Feelings of shame stirred up by unresponsive therapist

[grit]

Hey jusmehere,

I just read your post and it is shocking! I am sorry you had this incident happened to you. Wow! I have my therapy tonight and feel like I need therapy after reading this. It reminded me so much about an experience I had with another therapist. It is brutal! and that comes off from your writing!

I do not know what is the modality this therapist uses but it says to me that she does not know how to deal with transference.

In my opinion, and I am sorry if this is not correct or does not make sense to you but you were in transference the whole time you were talking about the rape or thinking about it in the session. You could not see it. Transference is mostly observed or remembered by a client in retrospect but in live mode for the therapist. She could see exactly or more or less how your body shaped while you were describing this violent act against you. She freaked out the intensity of the experience you had! My heart is racing for you and I was not even in the room with you hearing and seeing you while you share this horror story that happened to you. I am truly sorry. I do not know why she freaked out. It is possible she was triggered about something from her past too or she is inexperienced!

What happened to you is quite dangerous if it continues. A great therapist should empathize with you and try to contain the feeling with you. Be there and sit with you while holding the experience and guiding you from the transference to here and now!

I do not know what else to add except, I am here holding you with me. I am sorry you had that experience. It is shame when these sort of things happened in therapy.

 

[Justmehere]

In the beginning, I talked about how I’m angry with the mental health care profession a little because it feels like closeness always means being controlled and commanded and etc.... I didn’t say “closeness with you”...

But maybe she took it that way. Maybe that’s why she wen into trying to tell me I’m not trying to hurt you.

Maybe that’s where it went off the rails. Right at the get go. I wasn’t specific enough to - “I feel this way generally and this one isolated comment with you did stir up this general feeling I feel outside this room and haven’t felt with you until now.”

I just jumped into the bigger picture and past issues and maybe she was trying to stay specific to our relationship.

I don’t know.

I should have started with “why did you say regulate?” And stopped. And just let her talk.

 

[grit]

I think you are giving her way too much power. No one deserves to have that much power over an adult.

Since you are left with this. Perhaps your better move is asking the question: Why am I triggered by the word regulate or the tone it was used? By framing the question this way, you are not focused on her and you may get to the bottom of your own feeling where this is coming from. It is very possible you were commended in a traumatic moment and the way she said that word or when she said it, you were in transference.

So it is like a person smelling soap and being triggered because something terrible happened the last time they smelt that soap so they are freaking out subconsciously obviously...wondering sort of that smell!!! and then right away, a person shows them the soap and says take this soap! Yikes!

So my take on your post is this: Someone who had authority over you commended you in a traumatic fashion and while you were in the ball park of that memory, and your body feeling tense and ready to fight or flight or freeze, like exactly what happened, this therapist says, regulate! that is it you are blown off now! She was not attune to you. She did not read your body language or did not hear what you were saying.

If you focus what was happening in your body when she said it, you may get where the anger and the frustration is coming from and luckily you do not need her to tell you. All the answers are inside of you. She could help you but she cannot make you see it and feel it.

Also your complaints about mental health and all that just add up that you were probably stressed out or your sense she was closed emotionally this day. Do not underestimate your power to also respond to very subtle emotions of others. It feels like because you had a lot of uncertainty, your defenses were down and you were primed to talk about the rape which is as the therapist said one time a core issue. How sad, she acknowledged it was core issue but refused to tackle or contain it with you.
She missed the mark!

 

[Justmehere]

I disagree that transference is dangerous if it continues or that this is all her doing. I believe that managed and addressed transference can be healing and my therapist has a treatment model that includes a skill set that purposefully and methodically works with negative traumatic transference.

We both know there is transference in the room. That’s why I actually tried to talk about the trauma that was likely fueling the anger with her about commands.

Most trauma sufferers have transference at most sessions, it’s just a matter of if it’s positive or negative and how both parties in the therapeutic relationship handle the transference.

In my case, my therapist and I often stir up transference on purpose. She has even role played someone to purposefully bring it into the room to work it through.

This time isn’t on purpose. I don’t know why we are stuck. I’m not sure how to work it through.

