Attachment In Therapy - Another Thread

[Pencil]

@Lucycat I apologize for having offended you. What happened when the child became hysterical in reaction to what you were saying, is exactly what happens in therapy as well.

 

[Rumors]

Is there a form of therapy that solely deals with the inner child? Let me tell you one book NOT to read, Homecoming! It is a book about inner child work. ;)

 

[Pencil]

a form of therapy that solely deals with the inner child?

I doubt it.

Anyway, it is all academic. As from Monday I will be officially homeless. Therapy will have to wait.

 

[Rumors]

? Homeless?

 

[Pencil]

Rumors, indeed.

 

[Pencil]

so please correct me if this doesn't fit!

I tend to not respond to your posts as what you say fits so well that I simply sit here nodding away - and don't know what to add. Thanks Ninja!

 

[Rumors]

Not good. Plan? Maybe that question isn't appropriate or too stressful. If it isn't ok, ignore. ;)

 

[Pencil]

Plan

I've thought of everything. Not avoidable. Will be offline and unable to work ... the whole shebang. So, J and will ... I have no idea. Perhaps, if you remember enough of my story, you will see that this is perhaps written in the script. Pavement ... here I come ... again. Trauma re-enactment ... sigh.

 

[Valentino]

I believe it takes a lot of emotional health for someone to be present with another while they are sharing stories of cruelty. Trying to 'fix' it, I feel, is much easier.

Love this point, I've seen the exact same thing so often. I meet many therapists in spiritual circles, and I get to see behind the scenes just how emotionally unstable they are. Some even openly admit that they don't do enough self-care or exploration.

Maybe the whole assumption about experts is all wrong? A license or education or even decades of practice doesn't mean a person really 'knows' what they're doing. The more invested a therapist is in their identity as an expert, the more they are unconsciously willing to defend that identity even if it costs misleading or harming their patients.

In therapy, I feel as if the therapist 'connects' with or communicates only with me as a rational adult. It almost feel as if the separation between the child and the adult widens. And somehow I experience this as painful, and somehow the child becomes almost hysterical. It feels almost like an endless repetition of the problem.

Psychology's general strategy is to create distance and deal with messy emotional stuff from a distance. It allows therapists who can't endure up and close personal exposure, the ability to continue their work and stay sane. It's just too easy to get triggered and go crazy if you get too close to someone else's core deep crazyness.

I think that ultimately the inner child needs to be recognized and included in the conversation. He/she needs a seat at the table. Otherwise what's happening is the inner child will continue acting out. Society's socialization along with therapy's expert/patient or rescue/victim support model, are essentially still trying to limit, control or silence the inner child's voice.

Is it essentially the same strategy of a parent scolding their child for throwing an emotional tantrum to grow up and get over their feelings? Parents don't have the resources to deal with getting overwhelmed by a child's intense emotions, therefore they can't meet the child as a child, peer to peer. So they play the adult/child roles, and use their authority and strength to over power and win. This feels very similar to therapist/patient roles, just in therapy they have more advanced and subtle techniques to coax the patient into submitting.

 

[ninja]

to tell me therapists are not all the same when they sit in that chair.

They DEFINITELY are NOT the same. I went through I think seven therapists before finding my current one. I am convinced that the level I needed to work at triggered each and every one of them.. and in turn I was triggered by them and the boundaries got weird... it became very messy extremely quickly. The differences between them can be night and day.

I haven't done any 'official' reading on the inner child; I am mostly learning from observation but I have an idea based upon how I believe identity forms. Like Junebug, I really prefer to keep myself together when thinking and working.

I think in a 'normal' situation, as a kid learns and grows, aspects of their environment/life paint congruently on the canvas that is identity. First, throwing the paint and later going at it with a thicker brush... but as we grow, we add and take away slowly relying on a finer and finer paintbrush to make the alterations. I think that when this process is interrupted, discontinued, not permitted, taken over, etc...gaps can begin to appear.

I think we all had to 'grow up' too fast, but I question what it means to have done that. Is it a kid identity taking on adult behaviors? Does doing that inherently make a kid identity an adult one? On the whole, I perceive my identity to still be mostly the child who has taken on adult behaviors;when 'my child' is ignored, a pretty big piece of my identity is ignored. As I fill in the gaps, the inner child grows and develops – I grow and develop.

But I still wonder if I will not experience virtually every therapist as being like that.

I suspect that you won't. There might be similar elements, but the 'space' and 'vibe' should be more conducive to overall growth. I've hated my therapist, but the 'space' we've created allowed me the room to really feel and figure things out.

 

[Pencil]

and the boundaries got weird.

In what way?

 

[ninja]

Maybe the whole assumption about experts is all wrong?

Sometimes I think it is the illusion that by going to school the learning, collaboration and growth is done. A lot of the psych majors I have met do a very good job (ironically) containing their 'education' to school. An open mind and flexibility are two incredibly underrated and underemphasized skills. Point being, you could have all the knowledge in the world, but if you don't have the 'skillset' to adequately utilize the knowledge, it is just going to sit there and cause more problems, in my opinion.