[LonesomeTonight]

So in yesterday's session, I was discussing a particular topic regarding my daughter, and my T asked if he could share a comment (prefaced by "Since you're already crying," which I think may be one of the worst transitions I've ever heard, from a T or otherwise!). He asked if maybe my own parenting struggles helped me to understand those of my mom more, like why she couldn't be the mother I needed in certain areas.

It's a topic that he's brought up before, and the first time he really pushed it, we ended up in a bit of a rupture. In that case, it was about forgiving my mom. And he's brought up something similar a few times since, including yesterday. He's always the one to bring that particular topic up, not me. (He generally lets me lead sessions in whatever direction I want to go, though will ask questions, give feedback, etc.).

I don't want to go into all the details of this particular topic or why forgiveness and understanding might not be the right thing for me, at least right now.

But I'm curious as to whether other people's T's have what almost feels like an agenda, a topic they bring up repeatedly, even if the client has made it clear that they aren't interested or aren't ready to talk about it. And something where the T seems to have a clear opinion in what you should be feeling about it, not something general like "you haven't really talked about what high school was like for you" (giving a random example).

If this has happened, how did you deal with it? I want to bring it up with him, but I also don't want to have to spend a bunch of time trying to justify why I don't want to follow his agenda. When there are other important, timely, fairly pressing things I want to talk about. Even yesterday, at one point, I said something like, "Can we go back to talking about my own experience of parenting?" I felt that we'd been heading down an important path, and he veered us off course.

Anyway, just curious about other experiences. Even if you'd rather not be specific about the actual topic that your T was pushing.

[Lonelyinmyheart]

Hi LT. I never have with current T - she's incredibly open about where I want to go and will start each session afresh with no expectations or agenda. But my ex T had a thing about me expressing anger. She brought it up over and over again, clearly bothered about the fact I wasn't expressing it towards the people/situations she felt I should be expressing it to. At one point she told me to do the gestalt chair thing where I had to express my anger to someone, which was absolutely horrific for me as I felt put on the spot, especially as I have severe performance anxiety, but was too scared to tell T I didn't want to do it. I hated her bringing it up all the time and I had a feeling she was pushing anger on me because her own anger about stuff that's happened in her life. Once or twice she did mention getting very angry about things in her life, so that was a fair assumption. She definitely had an agenda about it. I remember her asking me how much anger I felt and me saying what she wanted to hear rather than how I actually felt because I was too scared to say otherwise.

It's a tricky one LT. It's easy to say talk about it, but I know it's not always possible. Could you try to point out that it's making you feel reluctant to talk about what YOU really need to in that moment, and make the point that way? At the end of the day therapy should be about what you need, although I know it's not always as simple as that and depends on the school of thought your T trained in. It definitely sounds like he's leaning towards wanting you to focus on your childhood and coming to terms with how your mother was, but that's really something to come to in your own time and way, not his.

[ScarletPimpernel]

L doesn't usually bring anything up on her own unless I ask her to lead. And when she leads, she gives me options for topics. Sometimes she'll want to add an opinion or her perspective. Usually she'll ask first. Sometimes she'll go to far and I have to tell her to stop. She listens to me.

I would bring this up with your T. I'd word it like you worded it here. Maybe tell him you are not interested in that topic and that you feel there are more important things to discuss. It's your therapy. You're allowed to discuss whatever you want to.

Oh! And I have had a past T that would push her own agenda. That was not fun. I only stuck it out with her because I was scared to search for a new T.

[Mountaindewed]

I am not sure if this is related but my therapist refuses to talk to me about covid. She even told me one time it wasn't important to me when I tried talking about it and we still wear masks. I can't assume, but I'm thinking someone very close to her died from it or something and she can't cope with talking about it. It is not a huge deal to me since I was not heavily affected by it so I just don't bring it up since it seems to trigger her.

[velcro003]

Yeah, my T can push agendas on to me until I tell her to stop. The most recent one was her version of death (specifically in animals), that just wasn’t jiving with me. I told her in a long-winded email that it made me feel worse about the situation, and she’s since not brought it up.

Right now she is on a war path for me to join a community group, bc my world is so small and isolated. But that isn’t happening anytime soon, and I told her that, and she can “fire” me if she wants. She said she wouldn’t do that, but she is persistent.

[LonesomeTonight]

Thanks for all the comments--these are helpful! I'll try to reply in more detail later.

[smileygal]

My T hasn't has at times shared her opinion in a way that was almost trying to push her opinion or agenda on me in response to something I have said. She has never really initiated it though and hasn't brought up topics more than once where it would feel like she was trying to get me to do something. Although in saying that she regularly forgets things I have said which is a deep wound of mine even do we have talked about how sensitive I am to her forgetting which makes me sometimes wonder if she is trying to illicit something which is not the same so apologies for side ramble.

