The relationship

Okay, so I need to get this out of my system somehow. When I was in therapy, I'd write these type of thoughts to my T and always felt better afterward. I'm trying to fly solo now, but it still isn't easy. I guess maybe letting go of a close relationship is the hardest thing of all for me and that wouldn't be tested until I actually left therapy, so here I am. I'm thinking that this is the last bump in the road. I just have lots of thoughts still about this and thought maybe this could be a place for me to put them. Or anyone else to put theirs and add to the discussion.

I see the client-therapist relationship as completely unique in its own right. It's different from all other relationships and yet somehow it has elements of every type of relationship to it. I don't see it as non-reciprocal at all. I think that would imply that the therapist doesn't have feelings about the therapy with any individual client and I have little doubt that they do. They aren't supposed to bring their own "stuff" in the room, but it's our stuff that helps us learn to interact in our own way. I don't think that Ts are any different. I have little doubt that each T has their own style based upon their own temperament and feelings about different things. They try to keep the client's best interests as central, but that does not mean they don't respond to the client. The therapist can't hide in that room and he/she shouldn't try to. My own T responded to my response of him. I sensed that and felt it. This was helpful to me. If I'm practicing interacting there has to be a variable in the other person's reactions or it would be like hitting a tennis ball against a brick wall.

I use the example of sitting on the floor with your newborn. The baby is a stranger to you, but you have to find a way to get to know them without them verbalizing it. It's kind of the same way for a client with their T. You use your senses and you listen and observe carefully. It's this gentle non-verbal back and forth "play"...an expression or sound...a glint in the eye...a gesture or look. The love in the room (if you happen to respond to your T that way) is more about understanding than knowing. It's the same way with parent and child. So I feel that I was in tune with him as well. How does this help me? The therapy is supposed to be about me afterall, right? Once I felt the human side of my T, I could let my own walls down and show him mine. Non-verbal understanding and acceptance. I recognized him. Once I did that, I think I could tell him anything. He let me see so I let him see.

I suppose I see transference as merely a label. It's an element in every relationship. These reactions are just a part of who we are and how we react to others in any given situation. In therapy we study those reactions and the feelings that arise from them. If we are reacting in a way that hurts us then we can try to change our reactions. Or if we are having feelings because this relationship has shown us what we want and need then we can use that information to make positive gains in our lives. I know now that I am personally craving a close, emotional relationship that has been absent in my life. But I don't think that I should distance myself from the strong feelings of affection that I feel for my T by labeling them as if they were unreal. I think I should learn and grow from them. I read something once about transference that said the feelings were more about the client than the therapist. I would be willing to bet that loving anyone always has a lot to do with ourselves and what we value and need. I still prefer to own my feelings for my T.

My T told me that I was in love with my therapist, but that the therapist was only a part of his whole person. Very true. The therapist is a part of his whole person, but his whole person is also a part of the therapist. I told him he's in that therapist. Nothing is simplistic about emotions and relationships. I think maybe psychologists should also study the mechanism that causes love to spark in the first place. In therapy the ingredients are there, I think. Being vulnerable with someone, talking about feelings and emotions, trying to connect with another human being, attunement and understanding...There is a place where I "met" my therapist. It was a place of understanding and acceptance that was mutual. It was a loving place where I healed my wounds and found hope. And I know he felt good about that because I know what that glow in his eyes meant. It's our place and it's very real. Maybe for only a short time on a narrow floor but still ours. Anyhow, that's how I feel about it. That light that I shared with him helps me to move forward and keep trying. It's something that I won't ever forget.

I guess that's enough for one long-winded post...

Bether, I think you have a very good understanding of the therapeutic relationship and how it works through "us" on every level. Did you have to finish therapy? I know T has said to me that its up to me if and when it ends. I think I'd like to at least see her perhaps X a yr when I feel the major work has been worked through, I mean even if it is just to meet and share some thoughts like you have shared here.

That is all very beautifully said and yes it is a relationship like no other and very, very special. If I had been told before how special it could be I would not have believed it could be so, from someone you pay.

So you have terminated? What about post-termination contact? Did you plan for that or is it a clean break until you see him again if necessary?
I would really like to keep in contact with my T when I terminate but I know it will be painful to do so because it won't be the same as having a therapeutic relationship and painful not to because I will miss him.

