of coming into his office, curling up, and staying silent until it's time to leave.

For me, the longer silences come in many different flavors, just like shorter silences do. Some of them are anxious, with me wringing my hands and casting my gaze around the room as I frantically try to say something, or try to figure out what to say. Some of them are calm and introspective, where I'm puzzling something out or piecing together an important realization, lost in thought and often keeping my eyes closed, or looking away from my therapist like I usually do when we're talking. Sometimes it's deep grief, sitting on the verge of tears or even crying quietly, wordlessly, looking my therapist in the eye to see if he sees how awful I'm feeling.

Not all silences feel intimate, and they're not the primary way I experience intimacy in therapy, but intimacy can certainly be present there. I find it immensely helpful that my therapist is comfortable with silence when it occurs. He's not averse to ending a silence that he senses is becoming too distressing or unproductive, but letting silences evolve and end naturally has allowed some material to emerge that I don't think would have otherwise.

I am not disagreeing with how you define your relationship. That's exactly my point. You can define it however you like. I am saying that my personal definition of intimacy DOES require mutual intimate knowledge.

I think it's ironic that you accuse me of being condescending when I have said others are free to define intimacy as they see fit, while you are outright dismissing the definition I choose to use. But hey, of course some people go for that.

You're rather rude, I've noticed.

Thank you for your explanation, Anne, although I am unsure why you think I am hostile to therapy. I am hostile to the therapist I see at times, but many people here are "guilty" of that. I am not anti-therapy, though. If I were, I wouldn't participate in therapy, and I wouldn't post here - I have not personally had the sorts of negative experiences that lead other people to do so. I am at times hostile to humanity, and am always rather cynical of its members. If I say negative things - or things that others perceive to be negative - about therapy or therapists, it is not because I think therapy is bad or that therapists are any worse on average than anyone else. Just to clarify.

Think you.
I'll proudly take that wonderful observation

It appears you're not aware of how your comments are coming across in this regard, and perhaps they don't read the way you intended. To be clear, I have no stake in whether or not you experience intimacy in therapy, by your definition or anyone else's. I'm well aware that many people don't and have no desire to, and I appreciate and respect that. And while I disagree with it, I haven't dismissed your definition--I actually pointed out that my experience fits your definition of intimacy as mutually felt by both parties and involving mutually intimate knowledge. Meanwhile, you've characterized others' experiences of intimacy as illusory and mistaken, which doesn't tend to connote respect for those experiences. Perhaps you didn't mean it that way.

It's interesting that people who are devoted to therapy think it's ok to speculate openly about the character and motives of people who are not.

Starfishing, I never characterized anyone's experience as anything. I did not tell anyone in this thread, including you, that their perspective is wrong. All I have said is that I see things differently. You say you have no stake in what I believe, yet you have attempted to silence my valid perspective by calling it/me condescending. You ascribe beliefs to me that I have not expressed and then insinuate your assumptions are my fault. You offer up your experience as if it should prove something to me, and take exception to the fact that the experience of a stranger on the internet is not sufficient to change my view. I did not make this personal, you did, by responding to the views I expressed with your own story. I am not responsible for you applying my perspective to your personal experiences. I'm really not sure how I could have been more respectful of your opinion than I was.

I can see why it seemed like I was speaking in the abstract about therapy or therapists, and I should have been more clear and said hostile to "your therapy," as I did not mean to comment about anything other than my impression of how you talk about how your therapy is going with the therapist you share with C. I apologize for being unclear in that way. But I think my impression is correct in that you acknowledge the hostility you sometimes have with your therapist, and you are in a rather unique situation. I do tend to think that it is difficult to experience intimacy when you feel hostile to the other party, but I have no stake in whether or not this is true for you, I just wanted to clarify what I meant.

Have we all decided yet if intimacy exists in other people's Therapy or not?
Just, I want to put the kettle on and don't want to miss the final decision.

Either you haven't actually read anything I've said, or your reading comprehension is very poor.

Oh susannah, cant you tell when somebody likes your brain?!

Oh stop flirting with me. 😂

Do not share anything!! Therapists cannot be trusted!! I have been burned mercilessly.

So you're burning everyone else.

Excellent. Keep the dysfunction functioning.

I wonder, and I'm not trying to be too flippant about it, but would people be better off in general if they stopped seeking professional help of any kind based on anonymous postings of advice on the internet? I appreciate the cautious spirit underlying your post and agree with the general principle to be skeptical of therapists and in fact all professionals who take your money, but your experience does not mean that all therapists do anything of the sort. Overgeneralization does not improve the quality of an argument. Of course you are welcome to express your opinion here as often as you like; I'm reflecting back to you how I hear it.