[Favorite Jeans]

My former T and I had a running disagreement about forgiveness. Not so much that she felt that I had to forgive but that her definition of forgiveness made no sense to me. She believes that you forgive as a gift to yourself, as a way to heal yourself. I told her that she was certainly entitled to that belief but that this understanding of forgiveness (ie as redemptive to the harmed party and totally unrelated to repair by the offender) was extremely Christian and not in keeping with my value system. I explained it to her at length and she just couldn’t see it. She didn’t push religion in any other way but it drove me nuts that she wasn’t able to get the, IDK, imperialism, here. It seems like an incredibly important distinction when you’re talking about significant harm or cruelty so it came up semi-frequently. It was a sore point for me because it seemed that she wasn’t trying to understand or honour my moral framework and ethnic background, and maybe fundamentally that she didn’t say, “okay, so let’s figure out a way forward that is more appropriate for you.”

(I don’t believe in staying mad forever either, I just understand “forgiveness” in a different way.)

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

My former T and I had a running disagreement about forgiveness. Not so much that she felt that I had to forgive but that her definition of forgiveness made no sense to me. She believes that you forgive as a gift to yourself, as a way to heal yourself. I told her that she was certainly entitled to that belief but that this understanding of forgiveness (ie as redemptive to the harmed party and totally unrelated to repair by the offender) was extremely Christian and not in keeping with my value system. I explained it to her at length and she just couldn’t see it. She didn’t push religion in any other way but it drove me nuts that she wasn’t able to get the, IDK, imperialism, here. It seems like an incredibly important distinction when you’re talking about significant harm or cruelty so it came up semi-frequently. It was a sore point for me because it seemed that she wasn’t trying to understand or honour my moral framework and ethnic background, and maybe fundamentally that she didn’t say, “okay, so let’s figure out a way forward that is more appropriate for you.”

(I don’t believe in staying mad forever either, I just understand “forgiveness” in a different way.)

Hm, this is interesting because my T seems to have a similar definition of forgiveness, but he is not religious (and he's Jewish, not Christian). So I wonder if it could be a popular therapist viewpoint in general, that definition of forgiveness, how it's healing to the person doing the forgiving?

I'm sorry she seemed so unwilling to accept your feelings on it and look for a way forward that works for you. I thought my T had understood and, as a result, backed off of this, which is why it was more jarring to me that he brought it up. This time, he didn't use the word "forgiveness" but "understanding," though I knew what he was implying because of our discussions about it before.

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by LonesomeTonight

Hm, this is interesting because my T seems to have a similar definition of forgiveness, but he is not religious (and he's Jewish, not Christian). So I wonder if it could be a popular therapist viewpoint in general, that definition of forgiveness, how it's healing to the person doing the forgiving?

I'm sorry she seemed so unwilling to accept your feelings on it and look for a way forward that works for you. I thought my T had understood and, as a result, backed off of this, which is why it was more jarring to me that he brought it up. This time, he didn't use the word "forgiveness" but "understanding," though I knew what he was implying because of our discussions about it before.

Would it feel better if he were more straightforward with his agenda? I might feel caught off guard (and angry) if I were talking about a parenting issue and my T suggested that I be more understanding of my own parents. It would feel maybe a little manipulative at worst and not attuned at best.

I might hear it better if they were forthright and asked (at another time, not derailing my concern about my own child): it seems like you continue to have a lot of bad feelings toward your parents, do you feel weighed down (or whatever) by your own anger? Could it be helpful to see this another way?

Compassion toward someone who harmed you kind of has to come organically, I think. I don’t think it’s fair to force it.

[LonesomeTonight]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

Would it feel better if he were more straightforward with his agenda? I might feel caught off guard (and angry) if I were talking about a parenting issue and my T suggested that I be more understanding of my own parents. It would feel maybe a little manipulative at worst and not attuned at best.

I might hear it better if they were forthright and asked (at another time, not derailing my concern about my own child): it seems like you continue to have a lot of bad feelings toward your parents, do you feel weighed down (or whatever) by your own anger? Could it be helpful to see this another way?

Compassion toward someone who harmed you kind of has to come organically, I think. I don’t think it’s fair to force it.

Thanks for your reply. I do think that was a big part of it, that he was derailing what I was talking about. And it almost felt like, "Now that you're struggling, do you understand how hard it was for your parents now?" So it felt minimizing in a sense, too. When he's normally very validating about parenting and stuff with my D.

I would prefer if he'd just brought it up in a session where I seemed unsure of what to talk about. Or maybe if I was going to see my parents and said I was stressed about it.

I agree that compassion needs to come more organically. I also don't know that it necessarily needs to be the goal. Right now, I'm trying to work on feeling more compassion toward myself, for example. (I am making some progress with that, I think.) I feel like I need to get there before feeling it towards others, if that makes sense.

I do intend to talk about this with him in session this afternoon. Thanks for helping me clarify my thoughts on this a bit.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

My T has asked about certain areas repeatedly after me expressing issues that had some connections to them, but if I ever told him to shut up about a certain thing, he's never mentioned it after. We do sometimes explore what other people might be thinking and experiencing, it's an important part of our work called mentalization, but if I say I can't do that right now, we stop and focus more on me usually.