Deepest Sessions

Will anyone share their experiences with really deep sessions. How did you initiate a deep discussion besides the usual “how are you feeling this week” that always gets asked? What did you discuss or how did your therapist respond that you found helpful?

I will go first. I told my therapist about my interest in BDSM. She wars very nonjudgmental and explained a lot of interesting concepts to me that I ponder and want to discuss further. This discussion came about as we were discussing relationships and I felt that could tell her my secret.

I love my therapist.

I send my therapist stuff that I find difficult to talk about via email or text, she responds in a very accepting way and that makes me feel able to talk about it in session. Once I feel accepted for whatever I say, I find myself naturally opening up. I approached the issue of sexuality this way and like your T she reacted in a very caring and non-judgemental way and was very proactive in how she engaged with the topic, even sharing a couple of things about herself (nothing current or unhelpful), I love my T too.

I told my T some similar stuff but through email. then in one session it took over 20 minutes but I finally was able to tell her about something odd that I liked doing. She was non judgmental and just said “yeah well that would make sense this time of year.”

I always seem to find the worst and most round about ways of telling mine the important stuff. Or I keep hinting at things, like I want him to guess. He doesn’t. Usually it gets all deep out of nowhere and I have no idea why that happens. Sometimes I go with something really important and specific in mind, only to talk crap the whole session instead.

I've had a couple of deep sessions. Mostly they were related to a few traumatic events in my life that I've never really discussed with anyone before.

Most of the time, I ruminated for myself for a while about how to discuss it. I'm usually somebody who rehearses what I'd want the discussion to look like beforehand, though for some reason in therapy I then never actually start the conversation the way I've imagined. Most of the time, I just get triggered either by something we talk about, something my T says, or something I thought about and then just star talking about the issue. Usually these are the sessions that take a bit longer but also where I leave and feel relieved and somewhat hopeful.

I've always found the response of my T helpful. He's good in talking to me in a way where I don't get too triggered and can still process the session, but still not avoiding the topic altogether. There aren't always big realizations that come from these conversations, but feeling understood and listened to in that moment is very helpful.

I just told her at the beginning of the appointment that I needed to share some information that would make her formulation of me complete. Then I just blurted out that I was transgender. Hiding this has been getting harder and harder. I have carried that secret for about 30 years.

Another thing I had to do was correct a lie that I told her about my sexuality (my attraction to women) 3 years before, because it bothered me. I admitted that I lied and told her how I always felt.

She was supportive and didn't judge me at all. My secret didn't surprise her at all. She asked at one point why I kept this all in. I told her it was because I feared getting diagnosed with personality disorder again.

It took me a few weeks to get the courage. I had to carefully think it out and plan what I was going to say.

Now, I have no secrets.

It depends. Sometimes I send an email beforehand about something I want to talk about. Or I otherwise plan to discuss a certain topic. But other times, it just seems to come out of nowhere, like we'll just happen upon a certain topic that's really intense. I've found sometimes that the sessions I *think* might end up being intense (like today's) often aren't. And ones where I go in thinking "I'm not sure what I want to talk about today" end up being really intense/deep. It's funny, I said to my T today, "You probably expected me to be really emotional in session today" (because of an email I'd sent two nights ago saying I was struggling). T: "I never know what to expect from you, LT."

In terms of surprise emotional moments, it makes me think of the time I was talking about grad school in marriage counseling, and I suddenly started crying and said, "I miss math..." (I realized it was in the sense of something more logical with clear right and wrong answers as opposed to, say, marriage and raising a child on the autism spectrum.) But it was still like, "I'm getting emotional about math, what is going on here?"

The deepest session I've had to date was the one in which I went ballistic because she was fifteen minutes late for my appointment. That day happened to be a very difficult one for me, overall. I slammed into her office screaming about how I didn't need a therapist because I could handle things on my own, since I'd done well with that miserable 15 minutes...and on and on I went. Screaming and crying and telling her that people always take me for granted, she's no different, on and on.

She listened so calmly. She finally said, "Sometimes there are no words." She stood up from her chair and sat down next to me on the couch. She put her arms around me, held me to her and allowed me to just sob.

No one had ever done anything like that for me. It was a life-changer.

