[Brown Owl 2]

I used to post on this board under the name of Brown Owl, but deleted that account. I've come back as I've quit seeing my therapist and I'm having a hard time.

I've had infant emotional neglect, and every few months in my therapy, painful feelings were triggered, by something that happened between my T and I, and we were usually able to talk about what happened and my t apologised a few times for things she'd done. More recently my T just got really defensive. I 'confronted' her about something, this was a really really difficult thing for me to do. I think I expected her to reflect on what I said and maybe thank me for bringing it up, maybe acknowledge how hard it was for me to say that (and be happy that I had had the confidence to bring it up), may be explain her actions, certainly validate my feelings and point of view. I think I had high expectations of her, maybe too high? She responded defensively. I felt totally invalidated and like I had lost our relationship. I felt absolutely terrible after the session and repeated a mantra to myself 'I am brave and strong' (for saying what I said). It's ironical that one of my stated aims in my therapy with her was for me to express my feelings and not just bury them. Now I think that I bury them for a reason, as confrontation is soooo painful. I went back and talked about it a few times, painfully, but then quit.

Now that I'm out of the relationship I can see that neither of us considered at the time how difficult 'confrontation' is for me, it felt catastrophic to have confronted her. I read on this board of many times that clients don't confront their T's about things and now I see that there's a good reason why we don't.

I don't really want hugs from you guys, but I'd love to chat about this stuff and hear your perspectives and experiences.

[Yaowen]

Dear Brown Owl 2,

You experiences are quite interesting to me.

My experiences with psychotherapists run the gamut. Generally speaking, [and I know speaking in general can often lead to gross oversimplification] I have benefited from my relationships with therapists.

I am the kind of person who tends to gain knowledge, experience and insight from anyone I meet, even when the relationships are not that great. I even seem to derive benefit from those opposed to me or who scorn me for this or that.

It is like . . . I don't know . . . It is like I am building myself and everything I encounter is something I can use. I think it is a little like making a painting when every person one meets adds a little new color or tint to one's palette.

Or maybe a better analogy would be a plant that takes what's in the soil and transforms it into itself even when some of the stuff in the soil is rotting food or manure. I suppose it could be equally well stated that a plant would perish from poison in the soil. But I have never yet encountered anyone who is poisonous like that.

In the long run I have learned the most from books written by famous psychotherapists. I have generally found reading books by such famous psychotherapists to be about 10 times as beneficial as face to face therapy.

I tend these days to have a "could be worse, but isn't worse" point of view. When I was younger my default attitude tended to be "could be better, but isn't better." I was a perfectionists of sorts. I was not very happy if things fell short of being 100% ideal.
Now I am kind of the opposite. I don't expect 100% and am happy if something yields anything greater than zero.

I wouldn't call this point of view "optimism." To me, optimism centers on the future. It is an attitude geared to one dimension of the temporal: the future. I tend to look at past, present and future from a "could be worse, but isn't worse" attitude. So I think this attitude is a little wider than optimism.

When I was sort of a perfectionist I looked at my past, my childhood, my relatives, my school life, my personal life, my friends and the people I encountered and saw them through a kind of lens, the "could have been better but wasn't better." I looked at my present life in the same way and anticipated my future life along these lines too.

By having a "could be better but isn't better" default point of view, my default feelings and moods tended toward frustration, aggravation, disappointment, anger, guilt, shame, unhappiness. Later when I was able to see that there is another way of looking at things, such as "could be worse, but isn't worse," I felt I attained more balance and perspective. Appreciation was added to my mood palette, gratitude, feeling lucky and blessed, joy of living, peace of mind.

I have nothing against perfectionism per se. It is wonderful in its own way. I am glad that surgeons are perfectionists, and chemists who work on vaccines, and inventors and I guess in so many ways perfectionism has such great value. But I guess, that for me at least, extreme perfectionism is not good for me. It just leads to joyless striving and general unhappiness.

