Couch 229 - Acetominphen and

Empathy is the basic thing you want in a T. Doesn't have to be one or the other.

Would you have stayed with pre pandemic Dr T ?

I feel like you don't have to censor yourself in therapy . His error caused you distress. Even if you still held a grudge from last time it's just how you feel.

Thanks, Lost, not overstepping at all. And you're right that he said at one point how he doesn't believe in unconditional positive regard, and he also said in the conversation that he doesn't have unconditional love for his son (which bothered me as a parent).


I think communicating about when I want empathy vs. pushed is a good idea, thanks. I've sort of done that at times, but it might be good to have a discussion with him about it. Like if he's starting to push, would it be OK to say to him "Now's not the right time, I just need some empathy"? I mean, of course it's OK to say to him, but would he be open to something like that?


I guess we just need to talk about it Monday and see where it goes. It just feels like a long ways away, even though it's only 2 days.

Hope you're hanging in there OK...

Thanks, LT.

I'm glad some of what I wrote was useful to you. I am still hanging in there, but OK is somewhat in question. I am finding distractions, though, so that's good.

What does he mean by that? He expects something in return and if he doesn't get it he won't love him? If his son did something "bad" he would stop loving him? I don't have children and I know relationships are hard, but that gives me pause, even more so knowing that he's a therapist.

When I asked him about it at the time, he gave an example of if his son ended being a murderer or something like that. Which in a way, I get, but I still feel like I'd love my daughter on some level even if that did happen.

It gave me pause as well. I also think of how at one point he said if someone he loved/cared about disrespected his opinion on something, he'd stop caring about them briefly. So it would be temporary, but it still bothered me to hear him say that.

This is a good question. I think what's hard for me right now is I've seen how he *can* be. That he can be very outwardly caring, empathetic, and supportive. So at this point, if he mostly went back to how he was before, I think it would be very difficult for me because I know how he's capable of being. Like I'd probably keep trying to get him to show that side again.

And I agree that empathy is one of the most important qualities for a T to have.

Hi CE! Nice to 'see' you.

And, hugs all around to those who want.

I don't get that at all. Even if ToddlerManatee ended up being the twenty-first century Ted Bundy, I would still love her. I would help bring her to justice if I had to, but I wouldn't stop loving her.

Exactly! Helps to know you feel this way, too.

A largish spider crawled under my couch and now I can't relax because I don't know where it is. I'm currently armed with my hand-held vacuum cleaner.

Today I am grateful for air conditioning. Holy cow. It is hot out. I was feeling a little grumbly about the way that tree in the neighbor's yard grew, as trees do, but today I'm grateful for the late afternoon shade on my garden.

We'd planned an early 4th family bbq, which we canceled, so I am sitting in my cool(ish...turned the cool-to temp up a little to help relieve some of the load on the system) studying. Good times.

My weather forecast for the next 3 days: 106, 114, 115. Wow! And I don't live in the desert. I live in the land of trees and rain.

Wow NP! that's the kind of heat we were having last week but it's cooled down now here. Today it's 101 and tomorrow they're saying 104, but cooling from there with rain forecast starting Monday, then by Wednesday they're saying a high of 87.

Ugh to the heat!

And that reminds me of one of the non-empathetic things with Dr. T yesterday. So I've felt more comfortable going to restaurants and eating outside (I did eat inside at one, but it was on a weekday, so not crowded--don't feel comfortable eating inside with D, as she can't get vaccinated yet). This past week we had mild weather, but the heat (not nearly as bad as some of you have listed, but with bonus humidity) is back today and predicted to be that way for the next few weeks, presumably the rest of the summer. And I'm someone who really dislikes hot weather. This is all background, which Dr. T knows about.

So yesterday I was lamenting to Dr. T how it was going to get hot again and then I might not want to eat outside again this summer, how it was something I'd started to do again, but now that might be gone for a few months. And he said, "Wow, that's an impressive level of pessimism right there." I jokingly asked if I was getting an "A" in pessimism, and he said yes. Which, yes, I was joking around, but if he was in empathy mode, he'd have said something about how he knows I've been enjoying eating outside at restaurants, how it's felt more like pre-pandemic life to me, and that he understood how I was concerned that would change with the hot weather. Instead, he was just like, "Wow, that's pessimistic."

I know that probably seems like a minor thing, and he was trying to challenge my thinking. But it was just one part of a session where he seemed misattuned through most of it.

Maybe he doesn't understand what unconditional positive regard means in a therapeutic context. It doesn't mean that a client is always viewed positively by the therapist, regardless of their behaviour or thoughts. It is way more basic than that: the therapist sees every client as human and, as such, every client always has worth by virtue of being human. The therapist recognises the client's agency, free will and troubled existence, and this recognition is not continent on the client being "acceptable". It's an existential position really, that the state of existing is meaningful regardless of what that existence looks like.

It's like the sun got the PNW confused with Arizona.

My son said Arizonans and Texans and the like are probably snickering at us right now the way we poke fun at people who don't know how to drive in the rain.

We have a cold front coming through - so it was extremely muggy earlier today and now it is storming

I'm just visiting.

She has other virtues.

Anyway, she has better hair than most US presidents.

That could be it. Ts do something generous and human and then beat themselves up about it for the next month. Gotta stick to the book!

I'd like to hear his reply to that!

I don't believe in unconditional love - not from parents of adults or anyone else really. If a therapist said they didn't think they had unconditional love for their children - I would chalk it up to them forgetting themselves and actually saying something honest. I think the concept is completely unrealistic. I think sentimentality and a highly romanticized fantasy are more underlying the phrase than reality.

I agree that unconditional love is a myth. Years of abuse can kill the strongest love, as many of of us here have experienced.

This might be pathetic, but it's the only way I can relate. If my dog killed another dog or person, I would still love my dog. Oh! If one of my nieces killed someone, I would still love my nieces.

It's kind of what L is teaching me about core-self. Your actions, thoughts, and feelings do not make up your core-self. I can see how unconditional love or positive regard works if it's based on your core-self. That's why L says that even if I murdered someone, she'd still love me.

My Mom, who lives in TX, sent me a screenshot earlier this week of the forecast. I thought she was showing me her forecast at first.

When we first moved here, none of the apartments we looked at had A/C. I'm having a hard time imagining trying to get through a 115 F day with no A/C.