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How to take a break with a therapist without it being a final end?

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Oh yeah, this makes so much sense to me.

I wrote up a draft. If I try to imagine being in her shoes... I am just now sure how to communicate it. I went back and listen to the session. I thinks he really thinks that by asking questions she is giving suggestions. She told me at the end she gave me suggestions but her suggestions were actually all phrased as questions. I don’t hear suggestions. “Is your safe imaginary house in the woods or by the breach?” I mean yeah ok so maybe that’s a suggestion. I sound like a neurotic fool.


Wow!!!

Your c comment reminded me of a feeling I had when I started therapy.

My old therapist used to say “I am wondering…”

“Just my feeling, could be true or not…”

“Is it possible….”



All very wishy washy way of talking. It took me a lot of reading of therapy book, to get what kind of talk this is. This how therapy talks when they want to say something very deep but are afraid to create resistance in you! It is like I will say what I really think but I will not put it strongly just in case you are not ready to hear it. Basically a therapist who talks like this is assuming that you are not to hear the interpretation!

There are a lot of books (heavy in theory) that teach you how a therapist talks. It helps cause if they assume you are stupid, they treat you as such (is this a core wound for me) maybe…but I need to understand the reality. It is a form of talk. It is not about you.

I think she put them as questions, so you can take them as yours since you answer them. You would have felt like wow! I solved my problem rather than she is practically solving it for you.

They call this sort of therapy talk – clarifying or reality checking. It is kind of manipulative and I am surprised after couple years, she is resorting to this level.

Usually this is how a therapist may approach you before you know you well. By now, as you are desperately asking, she should level with you!



I think she is not reading you or acknowledging you are integrating and this is frustrating now rightfully so!
 
We go on and on here about not mindreading people and not allowing mindreading situations, because it's not only a trigger to set out a confusing way of dealing with things, it's really an unhealthy way of communication.

We can't really mind read a therapist, can we? If they want something from us, they have to work in order to get it, or ask us directly, most often both.

I remember the "regulate" incident. Was it an order or a suggestion? I wonder because it helped ME, actually, as I considered it a suggestion. But reading more about this T, I wonder if she conceived it as an order, as in, "You've done all the work, now apply it".

I like my current T, because despite all the difficulties we had in building trust, she has patience with my shortcomings.
As an example, she's been hammering me about breathing exercises, and I flat out refused them saying they made me more anxious because I had to switch to manual breathing and then get extreme anxiety over not being able to switch back. Then I started doing yoga and that issue went away, so I started doing breathing exercises. The look of relief on my therapist's face was hilarious. She yelled "Omg! Finally!", but not once she lost her patience during the whole "Please, Sietz, just do breathing exercises" process.
She tried all sorts of ways to get me to do it, even forcing me to sit down and do them, and I got upset and everything. I did do them, but told her I was angry about it, felt like an intrusion and a boundary violation.

I do get the whole "therapy is there for a purpose, let's work on that" approach to it. I don't go empty handed to therapy, ever. That's the fastest way to allow things to go haywire for me after, because then in there I feel the need to go deep and not always able to handle it well. So, if I go with a specific purpose in mind, she allows me to express it, we work on that, and she guides things in her own understanding too. Because we do work together, it's not just me working with her or her doing the work.
It's my issues to treat, her guidance.
If my T wasn't guiding me respectfully? I wouldn't be able to cope. And I think that's what's been happening to you lately, she isn't able to guide you appropriately or respectfully and you aren't being able to cope with that.

I wonder if you feel betrayed by her?

Maybe in her being there physically, her emotional distance seems solvable?
Like any other relationship, an emotional distance can obviously be solvable, if both parties are willing to do the leg work. It seems to me your therapist doesn't seem willing and that makes you feel betrayed?
Particularly with the parallels going on in the background with your family at the moment, and all the other stuff going wrong?
Seems like the most horrible time to be without her support, but even still going to therapy and meeting with her, you're definitely not being supported.

Hanging on to a broken relationship is what we all do when we feel desperate without it, no one is judging you here for it at all.
But I'm going to insist in saying that this therapeutic relationship has been deterimental for your mental health, and the title of this thread is "how to take a break from therapy without it being a final end?" so, my answer is: Say: "This isn't working well at the moment, lets take a break." Then after a while of handling things on your own and with that nurse's help, you can decide objectively if you want to go back.
 
I think what she doesn't seem to be getting is you are in a place where you need validation in some form in herapy. I know you really truly would rather that wasn't the case but from what you say it is. At the moment. Boy, do I understand not wanting that to be the case. It doesn't have to stay that way and probably wouldn't if she would just give it to you.

You have clearly told her and she doesn't seem able to hear it. Repeated questions, commands, doing what has been asked to be avoided, ignoring boundaries, not being attuned are invalidating in their own way. That doesn't mean they can't be useful in different situations. It just means that when someone is in raw state they are unlikely to be useful. What helps me personally when I have been in that space is to:
be heard and be made to feel heard.
for my boundaries to be adhered to 100%
for there to be some adjustment in response to my reactions. Some attunement.
It doesn't mean I can't be challenged.

If I was in that particular mental space and my repeated requests were ignored it would hit me hard too. And I only have the emotional abuse type of "interrogation" in my past. Not the real thing. I truly see how what happened in that session could in fact be properly triggering for you.

Never does. She’s totally giving up.
Or is it that she is out of control of her own life and has stuff going on. Receipts are an unlikely sign of her giving up.

The therapy we did prior to the timeline... I thought it helped. I’m doubting that. I
A challenge here. Why does the present change the past. You had that therapy and it was good therapy. You have said that many times. Good therapy with her. At present for whatever reason you are in bad therapy with her. Bad therapy is when you aren't being helped by the therapy. Even she is saying it isn't going well. This is not your fault. You are the client. This is the present and many things can change from one period to the other. Where we are. Where they are. What is being addressed. I really do think you need to look at what you need right now and address that.

Also, money being difficult is a huge strain but I wonder if trying to make each bit of therapy be cost productive, for want of a better term, is actually resulting in the opposite happening.

The other thought I wanted to challenge is that all of this makes you unsuitable for help. You come here and gain from support. If you can do that here you can do so in a professional environment. I see nothing at present in you that would stop that from being possible
 
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