The Yearning to be with the T

I’ve resolved that this time around in therapy, I’m going to manage this yearning feeling better. Where does this dam feeling come from? What proportion of clients get it? My guess is it relates to the yearning that a baby has to be with their care giver. Is it because my parents didn’t pick me up much as a baby and probably left me alone for long periods? Did the yearning get stuck? unfulfilled? It feels like a bloody ridiculous feeling for a mature and sensible adult to feel.

How do other people manage it? I’m trying to just notice it when it comes, with no response other than to repeat a mantra about myself, and to turn my mind to other things. It seems to help.

I think it comes from CEN, Childhood Emotional Neglect. There is a forum on here about it, or some threads or something. There are a few books about it, but i believe it is understudied as compared to say controlling parents or child reactive disorder.

We are talking about good smart kids who did not set the house on fire while mommy slept, but just played with their crayons at the kitchen table. Who taught themselves to read. I have it from the horse's mouth - the little old Hungarian lady who lived next door - that my mother left me alone in my crib for too long. My mother said she often accusdd her. This lady later used to invite me to her house to give me butterscotch candies from her kitchen drawer and tell me i was a nice girl. I remember wondering if that was true.

So, APPARENTLY one of t's techniques to ease yearning is to see us regularly! I had to have that explicitly pointed out to me one day, when i was expounding on how comforting i found the dependability of our city bus system, which transported me to my sessions. Was my face red. But my parents were not to be depended upon.

I think that's spot on, Una.

My yearning for ex-T used to get sooooo bad. She sometimes seemed to understand it, sometimes seemed annoyed by it (in retrospect). I found a huge comfort in being with her, that was so very similar to the comfort I remember feeling when I spent weekends with my grandma (who passed when I was 15, some 47 years ago now). I craved it, yearned for it, desperately needed it. It got so bad that my h started accusing me of having some kind of weird emotional affair with her. (Then again, therapy kind of IS an emotional affair, in some ways, isn't it? One-sided, but still. We can feel SO close to them.)

I never really learned to "manage" it, though. In my thoughts anyway, and I could be completely off-base of course, but I'm not sure we can actually "manage" it, other than like una said, seeing t regularly. Talking about it, sitting with it, feeling it. I wasn't ever very good at just letting myself sit with and feel it. It hurt too much.

I'm not seeing that t anymore; things kinda blew up between us in February. But yeah. I am seeing a new temporary t for the time being, because I need some help with the transition from not seeing ex-T anymore.

Yes, I deeply yearn for L. I have done that with almost all my Ts. L is probably the worst. I've told her I wish I could shrink so small that I could fit in her pocket and she take me with her everywhere.

I tried not to get attached to L. But I failed from the very start: our first conversation on the phone and then our first assessment session. There was like 2 months between our session and when T left for maternity leave. I wanted to keep in contact with her. Both T and L said no. Those 2 months, I was able to pull back and settle down again. When we actually started, again, I tried so hard, and again I failed.

Same thing happened with T when I met her. Swore I wouldn't get attached.

L believes in order to learn interdependence, we need to learn health dependency as well. So she actually encourages attachment. I haven't gotten to interdependence yet, but I have noticed I've become more secure with her, less fear of abandonment.

But the yearning is still there. I have contact with her daily to try to soothe that feeling. It does help. I also think it might be hindering me. For now I'm "trusting the process".

I don't have a yearning for my T. I'm fine when she has to make schedule changes. I'm glad when we have a week off like the week before last. Shes pretty much just like one of my other providers tbh.

This seems to fit for me, the reasoning behind the yearning. It seems to come from a young place in me.

I yearned very strongly for my former marriage counselor. He was very warm and caring (well, till the rupture at the end). I have a fair amount of yearning for my individual therapist of 6+ years (Dr. T), too, even though he's not particularly warm.

May say more later, just wanted to comment on Una's post.

Talk about it... Takes the power of the feeling away

Your neighbour sounds like she was a wonderful person. I’ve deduced from things that have been said that I was left alone a lot too.

It feels like some kind of emotional affair to me too. I’m sorry to hear that things kind of blew up.

It makes sense to me that the attachment is helpful - if the T turns out to be reliable, dependable and a safe person.

I’m intrigued to hear this. I think that my yearning feelings are linked with ‘therapy love’ feelings. Do you mind me asking - do you have those feelings? I actually don’t mind having the ‘therapy love’ feelings. By ‘therapy-love’, I mean feelings of love towards the therapist that I consider to be a bit of an artifact of the relationship, though I also consider them to be real (that might sound like a contradiction).

I don’t feel inclined to talk about it, perhaps because i feel ridiculous having the feeling. I also feel that my strategy for managing it is helping. The feeling is actually better this week, which has coincided with me feeling more secure/happy about our working relationship.

Hey, Brown Owl.

I'm glad you're feeling better about it this week...but you're far from the first client to have that feeling, and you won't be the last.

If there comes a point where you need to talk about it, I hope you will allow yourself to do so.

Lost

I meant talk about it with your T is difficult as that is.. I ice to feel myself burning up whenever I brought up these kind of feelings with T.. Felt to close to home.. She would see my shame and mock me over it

She used to mock you? That doesn’t sound good to me?

Sorry I don't check what I write., my disorganised thinking . My fear was being mocked