[pachyderm]

Well, Not KILL really (probably).

But what if you feel like doing it? What if you feel so angry with him (and most people)?

What if he does not make it clear enough that he is not my mother, or someone like her, or what if he makes "mistakes" that lead to much turmoil for me? I know, Ts are human, but as far as I am concerned they are not supposed to make mistakes! At least not ones that are serious enough that they cause such heartburn for their patients!

Give an example, you say. Well, I can, but I am reluctant to do so, because you will say "That is nothing. Why do you bother with such trivialities? Are you crazy?"

Well, I am here, aren't I?

You will make me feel like leaving Psych Central...

Anyway: one example. I have told the T that I have the feeling that I did something in the past, that I can't remember, but it feels as though I did something really bad. He says I did not.

Usually at the time he says this it feels like an unsatisfactory answer, but I don't really know how to react to it. It does not solve the problem of the feeling I have. Days or weeks later the thing is still in my mind and I realize that HE COULD NOT KNOW IF I DID SOMETHING REALLY BAD OR NOT. Why is he "reassuring" me that I did not. Is it because he does not want to deal with the possibility that I did? He does not want to deal with me if he finds out that I did something bad?

This is just one example of something that I feel about mental health professionals in general: that they do not listen carefully; they do not WANT to listen and thereby they convey the message that THERE IS SOMETHING TOO HORRIBLE TO HEAR. Now am I reacting to something that is not there, or what?

I am having to figure out what to do when I react to something like this. Is the T a bad person? Should I find a better T -- yeah, how? Or can I make progress in spite of T's mistakes, even though they throw me for a loop at the time they happen?

Or is T totally correct and I am totally mistaken when I think he made a mistake?

Tell the T he makes mistakes? How do you think he will react to that? In a way that makes me deny my own thoughts, and withdraw even my perception that he makes mistakes... That kind of dissociation is typical of how my mind deals with conflicts of this kind... I hate it. People on the outside don't even realize that I am doing it. They do not see anything wrong. They do not pay attention enough or care enough to see what is happening. And then I get blamed for not being "cured" fast enough...

Enough of this whining... I am showing that I am afraid and you probably do not want to have fear brought to your attention...

[Slippers]

1) You could tell him that he really annoyed you when he said that. Tell him how it made you feel. He invalidated your very serious concerns. He brushed them off. That's a lousy way to feel. Holding back your feelings won't fix anything. They'll fester and your relationship with your T will suffer.

2) It's NEVER time to kill your therapist. When it gets that bad, it's time to check yourself into the hospital and when you get out, find a new therapist.

Slippers

[Kiya]

=( pachy

yeah maybe talk openly with him on the phone??

[MissCharlotte]

Pachy,

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
why is he "reassuring" me that I did not. Is it because he does not want to deal with the possibility that I did? He does not want to deal with me if he finds out that I did something bad?

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Maybe he reassures you because he knows and cares about you and he is confident that you are not someone who did something "bad."

Sometimes T's try to help us to feel better about ourselves and it backfires and we feel worse, because we understand a statement differently from the way they meant it. This has happened to me many times. What I have learned is to ask T for clarification when I begin to feel bad because I can be easily hurt. ONce I am hurt I pull back like you are right now.

Soooo, why don't you take a chance and tell T that his response was crappy. Tell him that it made you feel worse rather than better and then ask him why he said it. There are many reasons why people sometimes feel they did something bad and T can explain some of that to you. You might even feel a little better!

Working it through is hard, yesiree it is!

Wow, that would make me feel invalidated for sure - to say that I have a fear I've done something bad and to hear "no, you haven't". I can see where T might be trying to make you "feel better" but that just doesn't seem like the way to go about it.

I totally agree with the previous posters. I would absolutely, no question, tell T how it made me feel. He needs a different approach...it's his job to figure out what that is. But it's your job to tell him that what he's doing isn't helpful, so he can try something different.

((((((((((((( pachyderm ))))))))))))) I'm glad you shared what's going on with us.

[Perna]

Your T dilemma reminds me of when I worked at the Pentagon and had a boss looking all over for me and I was in another room "binding" notebooks or something at a special machine and he finally finds me and asks, "Where were you?" and I explain I was over there, then the other place, then here. His response was, "No you weren't!" and it really confused heck out of me because I believed him for a moment and doubted myself. I knew where I was but he's the boss and says I wasn't there. . .

I would think it would be even worse if you didn't know if you'd done something or not, only felt you may have. It's like a double-bind; do you believe your feelings and tell him his reassurances are out of line or do you not believe yourself and your feelings (which screws you because they're essentially all you have, being "you" and what you're trying to learn about and how to use) and totally lose your bearings having to rely on someone outside yourself to teach you about you.