The famous Sigmund Freud once said something about the goal of therapy. He said that the goal was to transform acute unhappiness into general unhappiness. I have experienced many kinds of therapists in my life and quite a few seem to share that view: relieve acute psychic pain so that all that is left is tolerable unhappiness. I was lucky to encounter some therapists who had different goals. I think especially of the psychiatrist Dr. Aaron T. Beck.

It will be interesting to see if other people here will see your post and respond to it with their experiences. That would be wonderful. I wish you the very best. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

This sounds tough and I can relate to elements of it. My therapist is often defensive and it is very distracting in the work and destructive to our relationship. Once she becomes defensive, she loses me and is only concerned with herself. It's painful. Of course, I frequently attack her to protect myself so in many ways we create perfect storms.

It sounds to me that the confrontation itself is less painful for you than her inability to respond sensitively. If she had responded carefully, it seems possible that you would not be thinking of the interaction in terms of "confrontation", but maybe in terms of resolution or acceptance.

[here today]

I confronted my therapist, I thought it was the thing to do. I could have kept my feelings turned off and unexpressed, so it's not like polite behavior was impossible for me. It was therapy, after all, I thought. But eventually she terminated me saying she did "not have the emotional resources" to continue.

The termination triggered enormous feelings of rejection and abandonment, deeper than anything I knew I had at the time. More than 50 years of therapy on and off and I hadn't gotten to those deep feelings. Six months after the termination I had some recollection of the same feelings from my childhood connected with my family members.

I got along for 5 years without therapy but was having an extremely difficult time a couple of months ago, decided to try to find a therapist again, and lucked out a little perhaps -- one picked up the phone directly and did not send it to voice mail. Otherwise I very well might not have left a message.

I told her I was not looking for any more therapy or help with my internal states but did want feedback and some help with my adaptation. especially my social interactions with other people. However, several weeks ago, when I was describing the distress I had at the termination with the previous therapist, some dots or threads seemed to connect -- back to an abandonment trauma and terror when I was being given anesthesia in the operating room when I was 3. It was back in 1950 and medical people weren't sensitive to little children's emotional needs back then.

So, now, I have the specific event that I can look back to when I experience social anxiety, terror, and anger. When I experience feelings like that now, it helps me to remember that event (now in the past, and I DID survive), step back, and take the real current social situation into account somewhat, more than my previous, lifelong response of mostly numbing out, or else expressing what may have seemed to other people overly intense emotions that were likely triggered from that original, unprocessed event and the then similar feelings which went unprocessed, too, throughout my childhood from dysfunctional aspects of my family life. So when I experienced disappointment and anger toward the previous therapist(s), it was probably a repeat of that old, unprocessed anger. And I thought that we were supposed to resolve that -- but the old anger was, of course, long ago and unresolvable -- although it may be processable, if opened up -- MAYBE and SOMETIMES. I don't think therapists know how to tell how and why and for whom, though.

It may be that the therapist triggering what had been so well defended that I could not access it was something that was needed? Except that -- I am 73 and how am I going to make a new life for myself now? Well, I have to try, my physical health is good and what else is there to do?

I don't know if my experience can help you at all. I think it has helped me to have that specific event that was like a flashbulb memory, only the feelings were unprocessed and dissociated, I guess, when the anesthesia took effect. Before that came together with some other experiences from my childhood, the feelings were like this whole amorphous thing, although it had been getting somewhat less intense in the last year. I can well imagine that with infant neglect there are no specific cognitive memories -- but perhaps you can imagine one anyway? A time when you were hopeful about the world and your caregiver, and then just gave up? SO PAINFUL. I get that. Still processing that one, too.

I'm also still angry -- legitimately I believe -- that it took so long for therapy to be "helpful", if it turns out that it is, and the "it may get worse before it gets better" lasted DECADES. Lives are limited in real time, if not in theoretical therapy time.

That's my perspective and experience, anyway.

[TeaVicar?]

This is not an excuse but I wonder what was going on in her private life at the time. I remember a dreadful year in therapy, I had lots of negative feelings towards him and really struggled with any changes in consistency or continuity. We'd had a couple of bad ruptures regarding breaks and inconsistencies and he was very deflective about them. I'm quite sure he had other stuff going on that affected him and how he worked with me. I stayed. We got through it somehow and things managed to turn a corner about 2 years ago, in that I was able to tolerate breaks and mistakes a bit better. It was gradual though.