Yes, I need to work through letting go and I have to actually do it myself without going back to him or it would defeat the purpose. I've been struggling more for the past month and have been having urges to contact him recently that I've resisted. My goal is to wait 6 months or until I feel comfortable with letting him know how I'm doing. He's allowed me to update him. I know he cares. I think once I write him and if he comes back into the store where I work after hearing from me, I'll know that he is okay with me. He'll know that I've moved on still loving him, but respecting him too and allowing him to live his life. I don't think that I will painfully ache for more when I do see him again. I want to respect him and handle it well. I would be very content to see him happy and well. It would be of great comfort to know he trusts and believes in me to do this. That would be a final thing for me.

The funny part about all of this is that I've always loved my H. My feelings for him have remained constant and strong... but different. He and I have never had this type of emotional closeness. I'm hoping to work on that more after I finish working through this.

I do feel better already. Writing really does wonders for me.

That sounds like a good plan. I think after 6 months the bittersweetness of it will ease some (that is it won't be so hard like it is just after) and also you can think about what you really want to say.
It sounds like you had a really healthy relationship with your "T" and congratulate yourself for being able to move on in this way.

This is the perfect place for that. We love to listen (and respond) to stuff like this.

Bether, I also see my relationship with my therapist as real and reciprocal.

Very beautifully said and very close to my own experience. I remember once very early in therapy (within the first 5 sessions) when we were going over a dream I had about me and T. T asked me what it was in the dream that I wanted from him. I had a hard time identifying it and verbalizing it. I finally just said, "I want you." I'm not sure what I meant at all, in a practical sense. This was more of an utterance from a deep place inside, and ill-defined. I'm not sure he knew what I meant either. But we left it at that.

Then towards the end of our session, he told me a story about himself when he was a little boy and this abusive situation he had been in and it was like magic, the planets moved into alignment, and I interrupted him, "that's it" I said (eureka). What? "That's what I wanted from you." That's what I had meant when I said, "I want you," and I think he had instinctively figured it out. I wanted him to share himself and the relationship to be reciprocal. It was quite a watershed moment for me. My T has continued throughout my therapy to self-disclose very liberally (and has brought us back to that moment several times to check in and said, "you told me you wanted this" just to make sure this was still what I wanted).

Agreed. I don't use that label to describe my relationship with my therapist or with others, but I understand that it works for some people.

Very well said. I agree.

Very beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.

There is a book you might enjoy by Robert Coles (a psychiatrist) called The Call of Stories: Teaching and the Moral Imagination. Coles describes his early career and his discovery about the power of reciprocity in therapy. (I love this book.) Another relevant favorite of mine, I and Thou by Martin Buber. Their themes align with what you have written.

Thanks for those recommendations. I've been wanting to find a book or two to read about this. It's still amazing to me how I went into therapy depressed and feeling kind of hopeless and came out of it with all of this. I never would have dreamed that our relationship would become so valuable to me or that it would teach me so many things about myself and life and loving. This relationship really is fascinating. I'll be interested in reading a therapist's perspective about it.

(((((((((((((((bether)))))))))))))))))) I couldn't agree more.

When I started therapy, I was hoping to just tell my story to someone, and free myself from the demons of the past.

It's turned into so much more. I had never been in therapy before, so I had NO IDEA what an important part the relationship would play. Honestly, for me, the relationship IS the the therapy. I am telling him the things I need to tell him, but in the context of a really wonderful, loving, safe relationship. It's not what I expected at all, but it's filling a need I didn't know I had, and teaching me lessons I didn't realize I needed to learn.

Bether, beautiful post..and Sunrise, well said as well. The relationship is so unique and I to believe that what goes on between us and our T's absolutely affects both. I totally related to the T letting their walls go down a bit on their part by doing some self-disclosing.
In school, they warn you about being very careful about self-disclosing, but in my own experience, it was not until my T started to let me see her and share more from her personal experiences that I was able to fully open up and trust her, and therefore let my own walls down.

I think that 6 mo is a fair amount of time to let it breathe, but if you need to, can you use email or call? Even though I am still in therapy, my T has already told me after when we are done, I can email or call her occasionally to let her know how I am doing. This tells me that she cares and also tells me that it is also hard on the T's part in saying goodbye as well.

I've been thinking about that some and agree completely. There are many schools of thought in psychology. Maybe there is no right or wrong answer, but the one that you believe in...and that is right for you.