People have legitimately negative experiences in all social systems (and by "legitimately" I mean their experience is both negatively felt by them and the problem is the system's failures, not the person). A casual study of institutions reveals that all-- from education to medical care to social services like food stamps and certainly to law (my own specialty)-- have enormous biases and could be characterized as broken. So we could burn them all down, as your message implies, or we can work to understand the factors that make them more or less successful (lots of study and jurisprudence in law for example) and engage in reform. I choose the later, but I don't have time or energy for any reform outside my own tiny little social justice niche.

Higher education is a good example of something that can be harmful to its participants but no one suggests we eliminate the PhD programs or law or medical schools. The only person who was tossed out of my program suffered a lot from the treatment he received from the institution before he left; other people dropped out because it wasn't for them.

In my lifetime I've seen many victims of crime suffer from the treatment of legal system, even as they try to protect themselves and their children, or get other forms of relief from the courts. Don't even get me started on family law.

My response to problems with a system in my real life is to try to edge closer to reform in the work I do. In my online life, I acknowledge the problems with therapy and that they broadly apply to health care in general, but I'm more interested in using my personal experience to possible help other people in their own therapies, and to learn from the experiences and what's worked for other people. So I choose to do something different than what you suggest-- as my own therapy has done me a lot of good and in my work I sometimes cross paths with mental health professionals and clients where I've seen therapy be helpful for other people too.

And I am not going to go around and around about this topic any more, at least in this thread, so forgive in advance for not replying to any follow ups to this post. I've said my piece and I'm moving on.

And for me, prolonged silences in therapy always felt creepy and unnatural. It felt like the therapist wanted to force "intimate" connection I didn't need and didn't want. In other words, it felt like sexual harrassment, even assault on the emotional level.

Can't wait to hear about what's wrong with me and how much "work" I need to do for this perception to change.

If thats what it felt like, then you can say so at that moment. Thats the game and art and "work" of therapy.

If you dont want to do it, then you can wait for the next bus.

I'm sorry to deviate from the narrow script you've laid out for responses, which is kind of a hostile-feeling way of communication at least as it feels to me as a reader. I don't think there's another wrong with you, I just see the similar experiences I've had in and out of therapy differently. It's been important to distinguish between how I feel and what's actually happening in the room. For me as a CSA survivor there are lots of things in my history that felt like assault, even when they were consensual with a partner I loved and wanted to be with in that particular moment. PTSD triggers, body keeps the score, yada yada, and I was motivated to keep my history out of the room and deal with the present. I wanted to be with my partner in the moment without feeling like I was being assaulted. I've learned a lot from distinguishing between how I feel about the present and what the reality is, to see things as they are rather than through my lens of survivorship. So tuning into "I feel like my partner is trying to assault me" and realizing it wasn't the case was an important part of my healing. I don't believe in "feelings are facts" but I'm not trying to tell you what you experienced in therapy was wrong. For me it would be important to know whether my feelings about assault were coming from the past, triggered by actual or symbolic similarity in therapy. I am not a believer in "feelings are facts." Many things over my adult life have felt like assaults and if I just stopped there, I'd have a long line of people and experiences I would have missed having. I think there is always grounding in reality although two different people can interpret it differently.

Prolonged silences in therapy for me were uncomfortable and I did feel like I was about to be attacked, analogized it to feeling like a cobra gathering up its strength to strike, and my T stopped. Even years later, he breaks the silence after giving me a bit of time to see if there is anything else that comes to mind. I'm curious, if you want to share, whether you told your T about your feelings on silence and whether s/he was able to adapt thereafter. I can't imagine that a T would continue to engage in a very concrete behavior when s/he understands how a client experiences it. I've told my T about a number of things that make me anxious besides silence, and he always asked if I want him to stop (like waving his hands around; he offered to sit on them once). This is just what has made therapy work for me with a responsive T. It's hard for me to imagine why your experience was a therapy-killer, but that's undoubtedly my lack of understanding, not your "wrong"ness.

And THAT is the difference between lawyers and computer programmers!

That computer programmers can relay ideas with just a couple of sentences, while lawyers go ON and ON? I say this with fondness.

Well, we THINK we do!

Lol it's because we were originally paid by the word and now, if you're lucky, by the hour!!!!

Do you think your T feels that too- the way a parent does looking into a baby's gaze or something true, personal, and real ( and lasting)? This isn't rhetorical- I want to know so much about this. With my T connection like this feesl sometimes so real, but then I get scared of the feeling after running it through the intellect -credibility side of my brain. I hope it is not one-sided.

There's nothing wrong with your perspective. It's your experience and feelings. That's valid. I don't think that an intimate connection via silent eye contact is a hard requirement to successful therapy.