I had one of these deep sessions yesterday. It left me feeling totally drained and very sad. It came up because in our previous session I had made an off-handed comment about something in my past. After that session, I started thinking more deeply about that time in my life and there was something I wanted to add to what I'd previously told him.

At the beginning of session, we chatted lightly for a bit then I brought up what I initially wanted to share. Then another detail I'd never shared came to mind and I started to tell him, but changed my mind. He prodded a bit, I started crying and I told him this detail that I'd always felt ashamed about, even though it was only about calling someone on the phone. This turned into a retelling of the whole series of events. There was another part of the story that I'd left out previously, so I told him that part of it too. There were lots of tears and pain and hurt on my side and I could feel plenty of empathizing on his. He told me that people had let me down and I'd been really alone with this. He let me stay an extra five minutes.

I hadn't really intended to get into it so deeply, but that's what happened. There have been other times that I knew I was going to go deep. One in particular, I emailed him that morning and asked if he was up to it that day and asked if we could burn a candle as a way to make the environment more relaxing. He couldn't burn the candle (he said other clients had complained when he burned one previously), but he was very welcoming and offered to adjust the lighting and temperature if I wanted. So sometimes it can be helpful to plan and discuss it ahead of time.

I feel that all of our sessions are deep sessions. Since we have several hours or a whole day at a time, we have plenty of time to get deep into our talks.

I have read many postings of yours which describe the length of your sessions. You seem keen to tell us that your sessions are uncommonly long. Does the length of your sessions signify how much your therapist cares about you? If your sessions are unusually long, your therapist cares in an unusual way?

I will be the first to admit that many of my sessions are not deep sessions, I struggle with going too deep and shutting down. The one that sticks out the most is the one after one of my abusers passed away where I spent the hour talking about my conflicting feelings on the matter and just what had happened when I was a child in general. It was heavy af.

I don't recall ever considering an appointment to have been deep. Mostly I left wondering what the hell the point of it was

They should call you Salty Dog

What kind of therapy modality is that? How much is the cost?

I think the longest session my therapist does is 90 minutes but that is only for couples.

For me the deepest discussions have been the ones I know I should bring up but kept avoiding. Eventually, without planning I just blurt it out. Since it wasnt planned I do bot have the conversation planned in my head and therefore do bot have my guard up.

Once T left open a 2 hour block just in case. That second hour was exhausting but productive because, my wall was down. It usually takes me time to warm up and put the wall aside.

It seems more like a friendship.

I'm not really sure what I think of as a "deep session." There are sessions when I talk about a topic that I normally avoid, which usually involve a lot of crying, but I don't know if that's deep, exactly. Those usually start because the topic is on my mind before I get there. There are sessions when I learn something about myself, or think of something interesting, or feel somewhat more bonded with T than usual. Usually those happen spontaneously, like we're talking and it just comes together somehow. Those seem deeper to me.

Oh dear, i am not trying to imply anything. My therapist has long sessions available for anyone who is willing to pay for them. It does not make me special at all nor imply how much she cares about me. I know several people who have had all day sessions with her. Helen is very friendly, but she is not my friend. We have grown quite close over the years working together, so we trust each other. We do fun things together because we do such heavy trauma work with me and our alters, that we need breaks occasionally from the heavy things. I suppose it is unusual to do long sessions, but it is something she offers. We do not do insurance, so I pay out of pocket. Therapy is an investment in my future, as I see it. she and i do work very well together, and we do have a special relationship. But, long sessions dont make me special at all. i will make sure i dont talk about my sessions any longer since this has been pointed out to me as something people think is odd,

The internet tends to be very US centric but this forum has many posters from Europe. I think it is odd that some say their therapist always wears a pant suit and silk blouse. Without fail I see they are in the UK where people dress a lot more formally.

When someone mentions a modality I have never heard of it makes me want to know more. Again I don’t know of any therapist who would do more than a 2 hour session. And that would be for something like EMDR.

It may be easier to explain “my therapist does psychoanalytical therapy therefore we have longer sessions.” This kind of therapy has fallen out of favor since it is expensive and requires that the therapist take on the role of parent. Now I believe most treatments are going toward a way of the patient re-parenting themselves.

I love reading what you say about your therapy session, it sounds like you have a very secure relationship and I find that reassuring to read about, please don’t stop.