Posted by Dinah on December 31, 2004, at 20:35:32
I spoke to my therapist today about how ashamed I sometimes feel about wanting forever therapy. How it was socially unacceptable.
And how confusing it was that my migraine neurologist was absolutely delighted that I went to therapy twice a week.
And how the whole thing seems hard to understand.
I told him that I appreciate and value the therapeutic relationship as a completely separate type of relationship. That trying to get what a therapist gives from a friend or family member would be as inappropriate as trying to get friendship from a therapist. He seemed to approve of my attitude.
Now, he thinks that my belief that those who don't have therapists are probably trying to inappropriately use friends and family as ersatz therapists is too extreme. :) He understands the reasons I might have come to believe that, since my parents innapropriately attempted to use me as their ersatz individual and couples therapist.
His opinion is this.
He thinks most people don't need ongoing therapy. Many never need therapy. Others need therapy for a particularly stressful situation. And others need therapy to learn skills that they haven't learned before, or to heal and then get better and leave.
But he thinks that a few people, me being one of them, can really use and benefit from an ongoing therapy relationship for stability and centering. And he thinks that my migraine doctor has probably seen enough people who are like me that she understands that. He said he wouldn't agree to continue to see me if he didn't believe that. (And yes, I then asked him if he were going to change his mind at some point. grin.) He thinks it's just part of who I am. I'm ummm... high strung, psychologically and neurologically sensitive to stress, etc. And that I'm able to make use of the therapeutic relationship to help manage that.
So he's ok with forever therapy however often I find it helpful. He's not expecting me to get all better and go it alone, because he sees the problem as being physiological as well as experience based or resulting from a lack of coping skills or relationship skills.
He's ok with it, I'm ok with it. I'm going to try not to worry about whether it's socially acceptable or if I'm considered some sort of self absorbed Woody Allen.
poster:Dinah
thread:436168
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041228/msgs/436168.html