How to be the perfect client

I'm not sure I made sense, but feel free to ask if you want me to explain better.

There are also quite a bit of typos in my posts. I'm sort of trapped somewhere while traveling so have some time to kill but have tendonitis which makes it hard to type on a cell phone.

Maybe ill find some articles to explain better.

I don't read his blog, but this article had been posted here before:

The Ideal Psychotherapy Client | Psychology Today

As your T is an analyst, being 'good' is a more of a sign someone needs a LOT of work. Trying to please others, be liked, or win approval, diminishes your whole sense of self; you are letting yourself be defined by and dependent on others rather than being a separate person.

actually that's not the right article but can't find it. maybe someone else has one.

I tried to be the ideal client for quite a while. I wasn't really even aware I was doing it; it was just how I lived my life. I assumed my T wanted me to show up on time, be polite, thank her for helping me (even if I didn't think she was being particularly helpful), not get upset with her, not ask for anything besides the time I paid for her to sit across from me, etc.

Then I started to wonder who was defining "ideal."

I was acting the way my parents expected me to act by not asking for things or expressing inconvenient feelings or "carrying on." Through trial and error, I figured out that what my T actually wanted was for me to be myself, messy emotions and irrational demands and all. And that's what I wanted too. Trying to be perfect was getting in the way of expressing myself and forging real emotional connections. It was happening in the rest of my life too.

I think it helps to try to balance the urge to "act out" with the ability to recognize where the feeling is coming from and try to talk about it rather than just acting on impulse. Like rather than sending the angry email, I would talk about what I wanted to send it and why without actually doing it.

It helped a lot that my T left her old job and went into private practice specifically because she wanted to do deeper, more complicated work rather than the short-term therapy model her old workplace was starting to emphasize. If she wanted neat and tidy and brief, she would have stayed. Instead she wants detailed and complicated and messy, and that's what I give her sometimes. So her "ideal" client is not at all what I thought it would be. My complicated sides are the things she values most.

Thanks. I appreciate your explanations!

This seems like such obvious advice, but because all of these impulsive, intense, therapy-related crazy feelings have been new to me, I didn’t really have a plan of action, and instead just acted them out. Going forward, I will definitely try to be less impulsive about this and try to think it through, not just because I’m trying to be a “perfect” client, but because it makes a ton of sense. I hope I can do it.

^^ well done. Proud of you (as a fellow traveller not in a patronising way).

But if there are slide backs do not beat yourself up. It's almost inevitable as we learn new skills. It was for me anyway! I just keep on talking it through, and where your efforts to go forward and slide backs are genuine a good t will see the difference and work with you with it.

I understand the desire to be perfect to someone you genuinely love and care about. I was, and still am, like that with my father growing up, even though he was very tough and rigid and emotionally abusive.

But please don't change your habits because of some perceived lack of perfection. First of all, there's no such thing. Second, transference (from both sides) is a very normal, real part of therapy.

Hell, some therapists believe that relationship or what it represents is more important than any actual words said to one another.

I think the "**** you" emails might be a bit much, but if that's part of the process and your T hasn't told you to knock it off or tone it down then so be it

Yes, I think I talked about it in a way that is similar to the way I expressed here. But then it ended and it felt unfulfilling. I told him that after my dad died I wished I could have been more like my brother’s high school girlfriend who was beautiful and popular and perfect and loved by all. If I had had some of her qualities perhaps he would have felt like it would have been worthwhile to live. I explained how I once went for a drive in her car with my brother. Even her car was perfect. It was a light blue convertible VW bug and it was warm out, so we drove with the top down. When we got to our destination her beautiful, long, thick blonde hair had been fluffed by the wind, but mine was in tangles that took about 2 hours to get out. I told him I felt that way about our therapy. I imagine all his other clients are like my brother’s girlfriend with perfectly fluffed up hair and after 16 months in therapy, mine is just a big tangled mess. He said something about how she sounded like a Barbie doll and would likely not be someone who’d come to therapy. I just assumed her outer beauty represented her inner beauty as well and that she would do therapy just the right way, which of course includes not sending FU emails. He said life is messy and tangled and not perfect. I don’t disagree, but I did feel unsatisfied by how the conversation ended, like we shouldn’t have been done yet. Any thoughts about what to do about this???

I could be wrong, but I get these feelings with my T when I want him to just care about me and say it. I am not direct in saying what I need, because I often don't know what I need.

The story of the girlfriend, and you feeling like your dad might have chosen to live if you were more perfect is vulnerable and brave. I feel a big pang for the kid you were, the impossibility of kids saving their parents- all of that.

He didn't seem to respond wth empathy to the salient part of what you were saying.

Over time, I have realized when my T misses my emotional message, he is sad and sorry and confused if I put it out directly, even though it seemed obvious to me what I was messaging.

Could it be he didn't hear you?

Therapy is just so hard sometimes.