She seems like anything but freaked out. She didn’t express worry or react to me getting annoyed at all except to pause for a long time and point out how I don’t look fine and to refuse to talk about the trauma... until the very end. She was steady. Just steady in a manner I don’t understand, and I don’t know what I was supposed to do.

 

[grit]

Hey justmehere

My therapist works with transference. I have healed tremendously through it. What is dangerous is if the therapist does not know how to deal with it. That is what I meant and I am sorry that was not conveyed.

I would not heal without transference but transference in the wrong therapy is very dangerous! because it disintegrates clients and basically becomes re-traumatizing.

In my opinion, it is extremely important to use the right terminology with therapists. If you knew you were in and out of transference, then you should use that terminology. something like I think I am experiencing transference which is more or less a very strong flashback. would have brought everybody to the same here and now. I also think that is not your job to "regulate" the therapist but...she was not sort of AWOL there for while. I do not know but maybe then she could not ignore the facts as presented. I think she thought you did not know you were in transference and she went to boundary and professional protection mode.

 

[scout86]

But maybe she took it that way. Maybe that’s why she wen into trying to tell me I’m not trying to hurt you.

Even if you accused her, point blank, of trying to control you, there's a way through that. It seems to me the way through it is to explore what you meant, the reasons you said it, etc. Some people might get defensive, but your T has always sounded like she doesn't have that problem.

I hope you can avoid blaming yourself for things "going off the rails". You're not SUPPOSED to know how to do this stuff. If you knew that, people would be paying YOU.

On one memorable occasion, I called my T a liar. Long story. I'm 99% sure I caught him totally off guard and that I hurt his feelings. All I can say is it made sense to me at the time, but I was wrong. He didn't get mad. He also didn't do anything incomprehensible. He just demonstrated that you can get mad at someone and the world doesn't necessarily come to an end as a result. Temporally, it was a train wreck. In the long run, it was a valuable learning experience. I hope that's the way this works out for you! I can see the potential. (But I still have no clue what she's thinking!)

 

[Justmehere]

Some people might get defensive, but your T has always sounded like she doesn't have that problem.

She was really steady and nonreactive this time too. She spoke much more softly than normal too. I don’t know why. It wasn’t bad or good. It was noticeable. Maybe that was bad? I don’t know.

Her statements of “you won't understand" was paired with a clear boundary that she wasn't going to explain either. Period. She's always been very boundaried.

I know that she at least wasn’t reacting willy nilly to my critique and upset.

I was all over the place.

This one trauma that I wanted to talk about is widely known. It was in the media, my name got out, and yet somehow, no one has ever talked to me about it. It was horrible. I didn’t want anyone to know. Everyone knew and no one asked how I was even doing. Perp confessed, no witness statement was even needed. For a year after it happened, every trauma crisis place around said it was too complicated of a trauma, I was too traumatized...

Now that I have reflected on this more, I realize that I have been mad at therapists every time I even think about trying to talk about it.

It's really upsetting me that I tried to talk about it, just talk, my turn to finally talk about it myself... and this happened.

She kept saying something about being at some “core point” where people either hurt me or abandon connection. It didn’t make sense to me then or now. At one point, I told her she was being "too meta." All I want to do is say words about it. And be heard. I guess? I don’t know. I’m usually so on task and goal driven on therapy.

We did talk about it a little at the end. I left almost mid-sentence when the time was up. It was a weird end. We have had weird ends with unfinished matters before. She asked if I would be willing to talk about this trauma again next time.

I said yes.

I feel angry with her and I can’t shake it. I think I am trying to push her away.

I’m worried I don’t have the ability in me to connect and be that vulnerable with her or anyone.

 

[scout86]

For a year after it happened, every trauma crisis place around said it was too complicated of a trauma, I was too traumatized...

That right there strikes me as a valid reason to feel angry with therapists in general. What "too traumatized" means to me is they'd reached the limit of what they wanted to do, or thought they were capable doing, and they were taking the easy way out--- for themselves. I think it was a really poor choice of words, because it suggested that the problem was you, not them.

She kept saying something about being at some “core point” where people either hurt me or abandon connection.

I'm not sure I understand her either. But, your experience, so far, when you try to work on this topic HAS been that people have let you down. That history is going to make this harder than it might have been otherwise.

