I don’t want to pay this woman to chit chat. what’s she doing?

[Gs172003]

We talked about.... everything but me. We talked about the zoo. We talked about my family. We talked about my husband. Not a thing about me. I have no idea why. I'm not sure what she is doing. Any ideas? I don't want to pay this woman to chit chat.

 

[LuckiLee]

Did you tell her that? Is she a new T for you?

 

[EveHarrington]

I think it is up to us to guide the conversation in therapy. Even though it may be hard.

Hugs.

 

[Gs172003]

Did you tell her that? Is she a new T for you?

No she isn't

I think it is up to us to guide the conversation in therapy. Even though it may be hard.

Hugs.[...

She didn't give me a chance

I'm guess I'm wondering if this is common

 

[Justmehere]

I'm not sure what she is doing.

Good thing to ask her about.

It is also good to think about what you are doing too.

You have full freedom to stop the conversation at any point and say: I don’t want to chit chat. I don’t want to talk about the zoo.

I need to deal with.... (fill in the subject of your choice.)

You can actually say no to subjects she asks about and brings up, including small talk subjects.

She’s there to help you and should not be enabling your avoidance. But when it comes down it to, part of the process involves us as clients owning and expressing our goals for therapy. Is it easy? No. It took time (and too many wandering expensive small-talky sessions) to finally be more direct and clear. It was scary to do at first, but so worth it.

What’s holding you back?

 

[Gs172003]

Good thing to ask her about.

It is also good to think about what you are doing too.

You have full...

I don't want to undermine her authority

 

[Justmehere]

Ah. Ok. Makes sense.

But here’s the thing: you hired her to do a job for you.

She’s there to be with you in the journey, to guide you, coach you, and help provide. You actually have a lot of power and responsibility to communicate what issues you would like addressed in therapy.

It’s helpful to her to know the subjects you want to address. If you don’t tell her she has no way to know.

It’s good to tell her what you do want to address.

 

[Gs172003]

Ah. Ok. Makes sense.

But here’s the thing: you hired her to do a job for you. Own it.

She’s t...

She always starts the conversation

 

[Friday]

Those are all things about you. Your job. Your family. Your marriage. Your life.

Those topics can be super deep, or they can be superficial chit chat, or somewhere in between doing a status check / situation report: how is your day to day life going? looking for overall trends & or problem spots.

...if this is common

I’ve had therapists deliberately keep sessions light, when we’ve been doing heavy stuff for awhile. I’ve had them to a SitRep on my life every so often. I’ve also had some EX-therapists who ONLY (or predominantly) kept things all chit-chat. Nope I am not a paying friend. If you want me to pay you to hang out with you? You need to be a prostitute.

You have full freedom to stop the conversation at any point and say: I don’t want to chit chat. I don’t want to talk about the zoo.

This.

The ones who are keeping things light on purpose? When I speak up will say so. And explain why. And either I agree with them, or disagree, and we move on to other things.

The ones doing a SitRep? When I speak up will say so. And explain why. There have been a lot of -surprising- different reasons given, and I can’t think of one that hasn’t made absolute sense. Okay! Let’s break down the day to day.

The ones who just want a paying-friend? Tend to change the topic, blame shift, flatter me, deny they’re doing anything of the kind, oh! And did you hear about blah blah blah blah.... Distract, tangent, distract. :bored:

The first 2 are common in my experience. The last 1 I don’t really know, because I fire them / don’t come back.

 

[Emotional girl]

She isn't in charge of you and a therapy session should be about what you want to talk about.I would write down everything that you want to talk about and show it to her and then hopefully she might get a better idea of what subjects you DO want to talk about.

 

[EveHarrington]

Do you feel comfortable saying “I want to talk about _____”

Or

“I don’t want to talk about _____”

I think if you see her as an authoritative figure where you have no input, this is not a good dynamic.

 

[Mee]

Emotional Girl’s advice is what I do. I make a few notes through the week of things I havewell handled well or are worrying me or whatewell and we take that as our starting point UNLESS something came up the session before T thinkssession more work.