I honestly don’t know how I wanted him to respond or what I might have been trying to relay with that story, but I was hoping for more than I got. I do think in general that my T is very empathetic, but I’m not sure how much he is helping figure out my tangled mess. I wish I knew just what questions to ask him so that I could get some answers or so that I could feel like something was resolved. I am going to meet a possible new T in a little over a week though and I feel a combination of guilt and curiosity about that.

Perhaps you've recounted it different here but the salient bit for me is what I interpret as yr feelings of unworthiness, not being enough to keep your dad here. Not the stuff about the hair and therapy and feeling jealous about Barbie doll.

I read that as why like how could he miss that? That's what he needs to pick up on. Sometimes if I tell my t a long winded story like that, and hide the message in it, but seem.to place emphasis on a relatively unimportant bit, she'll humour me by responding to the hair etc but then draw it back to the unresolved feelings over yr father's death and we will talk mostly about that. Guilt, responsibility, unworthiness - all that will likely play into yr life now.

Of course everything is easy in hindsight and if the story was recounted as you write he may have got caught up.in the defensiveness about therapy. But then you want a good t that can.pick things up in real time.

Just to add you may need to manage yr expectations though as there are unlikely to be specific questions you can ask that will.unlock everything or even anything and rarely, in my experience, are things resolved after just 1 session of talking about it.

You said a lot in that session. I think it was very insightful and represents some core issues you could explore deeper or continue to explore.

I always liked yout T and still do. His responses were interpretations, which seems to have been lacking in what you needed. Maybe you didn't feel understood enough, or that you needed warmth and connection more than the interpretations. Timing of interpretations is a frequent issue with this type of therapy aka premature interpretation. Maybe you need a more solid relationship before he starts with the interpretations. That is my opinion as to where he's getting it wrong if missattunement is an issue.

You can always tell him exactly how you felt here- the feelings of incompleteness you were left with. It's like a mini-rupture, which can be a starting point for next session. Often the repairs of such ruptures can be healing. What you are looking for might come out of the next discussion....or it might not.

Alternatively, the feelings of incompleteness might represent how you felt with your father--you could never do enough to change the situation. If that's the case, this would be a repetition compulsion that you would work through. Only after you work it through (experience all the emotions and come to a conclusion/resolution) would you feel the sense of 'completeness' you are looking for. Maybe the acceptance that you cannot change the outcome, particularly winning your father's approval, is the 'end'. Perhaps unsatisfying, it can allow you to grieve and then move forward. That's the nature of exploratory therapy; this can be very rewarding as the compulsions end, allowing you to divert your energy to bettering your life.

The above represents a very exploratory type of therapy rather than supportive, which is how many psychoanalyts work. You seem responsive to pragmatism, and maybe you need more warmth, a more supportive type of therapist? I'm curious how your upcoming consultation goes and hope you keep us updated.

I hope I explained that more clearly than my other posts. I'm trying to explain the exploratory nature of the type of therapy you are doing and what to expect. In other words, the incomplete feelings can represent the feelings about your father rather than the therapy. The nature of exploratory therapy beings it all to the surface for resolution. You can sort of 'get the hang of it' once you realize what's unfolding. Instead of suffering in the feelings, continuing to explore leads to resolution. So maybe in understanding this better, it's just a matter of time when you begin to feel good about the outcomes.

I agree with others in a sense that being yourself is being the ideal client, but in the context of how this therapy works, you seem to be doing it just like it is supposed to unfold. I think the key is seeing the purpose, the end in sight. That is what I was trying to illustrate above as you said you have a positive sense that this therapy might be impactful.

I really do think you have a good and solid T, and I don't say that very often. He is nondefensive. He reacted positively to your disclosure of googling him. He contains rather than acting reactive. He has a calm presence. He understands your ambivalence and encourages empowerment of yourself to explore other Ts. Nothing wrong if it doesn't work for you, but he is definitely a keeper, imo, for those who might benefit from the type of therapy he does.

Top tip: posting on a forum populated by hand-wringing, self-obsessed numpties will not increase your chances of being a perfect client. Trust in the experience of those who have gone before us, those who have lost their self-respect in the face of transference, those who have forgone their grip on reality in favour of a hour a week which has been fashioned from the tears of a wounded healer. Lest we forget.

Are you bipolar by chance?

No, but I have a devilish attitude and remarkable good taste in shoes.

I’m tragically hopeful by nature, so I will likely keep trying at least for a while. For me, the most helpful responses have been those that understand that I don’t literally want to be a “perfect” client. I think the responses I’ve received have been really helpful and I appreciate them.

I really appreciate all of your responses. They are super helpful. Thanks for taking the time to explain all of this stuff that feels so nebulous to me. I think, as you suggested, that I may bring up that feeling of incompleteness that I felt after our last session and see what he says. And I’ll let you know how it goes with the new T.