I’m worried I don’t have the ability in me to connect and be that vulnerable with her or anyone.

It's a process, right? My T talks about "successive approximation". You get as close as you CAN to where you're going, but not closer, today. And keep working on that and getting closer to where you want to go until you get there. You don't have to be able to do it all at once.

I’m usually so on task and goal driven on therapy.

This is something I don't relate to well, but I've noticed other people here say the same thing. My own experience is that I have such a poor grasp of what "normal" is, I'm not sure what I should be working on. LOL I think we've spent the last few years just working on having a functional relationship. Which seems like a waste of time, until I consider that I've had so little experience with that that maybe it's not. If I had had firm ideas about "goals" in sure I'd have missed a lot of important stuff, just because I didn't know it exists. I'm not saying goals are a bad idea, not at all. But you know how you can run across all kinds of interesting and useful stuff when you're just randomly browsing online our in a library? My experience has been that therapy can be like that. (Although I suspect it's not been entirely random. My T just sets it up so it looks that way because it's less threatening.)

She asked if I would be willing to talk about this trauma again next time.
I said yes.

I have NO idea what she's doing, but it really sounds like she does. I hope so!

 

[barefoot]

I read this thread a while ago and felt so anxious afterwards that I couldn’t respond straightaway! So, my slightly delayed response is...

I’m sorry you had such a confusing and frustrating session. It sounds like a total head f*ck!

I’ve actually had similar things happen with my T - not quite to the same extent as your experience de, I don’t think. But I’ve definitely had that feeling that we’re going round in circles because I’m saying something, she then says something cryptic, I ask for an explanation, she won’t give one, I ask again, she finally answers with something else cryptic and we spend a whole session with me wondering what the hell is going on (and quite wanting to punch her in the face by the end!) while she sits very calmly and patiently with a knowing look on her face.

I remember, in one of these conversations, her saying something like I’m getting closer to something but I’m not quite there yet. Cue, the rest of the session spent in the aforementioned process while I tried to understand what I’m near, where I am with it now, what I need to do to get closer to whatever it is etc etc. And, all the time, she’s just there looking serene and looking like there’s no way she can possibly explain it to me (presumably because I am “not there yet”!) but that one day it will all become clear.

So, I get how bloody annoying and utterly infuriating it is.

In retrospect, I think when I’ve got into these kind of confusing going round in circles things where it feels like my T is deliberately withholding stuff instead of just saying what she mearns or explaining something, I think it has come down to her choosing not to push and fill in the blanks for me because this is my process. So, if she were to jump ahead to further along in the process and “give me the answers” it may be before I’m ready to be at that point or it may be that there’s more value in me getting myself there or it may be that she may have it wrong and be jumping to an incorrect conclusion so it’s better to wait and se where I actually end up of my own accord.

I don’t know whether your T is doing something similar and that there is a genuine reason that’s really in service to you and your process why she behaved the way she did the other day. That said, that doesn’t take away from how upsetting it is to be in that experience. And I sometimes wonder with mine whether she shouldn’t really have made the initial comment in the first place because when I then go trying to chase that down and make sense of it, that’s when I run into the follow up cryptic comments and rhetorical questions (because she knows she’s said too much and that she shouldn’t continue down that path because she knows she has to let me do my process in my own way at my own pace)

As to her not letting you talk about the thing you repeatedly told her you wanted to talk about...I’m quite stumped by that. It’s happened a couple of times with me but not really in the same way. Mine was more that my T said we needed to stop working on trauma because I had too much resistance - brutal dissociation in sessions that had a huge negative impact for the whole week afterwards - and that it wouldn’t be responsible of her to let me keep doing it and that it wasn’t in service to me to keep going there. It felt like a devastating blow to me at the time. And being told what I could or couldn’t talk about? Was pretty major shitstorm inducing at the time. That isn’t what happened in your session where you kept insisting you really wanted to talk about it there and then, she kept insisting you couldn’t, then she let you with only 10 mins to go, then she offered to overrun, then she finished by asking if you want to talk about it again next time...?! I don’t really get that at all. I can only think that maybe she thought you were too dysregulated and was trying to be responsible and not have you go there and dysregulate yourself further? Or perhaps she suddenly had a moment of wondering whether she was up to hearing it at that time?

