Leaving therapist feelings

What do you do when your therapist betrays feelings (it seems) that she/he is afraid you are getting to be too insightful and will leave her/him in the dust?

Think I am full of beans?

Sure?

Humor me and answer the question...

T's can't help one forever. It's a marriage of sorts and since it's about the client they can mature in ways or directions that aren't something the therapist is "good" at. Occasionally mine would suggest different someone's she knew who specialized in certain aspects of what I was interested in, directions I appeared to want to go she could have me go see, see if they were of more help to me. I always declined; I knew what my T was good at and that's what I wanted to learn/emulate and was perfectly happy to "practice" getting better at it with her.

Everyone has different backgrounds, interests, attributes, and skills. It's quite possible no one person can take you everywhere you decide you want to go.

yeah - eventually one outgrows one's t and has to move on. most mine have told me that their job is to work themselves out of a job - so that i move on.

Personally I would probably ask my T if she thought we were making any progress and if she didn't then I would see what she wanted to do about that. I haven't run into this problem before but thats my thoughts on the issue.

I would be devastated, but I'm totally attached to my T. Can you ask her to elaborate on this? Take care Pach

I think I have had this problem or feeling for a long time. I think my first therapist panicked when he saw me becoming more independent; he managed to convince me that instead of becoming healthier I was becoming manic. He needed to "help" (control) me. Of course, he framed it as my need.

I think it was Freud who spoke of the "overestimation" of a loved one that particularly a child feels towards the parents, endowing them with superhuman importance to him or her. That is natural for a child to do. But many adults do the same sort of thing to people who become important to them; they see the person as more than they really are. I think my mother saw us children as possessing a magic key to her happiness, and when we acted like children, she saw it as a betrayal. So I am on the watch for that sort of behavior from anyone, and when think I see it from a therapist the major alarm bells go off. If I have to be a therapist's savior, then I am in real trouble! Sometimes I do feel that my T is panicking.

pach.. are you sure "on the watch for" isnt sometimes confused for "searching for evidence to back up my foregone conclusion?" If you decide ahead of time someone is untrustworthy, you will eventually find some shred to back that up. i've been doing that for a year now.. sometimes knowingly and sometimes not. My T says to just compare the good things he does with the anger.. is he really the sort of guy who would hurt me? i can say no, he wouldnt.. but the feeling still surfaces.

you could be right.. i have no idea.. you are aware of trust issues, no doubt as you have stated such.. i am wondering what the other side of the argument within yourself is like.. i mean, if you feel you should run.. what stops you from running? When you have these doubts, what does the other side of you say back to that?

i feel for you.. you're obviously very smart.. and obviously have faced a lot of terrible things. Feeling fear, anger, distance with or towards your T is a lonely place to be. None of what i said is meant as criticism, just honest questions that you dont have to answer. Up to you.

> are you sure "on the watch for" isnt sometimes confused for "searching for evidence to back up my foregone conclusion?"

No, I am not sure!

> if you feel you should run.. what stops you from running?

Well, I can think of two possibly different reasons.

One, when I was a child, letting my mother realize that I wanted to run was dangerous, because it could well cause a renewed attack by her. So I sometimes feel that I have to try to conceal my real desire to run.

Two, I think that running from a situation, even when I feel strongly that it's exactly what I want to do, may not be a good solution to my problems!

> None of what i said is meant as criticism, just honest questions that you dont have to answer.

Yes, Fluff, I can see that, from the way you express it.