Posted by daisym on February 17, 2005, at 0:03:24
In reply to Re: Yikes! Now I've done it! » daisym, posted by fallsfall on February 16, 2005, at 7:45:31
Thank you all for sharing your thoughts. I thought about everything everyone said and felt sort of prepared when I went in today. He brought it up right away...asking me if I want to keep talking about it. I said yes, I had been thinking about it. He said he had too...in fact, he realized that there was no way to answer the question that wouldn't be hurtful to me in some way. He said he felt put in a double-bind because he also said he would answer my questions whenever possible. (I said I was glad to know I could sometime put him on the spot...evil grin.) Ultimately we agreed that underneath the question was really another question about his ability to be there for me -- to be available and strong -- since we've revolved back into a story telling phase. And when I tell him the stories I get terrified that he is finally going to just "have enough" and pull away. We also talked about my need for him to be flexible from week to week about appointments, either in person or on the phone. He said he was still fine with that -- we do have set times each week and we can continue to fill in around it like we had been doing. I was very relieved and I didn't even realize I had been worrying about that. It has been especially hard lately because of the complexities of scheduling around my friend.
Am I still curious? Sure...I told him I had a bunch of other questions but for now I was OK with hanging on to them. I thought a lot about Aphrodite's experience and I can see myself doing the same thing. Plus, I have a good friend who has this very complicated therapy situation with her husband and her therapist. They started as a couple, she kept going as an individual for 2 years, he recently developed a critical need for help, so she "gave up" her spot to him (since there was a trust already established and she was terrified he wouldn't seek help). The therapist seems OK with this (I'm horrified - a total projection) but what upset me today was that my friend had an emergency appointment with the therapist last night and they talked about her husband. (did you follow all of that??!) I told my therapist that I knew I didn't need to say this, BUT "don't ever do that to me. Please don't talk to my spouse about me and PLEASE don't take him on as a client..."
He promised (after being very generous about different kinds of therapy and different boundaries for therapists) and we explored the ongoing need to keep secrets and how vital it is for me that therapy is safe. He wondered if part of my question about his clients was also trying to figure out if there was a person who would make it unsafe for me. I hadn't thought of that but given the difficulty lately, it fits too.
And believe it or not, we did all of that in the first 20 minutes. The next 33 minutes were deep and painful but that is a different post.
poster:daisym
thread:458460
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050211/msgs/459129.html