I had some more thoughts about reciprocation. Imagine yourself as the therapist for a moment. Imagine that your job every day is to show other human beings positive regard and acceptance and (while in the room) to give them unconditional love...perhaps something they have never received before. People who have been hurt, abused or are down and feeling hopeless...and you have to look deep within yourself and find within yourself the very things that person needs to see a ray of light. So the therapist has to find the very best in him/herself and try to be selfless. I can't imagine how that would not feel good. Not only that, but to see many people and know them and experience them in ways that they don't often show to others...that would have to be fulfilling, I would think. Finding the best in yourself to help another and for an hour trying to enrich their lives, trying to show the client what they have to offer. In a world where there seems to be so much unkindness, how could it not feel good to be kind? I'm sure that each therapist has their own temperament and style when they work with clients, but there has to be something they get out of it besides a paycheck or I would think they'd suck at it.

I caved and sent my T an update yesterday. So much for 6 months...I found that I was thinking more about him by waiting and so felt it best to write him now. It was a lengthy one, but it felt so good being able to "talk" to him. He responded within hours. He was brief and supportive as always and was happy to know that I'm well. It's funny how when reading his reply, I could tell which lines were the therapist talking and how right at the end, he gave a little bit of just himself.

Sounds like the contact was a very good experience! Maybe it's not caving, but reaching out when you felt the time was right. It's really nice he was able to give something of himself even in the written form. My T is the same in emails--brief, but supportive. It has impressed me how he is able to be so supportive with so few words. When I read about your T, Bether, he sounds so much like mine.

^^Yes, I do feel very peaceful after contacting him... so I think it was the right thing to do. The affection I feel for him is such sweet affection...it makes me feel very serene and content. And that he could make me smile with so few words. I told him he didn't need to respond...but he did anyhow. He may not love me the way I love him, but he was always loving toward me. So good to know that men can indeed be nurturing, caring and gentle.

Our Ts do sound alike.

I can relate so much to this thread! My relationships with my Ts have always seemed complex, and I always wanted them to be "real," not just that my T was my T. I think, Bethers, that you explained how that can happen. Although Ts have to be professional, and we are, after all, the client, they are not a blank slate (Unless you are in traditional psychoanalysis, I guess).

I always wanted something from my Ts too, and what I wanted also was something personal from them. I wanted the T relationship to more equal. When a T let me see part of them, I was more easily to give more of me, to tell my deepest feelings.

My most recent T has told me a lot about herself, and of course, I see her as a "regular" person at times, also. It's been hard to reconcile seeing her as my T versus a "regular woman" in my community.

I will start my own thread about my situation because I think I want to contact my T also, and see her within a month. Then it will be 4 months since the last session. Bethers, it sounds like your contacting your T worked out very well. That's a place where I want to be, but I'm not there yet. I still want my T too much.

Good for you, and thanks for this thread.

I enjoyed reading your post Bether. I feel that I have a close relationship with my T. I've been seeing him for 3 1/2 years now. He has photos of his children around the room, and he has shared many personal things with me. I don't see that as a bad thing - I think it helps me to find common ground with him and share what we have in common.

I am VERY dependent on him, however. I count the days until I will see him again. I find him to be a very understanding, patient, knowing person. He told me things about myself that I never thought anyone could see. Of course, that's his job, but not all T's do that.

Overall, I am a very dependent person anyway. I am dependent on my T, on my husband, and on my friends. I guess that's how I'm wired.

I have been very fortunate to find this person who knows me so well and helps me so much. He knows how dependent I am on him. That's just the way things are.

I think that by me and him having a reciprocal relationship, that I want to do good to please him. That may be the wrong attitude, but I guess I'm like a little kid who wants mommy and daddy to be proud of her. That's how I am with my T.

I'd better stop - I could go rambling on .... thank you!

I don't think it's unusual to want and need approval from others sometimes. You care what T thinks of you. You want to please him and that's understandable (I wanted to please my T too) Hopefully it is a first step that will lead you down the path to eventually learning how to please yourself.

Rainbow, I definitely see the relationship as real. My T felt the same way. It's real...just very unique. I don't think I was ever longing for my T to give me something more. When therapy ended the difficulty I was having was not being able to give back. But loving someone in any kind of relationship means respecting them too. The rules in this relationship are different. I've given him the message that I am well. That message is my gift to him. Knowing that makes him happy so I feel doubly good about it. I can celebrate being well for me and feel content inside knowing that he feels good about it too.

I think one of the things I was getting out of therapy was having a place to be philosophical...