Early neglect is so difficult because we're starting from a point of absolutely no trust and an expectation of always eventually being let down. What did your therapist say? Can you find a new one? Perhaps a male therapist would work better. Wishing you all the good luck. x

[Brown Owl 2]

Originally Posted by Yaowen

Dear Brown Owl 2,

You experiences are quite interesting to me.

My experiences with psychotherapists run the gamut. Generally speaking, [and I know speaking in general can often lead to gross oversimplification] I have benefited from my relationships with therapists.

I am the kind of person who tends to gain knowledge, experience and insight from anyone I meet, even when the relationships are not that great. I even seem to derive benefit from those opposed to me or who scorn me for this or that.

It is like . . . I don't know . . . It is like I am building myself and everything I encounter is something I can use. I think it is a little like making a painting when every person one meets adds a little new color or tint to one's palette.

Or maybe a better analogy would be a plant that takes what's in the soil and transforms it into itself even when some of the stuff in the soil is rotting food or manure. I suppose it could be equally well stated that a plant would perish from poison in the soil. But I have never yet encountered anyone who is poisonous like that.

In the long run I have learned the most from books written by famous psychotherapists. I have generally found reading books by such famous psychotherapists to be about 10 times as beneficial as face to face therapy.

I tend these days to have a "could be worse, but isn't worse" point of view. When I was younger my default attitude tended to be "could be better, but isn't better." I was a perfectionists of sorts. I was not very happy if things fell short of being 100% ideal.
Now I am kind of the opposite. I don't expect 100% and am happy if something yields anything greater than zero.

I wouldn't call this point of view "optimism." To me, optimism centers on the future. It is an attitude geared to one dimension of the temporal: the future. I tend to look at past, present and future from a "could be worse, but isn't worse" attitude. So I think this attitude is a little wider than optimism.

When I was sort of a perfectionist I looked at my past, my childhood, my relatives, my school life, my personal life, my friends and the people I encountered and saw them through a kind of lens, the "could have been better but wasn't better." I looked at my present life in the same way and anticipated my future life along these lines too.

By having a "could be better but isn't better" default point of view, my default feelings and moods tended toward frustration, aggravation, disappointment, anger, guilt, shame, unhappiness. Later when I was able to see that there is another way of looking at things, such as "could be worse, but isn't worse," I felt I attained more balance and perspective. Appreciation was added to my mood palette, gratitude, feeling lucky and blessed, joy of living, peace of mind.

I have nothing against perfectionism per se. It is wonderful in its own way. I am glad that surgeons are perfectionists, and chemists who work on vaccines, and inventors and I guess in so many ways perfectionism has such great value. But I guess, that for me at least, extreme perfectionism is not good for me. It just leads to joyless striving and general unhappiness.

The famous Sigmund Freud once said something about the goal of therapy. He said that the goal was to transform acute unhappiness into general unhappiness. I have experienced many kinds of therapists in my life and quite a few seem to share that view: relieve acute psychic pain so that all that is left is tolerable unhappiness. I was lucky to encounter some therapists who had different goals. I think especially of the psychiatrist Dr. Aaron T. Beck.

It will be interesting to see if other people here will see your post and respond to it with their experiences. That would be wonderful. I wish you the very best. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen

Thanks so much for your reply. You said that you tend to gain something from everyone you meet, and that's helpful for me to think about that in respect of this T. I'm sure I gained a lot from her. I seem to be stuck focusing on this painful ending, and it would help if I could shift and focus on the rest of my time with her. I've also seen that quote from Freud, I don't agree with a lot of what he stood for, but I like that quote.

[Brown Owl 2]

Originally Posted by comrademoomoo

This sounds tough and I can relate to elements of it. My therapist is often defensive and it is very distracting in the work and destructive to our relationship. Once she becomes defensive, she loses me and is only concerned with herself. It's painful. Of course, I frequently attack her to protect myself so in many ways we create perfect storms.

