Does your therapist have plans for you?

i would think t should only hide things if it's harmful for you to know, and surely most has treatment plans... with room for modification based on the client.

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Friday said:
My therapist wants me on drugs to balance me out, readjust my unrealistic goals of my self and get me in the habit of reaching out and asserting what I want.

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Drugs can help balance out your mood, but only therapy can help you adjust goals and assert yourself. The medications can be a tool to stabilizing you, but the other stuff you mentioned cannot be achieved with medications.

> i would think t should only hide things if it's harmful for you to know...

Should, yes. What I am saying that the T may hide things from him or her self! For the same reasons that we do ourselves: to avoid disapproval or punishment that we fear. It does not make for an effective T, though.

pachy... how do you *know* that he is hiding his thoughts and feelings other than the amount expected of any ordinary individual? im not criticizing... just genuine. Whether the therapist deals well with his/her own feelings is not relevant as long as they do so when those feelings and thought impact your process. And why focus on the therapist's internal struggles rather than your own? Is this avoidance with really interesting sounding explanation?

the relationship is uneven and necessarily so.. the therapist can disclose what they choose to, but it can't be an even exchange. There will always be a sense of them "hiding" their feelings if you choose to see it that way.

i am trying to see what you are saying... and seriously, not critical.. what is it that makes you believe you know this t's feelings better than he does?

if you feel somehow mis-alligned with this one... perhaps look for a T with a higher degree of training, perhaps that would help?

how do you *know* that he is hiding his thoughts and feelings other than the amount expected of any ordinary individual?

I guess I am just smart that way...

Anyway, I would like for him to not be any ordinary individual...

Whether the therapist deals well with his/her own feelings is not relevant as long as they do so when those feelings and thought impact your process. And why focus on the therapist's internal struggles rather than your own?

As I think I indicated earlier, I anticipate that anyone that I am closely connected to may treat me the same way that I was treated when I was a child, and therefore I am paying very close attention to what they may be feeling/doing.

what is it that makes you believe you know this t's feelings better than he does?

Heh heh. As I said, I am just smart (sensitive) that way. Of course, I can be making a mistake, but I think not entirely.

Why, for instance, does he want to "help" people so much? To control what they do? If he knows what he is doing, why does he do it? If he does not fully know why he is doing what he is doing, what effect will that have on me? I do feel dependent on his insight and ability to tell truth from error...

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Pachy said:
Why, for instance, does he want to "help" people so much?

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I don't know what your T's response to these questions would be but, for what it is worth I'll share some of my ideas.

I think most people if given the chance, tend to pursue careers that match their interests and personal skills. Your T likely discovered at some point he had at least some talent in communicating with people, disarming their defenses, and helping them see their situations from other perspectives. How or what lead him to this realization...who knows, maybe he was the playground negotiator, or the scrawny kid who was picked on and became good at handling the bullies, or maybe he suffered from some trauma or mental condition and as he worked/or is working through it he realizes that he as some important information to share that may help others. Maybe he believes that there is more to his life than just seeking to fulfill his own wants and needs. Maybe he has a larger view of humanity and feels that in helping others he is making his small positive contribution to the evolution of the human race. Maybe he believes that in serving others he is ultimately serving himself or maybe serving his God.
There are many reasons people choose to help people beyond what your past experiences may have demonstrated. What ever brought him to the profession, is irrelevant. You simply need to decide, are you going to allow him to help you.

Pachy, I have an intellectual challenge for you and your heighten people reading skills. I propose that you assume the reason he is trying to help you is the exact opposite from the ones that you've know all of your life. It sounds to me like you have only known people who sought to control others as a way of boosting their own importance or feelings of power. Therefore the only reason they would pretend to help someone, would be to seduce them and make them easier to control or so that they could hold an IOU over their head. If this is what your life experiences have taught you, assume the exact opposite and explore it.

For those of us who have suffered abuse it is difficult to see that there are people in the world who do not seek power from others. It is hard to entertain this concept since we have never witnessed it before. Allow yourself to put on the rose colored glasses and see that there are many other types of people in the world.

> Allow yourself to put on the rose colored glasses and see that there are many other types of people in the world.

