Couch 198: All the Countries Couch

Im still waiting for David Ortiz to show up...

#dominicanrepublic #minibarpoisonings

I have never worn fishnet stockings. I have not worn any kind of panty hose since I moved away from the midwest.

If you walked into your therapists office for the first time and had to pick a place to sit on the sofa, which end would you choose?

This not-quite-accurate 3D rendering of my therapist's office is the view you see from the door as you walk in. There's a desk immediately to your left that you can't see in this rendering. Apparently 98% of clients choose a particular seat, and I'm in the 2%.

In that set up - I would bring in my own chair. Is the door being blocked by the therapist's chair?

The spot directly across from where T would be sitting.

That's where I sit on my T's couch--right across from where he sits. He also has a chair a bit further from him. He said most females sit where I do, while most males sit in the chair further from him. (He also sees couples and families, but that's for individuals.)

I would love to be in the 2%.

That’s an awfully narrow office. I would sit as far away from the therapist as possible.

With this 3D renderer (called Roomstyler - it's online) it's a bit hard to get the right angle for the camera just right so it does look like the desk chair is blocking the door, but it's not.

Also, I probably didn't get the dimensions of the room quite accurate, but it's not too off either.

It was fairly obvious to me that the armchair was his. The couch is your choice for seating. Which end (or the middle) is the question? Unless, of course, you want to haul your own chair downtown and through the office building every week.

I did haul my own chair at times to avoid the woman's horrible couch.With her couch, I sat exactly in the middle to avoid her equally horrible pillows.She had a whole gob of pillows.
In the room set up you have - if someone was holding a gun to me and made me sit on the couch, I would choose the end of the couch closest to the door/farthest from the therapist.
But I would probably just take in my own chair to avoid getting trapped in there by a therapist

In that set up I would find a new T! OMG that makes me crazy! But then it isn’t that different from last T hmmm... Awesome T has changed me...

All this came up because I sent him an email before our session yesterday. I told him I was feeling disconnected from him and I was having trouble putting words to that when I was sitting in front of him. I also told him I was dreading the weekend and that there was something I could ask him to do that would help, but I was too embarrassed to ask him for it. When we talked about this in session, I said that he had done it before but that I hadn't asked for it, he'd just done it. I'm fairly certain he figured out that what I wanted him to do was sit in his office chair closer to me because he brought up that where I sit is further away from him. He said most people sit on the other end of the couch and that it's closer to him. I had never really noticed it before, but it is actually closer to him. I've always sat on the end closer to the door. I don't know if I subconsciously chose that seat because it's a little further away, but I don't think it was a conscious decision. I think he thinks it means something that that is where I choose to sit.

Ok, if we are forcing a choice.. the desk chair if it had to be on the couch then I would be all the way by the door blending into the arm.

I think we should write a guide to office setup for therapists. Chapters would include:

Setting Up Your Office for the Avoidant Client
Setting Up Your Office for the Attached Client
Setting Up Your Office for the Traumatized Client

And so on.

And I loathe pillows. I have to move 5 or 6 from Info’s chairs when I go there.

His sofa has 3 pillows. Two that obviously came with the couch and one colorful, smaller one. I sit with one of the bigger ones on my lap as a barrier and it regularly comes in handy when I want to hide my face. Sometimes I'll pull one of the other pillows next to my leg to form a nice little pillow fort.

It's like I want him closer but I want to keep him away too.

L has this one giant furry pillow on the couch. It's really soft though. Sometimes I lean on it usually I don't.

Oh geez I'm talking present tense again

That office setup is odd. That room is too narrow. I guess I’d choose whichever seat let me face the therapist most directly.

When I met with the ex’s t alone, I sat on the couch across from him, but when I met with both (ex and his t), I made sure to go in first and snag the chair by the door so the ex wouldn’t try to sit on the couch next to me. I actually dreamt about the seating the night before.

I played with that roomstyler thing on lunch and made L's office on it. That was fun.

I wonder what the attached set up would look like.

Depends on whether the attached client gets to choose or if the T gets to choose. Personally, I want them sitting at a 90 degree angle next to me. Not close enough to causally touch, but if we reached out, we could touch. If it's a T, they might choose to sit way away...lol...unless they understand and are for attachment.

Right now, L sits too far away from my liking. But it's not her office, and the room is big. It would look weird if she was closer to me. T is also far away in her new office. When she was in her old office, I actually asked her to sit closer to me and she obliged.

I'm wondering what the traumatized client set up would look like.

I only touched the pillows my T has in one session, when I was particularly stressed. Then. I held it and stroked the fringed tassels the whole time. Haven't done it since.

Oh wait, there was one other time--when I realized I had a stain on my shirt. T knew I'd be self-conscious about it, so suggested I hold pillow in front of it. So I did that.

There's a table between the couch and L's chair so she's too far away to touch but if we both lean in I can hand her a paper across the table. (If I printed up my dream writeup that week)

Also in session yesterday...

He brought his dog. Coincidentally, on Wednesday I had asked him how much money he wanted to bring his dog with him again. He said he brought her because he was leaving to go out of town for work straight from his office, not because I asked him to. Anyway, I ended up telling him that I had been wanting to ask him to bring her again for a long time and the reason was because I wanted to be able to touch something that's not inanimate. This eventually led to the conversation about me sitting further away than others do. But before we went down that path, he made a comment about not usually being able to get the need for touch met in therapy. I felt a little stab of pain when he said that. First, I've never asked him to touch me in any way and I doubt I would. I have felt the desire for him to touch my hand or hug me before though. I'm not sure how I'd feel if any of that actually happened, but I still have the desire for it. It felt like he was preemptively shutting me down when he said that. I don't know how to feel about that.

Also, once we talked about how I wanted him to sit closer, he said he would roll his chair over, but the dog was in the way. So I got to pet the dog, but I didn't get to sit closer to him. That made me kind of sad too. Couldn't he just move the dog for a minute to move the chair?

More drama with my new house. Floor drain backup in basement now includes raw sewage so I'm in a hotel until at least Tuesday, which is when the plumber with the camera can come in and diagnose the problem. Previous plumber snaked out all possible lines and appears to have angered the whole system because now it's gotten worse. So sad and angry that I can't even cry.

Seating discussion seems to have moved on, but I would opt for the couch cushion right in front of the chair.

(This is the setup I would like, but it is made difficult by the layout of the room where we meet, as below.)

That sounds awful and frustrating. I hope it can be fixed quickly and completely.