It sounds to me that the confrontation itself is less painful for you than her inability to respond sensitively. If she had responded carefully, it seems possible that you would not be thinking of the interaction in terms of "confrontation", but maybe in terms of resolution or acceptance.

Hi Comrademoomoo. I think you put it exactly into words - when a T becomes defensive they lose you, and are focusing on themselves. I don't think that my T realised how much I trusted and respected her and that everything that I said came from a position of trust and respect, and that I expected there to be times when we didn't connect over something and that I considered that her missing what I needed was all part of it and that me expressing how I felt to her was part of it. I don't know if she felt attacked and I also wonder if I was in some way attacking her because I felt belittled by the relationship on one particular day. However I also think that sometimes there can be an over analysis of the client's actions and their simple actions (or in this case a protest about what my T did) come to be viewed as disordered, and the client therefore comes to be seen as disordered.

[Brown Owl 2]

Originally Posted by here today

. 'So when I experienced disappointment and anger toward the previous therapist(s), it was probably a repeat of that old, unprocessed anger. And I thought that we were supposed to resolve that -- but the old anger was, of course, long ago and unresolvable -- although it may be processable, if opened up -- MAYBE and SOMETIMES. I don't think therapists know how to tell how and why and for whom, though.'.

Thanks for your reply here today, I'm glad to hear that you're finding some resolution. I think one of the things you said was that therapy can open up old emotions and could help to process and resolve them, but the therapists don't know who it could help? I think that for me, the therapy opened up my old emotions, not just at the end, at other times, while I was seeing this T, and it was very painful, I'm not sure she grasped how painful. I wish she could have been more gentle.

[Brown Owl 2]

Originally Posted by TeaVicar?

This is not an excuse but I wonder what was going on in her private life at the time. I remember a dreadful year in therapy, I had lots of negative feelings towards him and really struggled with any changes in consistency or continuity. We'd had a couple of bad ruptures regarding breaks and inconsistencies and he was very deflective about them. I'm quite sure he had other stuff going on that affected him and how he worked with me. I stayed. We got through it somehow and things managed to turn a corner about 2 years ago, in that I was able to tolerate breaks and mistakes a bit better. It was gradual though.

Early neglect is so difficult because we're starting from a point of absolutely no trust and an expectation of always eventually being let down. What did your therapist say? Can you find a new one? Perhaps a male therapist would work better. Wishing you all the good luck. x

Hi Tea Vicar. I think that my T possibly has found the Covid situation difficult, I think this may have affected our relationship. Looking back I wish I could have tolerated her mistakes better. While I was seeing her, whenever difficult emotions got triggered, I developed bad back pain. When I stopped going my back seized up, and I'm now in a lot of pain, which I'm having treatment for. I don't think I can go back to see her because of my back pain, this didn't happen with my previous therapists. I'd like to try another therapist, but not now, maybe in a year or so, I've got to sort my back out first. I'm hoping that if I go again I could deal with this type of thing better, but I'm also afraid of the emotions that come up and how they affect me.

[Rive.]

It's unfortunate that your T dropped the ball. Some countertransference may have been at play here.

She should have been able to self-reflect and/or get supervision if she felt personally impacted. Otherwise why get so defensive.

[Brown Owl 2]

Originally Posted by Rive.

It's unfortunate that your T dropped the ball. Some countertransference may have been at play here.

She should have been able to self-reflect and/or get supervision if she felt personally impacted. Otherwise why get so defensive.

Thanks Rive.

[Fuzzybear]

I can relate to not confronting a T about things. It hurts so much when they react defensively as you have described (and similar has happened to me). I do think that it sounds like your T was experiencing countertransference which she would have been wise to deal with outside of your therapy space.

[Brown Owl 2]

Originally Posted by Fuzzybear

I can relate to not confronting a T about things. It hurts so much when they react defensively as you have described (and similar has happened to me). I do think that it sounds like your T was experiencing countertransference which she would have been wise to deal with outside of your therapy space.

Thanks Fuzzybear, I think she may have been. I wish I could have conveyed to her how much I trusted her, and I also wish I could have not been so affected by it, I felt like I'd lost her.