Yes, there are. But I guess there is a fine line between wanting and needing to help. I do have a hard time distinguishing between the two. I used to be the kind that needed to rescue other people (whether they thought they needed it or not). I think it was my way of coping with my family situation, to become the "helper" when I was actually a child and unable to do that in reality. I am very sensitive to the situation. I am wondering if I can (or want to) adjust to what I see as unnecessary "helping" tendencies on the part of a therapist -- assuming that my perception is somewhat accurate -- that is, to handle it even if I am right, or to avoid it. I am not sure I can handle it.

Are these the sorts of mixed messages you mean:

Says such things as 'of course I trust you to know what is best for you'.
And
Persistently tells you how you should be doing things (which suggests that they don't have faith in you at all.

Says such things as 'of course I like and accept you'.
And
Persistently tells you that you should do this and you should do that and expresses frustration when you don't do those things (which suggests that they don't accept you as you are, they need you to change in order for them to accept you)

And so on.

Is that what you mean about the discrepancy between thoughts and behaviors?

Is that what you mean about your therapist not being honest with themself about what is really going on (in figuring out these contrary messages and refraining from doing those things).

Some people are unable to sit with distress. I think that therapy often attracts people who want to rescue and change things. Maybe they felt powerless as kids... The trouble comes when therapy is about serving their needs to rescue rather than serving the clients needs for empowerment and trust and the like.

Does this sound relevant at all?

> Does this sound relevant at all?

It sounds as though these things are relevant to you, Alex.

> Persistently tells you that you should do this and you should do that and expresses frustration when you don't do those things
> (which suggests that they don't accept you as you are, they need you to change in order for them to accept you)

In one of my earlier posts I quoted as something which people do NOT do:

To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as being right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness.

Those things have been relevant for me in the past, yeah. That was the biggest problem that I've had in getting on with clinician's, I'd say. My current therapist is different, though. I guess I'm just trying to come up with ideas (that occur to me because of my own crap to be sure) so that you can bounce off of them so I can better understand what is going on with you.

Irritated or disappointed. So... You feel that your therapist is either irritated or disappointed in you? Is that it? Could you tell him that you feel that way?

she has mentioned that unless I get off my a%# and start exercising my depression will never get better

other than that....nothing long term

> You feel that your therapist is either irritated or disappointed in you?

Not exactly. I would say that he feels the need to lead people, myself and others in my (separate) therapy group. He does not seem to see any way of supporting people so that they lead themselves to improvement, so that they can come to create it for themselves.

For me the attempt to lead interferes with my attempts to regain childhood memories, which I think is very important. When in the quiet of my own little sanctuary I do begin to have the traces of memories, it is very helpful. I begin to understand more and more of how things really were.

Yeah, I liked it most when my therapist was just "there" with me, alongside or behind, following, rather than leading. Having a presence there is comforting and there's someone to confirm that yeah it's scary or maddening or difficult.

My T's biggest complaint perhaps was that we were always on different pages (because I'd change pages or books suddenly) so she was "aware" of where I was and that she was having trouble following. There wasn't any sense that I wasn't in her book, it was more that she was in the wrong place in mine and wanted very much to be where I was but was having trouble doing that because I was playing keep away :-)

Playing keep away,, I like that description.

My T does not direct therapy at all. I sometimes don't like this, but I think it is in my best interest that she doesn't.

OK, I suspect you guys are not going to like this. (You see, I think I can read some of your minds, too.)

I think I am discovering why my T wants -- needs -- to "help" us. That is, to make us better, when we are not, yet. He wants to make us well so that we, in turn, can make him well. He cannot stand to just wait and listen to us while we remember the pain and fear we experienced as little ones.

That is what he should do. I wonder how many therapists there are who are willing to do that... who understand that that is what is needed...

Actually, Freud himself, in a letter to Wilhelm Fliess, said this in a letter of February 11, 1897 http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/ffliess.html:

"Unfortunately, my own father was one of these perverts and is responsible for the hysteria of my brother (all of whose symptoms are identifications) and those of several younger sisters."

So Freud saw his own father as a "pervert" and, apparently, later could so little afford this thought that he tried to have all his letters to Fliess destroyed, and created a whole elaborate structure to explain mental illness so as to avoid knowing what he felt. My words, but I have read this kind of explanation elsewhere too.

