@Skylynx - Thank you for clearing that up - as you can see, it makes a HUGE difference in what sort of support we can give you - with it being assumed you are direct to her about your concerns, the replies you got were not really relevant to your situation - it was assumed she was not a very good T, or didn't know about transference. When in reality it's that you are afraid of her reaction.
IU know I have posted a lot about my current situation - and I have listed different idea's for you to talk to your T about tit - namely EMAIL her and / or WRITE it down on a piece of paper and take it with you for her to read.
I very much relate to the fear of 'but she will tell me to be more independent' - what I take this fear to be about, as it is with most of us in this situation - is we are afraid of our needs not being met.
It can be incredibly painful to have the REALITY of the therapeutic relationship acknowledged - that yes, no matter how much you want her to 'care' for you and no matter how much you care for her, it can not, and never should be reciprocated in exactly the way your inner child is desperate for.
That is my observation and experience in terms of fear of talking about it in therapy. We express a
need we have, we express our deepest feelings, and it can't be reciprocated in the way we NEED. It begins the very hard to accept fact that growing up, we missed out.
We had ONE chance to have unconditional parent love, and that was not what we received, even though we deserved it and should have had it. And now we are grown up, adults, we can never get what we missed out on. My last severe anorexic relapse last year was specifically related to this painful (very very very painful) realization. Sure, I had know it intellectually, but trying to face it on an emotional level, I was unable to cope with it, and starved my body to a skeleton rather than face the pain.
I think you're doing awesome
@Skylynx, in positing about it and looking for ways to bring it up with your T. Chances are she will know it's there, but as I have posted before, most Ts know it is incredibly difficult for us to acknowledge, let alone deal with - until we are ready to - so will not push it too hard, or bring it up, until we, the clients do.
Imagine if she hard bought it up with you a few weeks ago? Or before you were ready to realize / acknowledge it was there? Personally, I would have run a mile and stopped going to therapy - if my T had raised it with me, I would have been deeply affected and it would have done a LOT of emotional harm to me and my ability to work with her severely compromised.
Would you consider emailing your T?
I find one good way to bring up a topic I am afraid to talk about is to start with "there is something I need to talk about but I am really really afraid of what your response will be ….". It enables you and your T to talk AROUND the issue, providing you with a chance to 'test' what different reactions she might have. I remember with my former T, I said I was really afraid she would manipulate me or use my feelings against me, if I revealed certain things to her. So we spent an entire session talking about 'what that would look like' - HOW would she manipulate me or 'turn against me' - what sort of things would she say or do in that worst case scenario?
In the end, I was actually laughing with her, as to the silliness of it - cos by talking about it with her, even though we were not talking about The Issue (yet), I was able to dispel a LOT of my
irrational fears. It enabled me to bring it up with her and talk about the scary things.
End of the day - you can only work to resolve the feelings you have if you are open, honest and
direct with her - so question now is -
how will you do that, and
when?