And it does seem pretty precipitous of him to instantly deny your wrong-doing without exploring your feelings and ideas at all. It is logical that you didn't do anything wrong, but as you say, that doesn't help you figure out why you have this feeling and what to do with such feelings when you get them!

I'd learn some stock phrases for such situations with him such as, "Well then, why do I feel this way!" and see if you can get conversations going about the feeling. I'd be tempted to get a bit sarcastic and give a laugh with a, "thank you all-seeing one for your opinion on my life and what I may or may not have done in the past" and see if I couldn't get him to back-pedal a bit and admit to having taken a wrong tack.

[chaotic13]

Pachy,
What is it that you hear when he is brushing off your feelings? Are you hearing, 'Look, I don't want to think (deal with) about the possibility that you did this horrible thing. So, since you really can't remember either way, lets just assume that you didn't actually do it."-- What you don't know can't hurt you kind of thing?

Would your rather have him assume that you DID do something bad and work from this perspective? I might like this approach better than simply being placated with 'you didn't do something bad, so let it go.' At least that way I would know that my T was still willing to work with me even though I was a "bad" person. I frequently think that I my T knows what I am really thinking or feeling, she will think I am a total jerk and would kick me out of therapy. If I admit to feeling guilty about something, I would not response well if she just said, "Ah, you didn't do that." I would much rather hear, Wow, that's pretty serious what makes you think you did X? Or, OK let's ASSUME you in fact did X, can you do anything about it now to fix or reduce your guilt? At least doing either of these would tell me that my T is still willing to work with me even if I did something I perceive as really bad.

[MyBestKids2]

I was very disappointed with our session this week, I said "I must be your most boring client". He said "No", and carried on to a totally different subject.

GRRRRRRR

[kim_johnson]

About now, I reckon (if you mean kill as in terminate). The thing is... You are completely correct - your therapist doesn't know what you may or may not have done in your past. I do agree that he was trying to help you feel better, but I also take your point that it is hard to feel better in response to his saying that when he isn't in the position to be making that claim.

A lot of people feel like there is something about them. It might be something they have done. It might be something about the way they are. The fear is that once the therapist (or anyone else for that matter) finds out about that then the therapist (or other people) will respond with loathing or disgust and reject or abandon. A lot of people have that fear.

It can recede in time. As you share things that are hard and see your therapist respond well.

What seems to be a recurring theme in your talking about your therapist is that he isn't very good at helping you feel like your feelings / emotional responses are valid. He isn't very good at taking those feelings seriously as feelings. I'd find it really hard to work with a person who wasn't good at that and I have empathy for your struggling with working with him.

Can you work with someone else? Or... Can you talk to him about this? It does sound like a hard situation.

[Mouse_]

T perhaps could have said, "do you wanna talk about it?" it seems it was one of those moments when client and T are not in tune and that hurts even when its not concerning a "serious" subject. ...Whats done is done between you and T and it sounds like you are so angry that you built yourself up finally to release somethign that you've held for such a long time and the result wasn't how you have figured it in your mind...all this taking into account, it is after all your therapy and its for you to tell T next time that you really do feel you have done something bad and need him to hear you....its hard when we feel T hasn't seen inside our minds and realised just how important certain things we say are to us.

(()))'s to you.

[pachyderm]

> You could tell him that he really annoyed you when he said that.

The trouble with me is that I only later (sometimes days later) begin to realize how I reacted to him...

[pachyderm]

> Would your rather have him assume that you DID do something bad and work from this
> perspective?

I think what I would like is for him to question me more about what I feel, and to start exploring with me where those feelings come from. This way he would reassure me that whatever it is, it can be dealt with when brought into the light. In general, my feeling about mental health professionals is that they want to cover up fears (with medications, for instance), to "make" them go away too quickly, to not want to deal with them.

There is so much I do not remember, and it seems to me I need to start remembering those things to finally discover what it is that I think I did.

I know it would be hard, because I have the feeling that I will be killed if I remember. That is, I have the feeling that it was so bad that it was totally unacceptable, something requiring the death penalty. My mother probably conveyed something to that effect to me, but I just don't remember. I want to and I don't want to remember.

[chaotic13]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
In general, my feeling about mental health professionals is that they want to cover up fears (with medications, for instance), to "make" them go away too quickly, to not want to deal with them.

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I get this feeling from my pdoc but not from my T. In fact I think my T is trying to convince me to do the exact opposite.

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
There is so much I do not remember, and it seems to me I need to start remembering those things to finally discover what it is that I think I did.

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i can relate to this statement. I really want to remember exactly what did and didn't happen. Unfortunately I want to do it myself first and THEN decide if it is something I want to actually talk about in therapy.