Anyway...I’m sorry to hear that this is how it went down. I always get a sense from your posts that your T knows what she is doing, is pretty cool and has your best interests at heart. I really hope the pair of you can address this, move through it and come out stronger the other side.

 

[joeylittle]

Now that I have reflected on this more, I realize that I have been mad at therapists every time I even think about trying to talk about it.

She kept saying something about being at some “core point” where people either hurt me or abandon connection. It didn’t make sense to me then or now.

Just an observation:

Something you didn’t know until after you tried to talk about the thing, and experienced what went down in that session, is: you’ve been carrying some heavy feelings about therapy/-ists around this topic.

When she refers to ‘core point’, I’m pretty sure she’s talking about a core identity trait that is dysfunctional/needs shifting.

There’s actually a lot of value in you realizing afterwards that you’ve got issues with getting help ALONGSIDE any issues you’ve got around the thing itself.

I think she fumbled the session, definitely. But I think it’s possible she realized quite early on that there were two issues, not just one. Now - why she couldn’t show you a doorway so you could get some of that figuring out done in-session? I don’t know....

Have you ever talked w/your current T about communication/process-based stuff before? Like, literally: how you each receive the other’s word choices, body language, etc?

 

[Justmehere]

Have you ever talked w/your current T about communication/process-based stuff before? Like, literally: how you each receive the other’s word choices, body language, etc?

Yeah. We talk about how I'm feeling about the relationship and about what she says fairly often. I have asked about how I'm coming across before. We are both pretty frank and direct. No putzing around. She's said a few times, "I don't want to upset you, but..." or "I don't want to offend you, but..." and then said it anyhow. The couple of times she's said that, it's been ok. So she knows she can usually be pretty direct with me. We joke about it even. She's triggered me on purpose, with agreement in advance, as a way to work through the trigger. There have been times I've been unexpectedly triggered, but I didn't spin out. I don't think either of us could have expected her comments would have bothered me to the degree that it has.

The more space I get from this, the more I realize that it didn't ever feel like there was a power imbalance in the room with her until now. I can handle power imbalances just fine in many other settings. In therapy? It terrifies me. I don't know how to resolve it, and I don't think she knows either.

It all really started with her wanting to sit closer and her encouraging me to say yes to her sitting closer at the session before this. I said yes. Then when I got all weird about it, that's when she said "regulate"...that's where I started to be really triggered with her. It was the closeness as much as anything else. I think that's what she's feeling at a loss about. How can she help if I won't let her be close? If I won't be vulnerable?

I said yes to her moving her chair closer, and then everything after that has been something I'm resisting and the more I resist, the more she's kinda taking control of the process? Or that's what it feels like.

Once we started actually talking about that trauma at the end, it was a lot more ok. In trauma therapy, that should be the least calming thing to do. She wasn't entirely wrong to resist talking about it after I was triggered. It just seemed really weird that there wasn't any other options. I think she was trying to get me out of fight or flight, and I weirdly knew talking about the trauma would help me do that, and that usually isn't something that a triggered trauma survivor would find calming.

I was angry that the trauma that all of this links to - was filled with so many dangerous power imbalances... and no one ever asking me what happened. I heard opinions, lots of them, about what happened, but no one ever asked me what happened or how I felt or if I was ok. No one. It was really weird and compounded my shame about it. She's known about the trauma, in like two sentences as part of a timeline of my trauma history. I have avoided it for years, and tried to hide from all of it, avoided it in therapy with her.

When she started to ask me what happened at the end, it was settling. I have tremendous shame about it and yet it helped to say words about it. Maybe it helped her understand why I was flipping out too. Either way, I was really ok talking about it and maybe that's why she asked if we could keep talking about it.

Maybe the core issue is the resistance to closeness.

 

[MyWillow]

@Justmehere I’m kinda blown away by your introspection and insight. So well done eh.

Just wondering if your idea of “calming” could be interpreted as your T (rightly or wrongly) as “numbing”....just tossing it out there. Please disregard if I’m off the mark.