Not that Freud did not have a lot of very great insights. And was a brave man for trying to investigate these very scary matters.

I don't know about you, but I am finding this very interesting. You, on the other hand, probably have no idea what I am talking about!

Maybe...

It is about emotion regulation. Some people find that if they focus in on past hurts and traumas that they lose their capacity to focus in on, cope with, and function in the present.

So it can be about finding the balance between focusing on the past and focusing on the present.

Sometimes people need to learn coping strategies before focusing on the rememberings can be healing rather than retraumatising. It might be that this is where the therapist is coming from with their focus on the present.

Another factor... Has to do with the nature of memory. A lot of people have a conception of the mind as a blank piece of paper or a blank video tape into which experiences are engraved. Remembering the past is thus looking at or reading the paper or tape where the paper or tape is a true and accurate record of past events.

Memory doesn't work like that, however. REMEMBERING is something that we do in the present. Each remembering is superimposed upon the memory such that it alters it gradually over time. A little like... Chinese whispers. Eventually it can be impossible to sort out what aspects of the memory are true to events vs what aspects of the memory are confabulations.

REMEMBERING is also very sensitive to the context in which the remembering occurs. If it occurs in a state of intense emotional upset then events get magnified. If it occurs in response to 'how fast was the car going when it smashed the other car' vs 'how fast was the car going when it collided with the other car' then the events (the judgement of speed) gets magnified.

So... The utility of memory work...

Some people are plagued with rememberings already. But the rememberings are something that is occuring in the present. If the rememberings are a problem then the problem is with the persons ability to cope with the rememberings in the present. Nothing can be done to change the past... But things can be done to make the rememberings less traumatic. But that involves... The ability to regulate emotions... Otherwise rememberings can be retraumatising.

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pachyderm said:
Does your therapist suggest to you that if you did x and y and z that your life would be better?

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">I am thinking about this question again. Yesterday my T said to me, "what your psychotherapy will involve is...." And I felt weird when he said that. Like he has me all figured out and knows just what I need. There is nothing wrong with that, I guess. I think he is really becoming clear on what my problems are and their origins in my childhood. And I am glad he has that understanding as it will allow him to help me better. But on the other hand it was unsettling to have him just spit out "your problem is X, and your therapy will involve you learning to do/think/feel Y and Z." Okay, yeah, and how do we accomplish that?

The good thing I took away from this is that he said "your psychotherapy will be..." as if we still have a lot of work to do in the future, and that makes me happy, because I am not ready to say good-bye.

> Maybe...
>
> It is about emotion regulation.

Probably. But, Alex, I do not see how this is connected with what I was saying. I seem to be missing some steps in between. Could you connect the dots for me?

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sunrise said:Yesterday my T said to me, "what your psychotherapy will involve is...." And I felt weird when he said that. Like he has me all figured out and knows just what I need.

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Just so long as it agrees with what you understand that you need -- in time, at least.

If I told my T is wanted to do x. I would expect her to have some variables try.

I'm afraid I don't think I can. That is how your posts seem to me, you see... Like there is one thing - no thats not it it is another thing - no not that another thing again. I'm afraid I don't understand. Everytime I think I have a grasp its not that it is something quite different.

I'm not sure what to say.

Urk! I'm perfectly clear -- in my own mind. I seem not to anticipate what other people need to hear for me to be clear in theirs!

Alex, do you know what might begin emotional dysregulation? I have some thoughts about that. Very simple, really (in my mind). Censorship. The imposition of a requirement not to think the thoughts that you think, not to perceive the emotions that you actually have. Ever heard of (or experienced) such a thing?

hey. i'm sorry... i find communication hard sometimes. yeah, i think i have heard such a thing. linehan refers to it as an 'invalidating environment'. i hadn't thought of it in terms of censorship. but yeah, i guess that is what it is. you have to think a certain thoughts (and not others) in order to be accepted. and feel certain feelings and so on.

> you have to think a certain thoughts (and not others) in order to be accepted. and feel certain feelings and so on.

And can you see how the effort to do this might lead to emotional disregulation (or whatever the word is)?