Hands Up

[Awakening]

If you ever walk away from a therapy session unsure as to whether you want to:

a) smash your own head against a brick wall
b) smash your therapists head against a brick wall
or
c) all of the above?

According to my psychiatrist and my psychologist I have a strong transference going on with my female psychologist. Basically because of my own mother's depression I was unable to share any emotional problems with her as child, namely the fact that I was being molested by my uncle.

Intellectually I see that as a logical explanation of why I feel such strong feelings for my psychologist, namely love, hate and an intense fear of her abandoning me emotionally.

So the professionals tell me I should work within this transference. Beauty, will do.

But every time I raise an issue with my psychologist, she brings it back to my mother. So if I say, I'm scared you won't be here next week, she will say and that fear comes about from your mother. No sh*t sherlock, we all agree on that.

The issue is I immediately shut down. All the logic & reasoning does not make me connect these feelings to my mother.

So my therapist will say in her overly sympathetic tone "what is really sad is that you couldn't go to your mother" and I shutdown immediately and say the right thing 'yes correct' but feel zilch, although what I'm really thinking is So what, and how boring this all is, and how many times should we go over it.

So then my therapist is annoyed with me because all I do is shutdown, deflect, deny and belittle my feelings (her words).

Yet if my therapist said "what is really sad is that you feel I'm going to abandon you", well I'd bawl my eyes out crying and my feelings would get expressed.

So to me she is the one denying and deflecting my feelings back to my mother.

Honestly.

 

[Srain]

Geez, how's this for over-thinking and maybe having nothing to do with you but all to do with me and my therapy sessions:

You are able to get in touch with your feelings because you transfer your feelings from tdoc past mother back to tdoc but it's mother behind the 12ft wall???

Ok, no. But...the reason I say this, my tdoc does pretty much the same thing and everything, I mean everything, comes back to mother. I get it, I do, my mother was cruel, is cruel, in her back-handed "just us kid" way. However, I would love to avoid her. And, I really like my tdoc. She is kind to me, listens, advocates on my behalf, and encourages me to seek out others in my life.

Ignore this if you feel invalidated, that was not my intent.

Peace,
Rain

 

[Awakening]

No Rain that's exactly it! It's all about the mother, always. If I like eating strawberries then I'm sure it has something to do with my mother.

 

[Krappy joe]

at least she (your therapist) remembers why you go to therapy. Mine couldn't.

 

[LizBeth1]

Hi Awakening - transference is really hard; I just got through a bout of that with my T. Your T should not merely comment that it's 'sad' that you react in this or that way. Not good enough, and kind of dismissive. Your T should take all of this into account, hear what you have to say about why it's not easy to distinguish her from your mom, and then she should adjust what she's doing if possible so that she comes off differently than your mom would have. I was having trouble with this very thing. So I told my T the list of behaviors and attititudes I perceived coming from her that reminded me of my mom. This was really helpful to her - for example, my mom rarely smiled or laughed, and of course my T didn't either because she was studying my reactions and listening. But my T took this into account anyway - because it was a tough spot for me where I'd wind up dissociating - and last week she was smiling and laughing more, and this really helped so much. It made it less of a possibility that I'd not confuse her with my mom. Another part of her therapy was interrupting me sometimes when I was in a dissociation. Another tricky thing. She kind of had to interrupt me to bring me back, but at the same time, it would trigger me further! So she is figuring out ways to work with that and adjust that. I felt much safer with her when we last met because I knew she was making a sincere effort.

So it helps if you can make a list like that and just say "Look, this is where I'm struggling, and I'd like to work on safety issues around this and see what we can adjust here." Something like that. She needs to be open to and responsive to this. Hopefully she will be!

 

[SimplyComplex]

That is interesting. My t has several times given me reassurance even though it was obviously transference. Can you tell her you really need some sort of reassurance?

Somewhat similar, I am a bit of a perfectionist and my t will not give me any "you are doing therapy perfect" no matter how hard I try to get her to say it or tell me how to do it better or "right' no matter how much I beg. lol.

 

[Powder]

Is it hard to admit that your mother did not give you what you needed because you are aware that she had her own issues, namely depression? I think it would confound the simple fact that you did not get your need met. This simple fact was damaging, and is still damaging. A certain level of acceptance of the current state of affairs seems unavoidable in order to move beyond this. It's not even really that personal: it's not about "blaming" her, and we will never know, and she will never fully know, if she could have done better or not. But today, here and now, your current needs are being met by someone, and if you are like me, you are pushing that person away because of what happened to you in the past. The trouble is in discerning if you are rightly perceiving a lack of commitment from this woman or if you are allowing your hurt to control what you will and won't accept in the form of help from a female like your mom, which is triggering? I know this trouble, too. I am feeling pain from your problem, because I have this problem with men from my trauma/Dad. I do not trust men, and even when my husband is trying to help me, if I am too triggered/too emotionally upset, I feel anger and push him away.

So I understand why you are unsure whose head needs bashing against a wall. This is frustration. You are frustrated by being stuck in this. I have found there is a way around this wall. Like LizBeth said, you can deliberately "set it up" so it's different. This is like playing a trick on yourself, but it works.

Muse

 

[maddog]

While on the topic of awkward untidy transference issues, allow me to vent a slight variation on this theme.

I've been seeing my current psychiatrist for a couple of months now on a weekly basis. He came to me hyped up as "the guru" in trauma therapy in our part of the world, internationally acclaimed, recognized, publicised, idilised, bla bla etc etc. By all accounts he was, in fact, a genius with an uncanny aptitude for seeing inside the heads of chronic trauma sufferers.

Well, quite frankly I am underwhelmed in the extreme. He is pleasant, harmless, and practices what he preaches in terms of finding a subtle and appropriate way of blending humour into psychotherapy.

However, other than that, his list of redeeming features in my view is very short. One of my least favourite characteristics is his apparent narrow mindedness and extreme self-interest, which see him direct all of his attention to discreet and narrow sections of my story, at the expense of a holistic view.

Naturally, my father, as primary abuser, has featured significantly in our discussions. Naturally, we have discussed in some depth his influence on my current life, including my current perceptions of and reactions to the world. How nice.

Unfortunately, he seems unable to comprehend the fact that not every person in my universe about whom I feel even remotely conflicted reminds me of my father.

"Does she remind you of your father?" he asked, firstly about my ambitious female colleague, then about my elderly aunt, and finally, about my somewhat hyperactive teenage niece. Holy flippin fire trucks, is this man simple or what!!

Sorry, very childish vent there, but it makes me want to slap him silly and perhaps the fact that I find this so blatantly irritating and dismissive is the only thing that prevents me from becoming deeply distressed by his behaviour.

The lesson I suppose is that psychiatrists are people too, and I don't like most people I know in real life!!

Maddog