Posted by raisinb on May 29, 2009, at 9:35:06
In reply to Re: crappy session today » raisinb, posted by Dinah on May 29, 2009, at 6:47:58
Hi Dinah,
I think the main problem is she won't acknowledge it except to say she might be tired sometimes or not feeling good. But I don't quite buy that. And sometimes, she'll struggle to be more present. Sometimes, she's completely shut down. Therapy then is trying to get water out of a stone.
I have in the past identified a pattern where we have a really intense, connected session, and then the next time, she turns into that stone. I have gone over and over in my head, a thousand times, what I could have done or said to make her do that. And I just don't know. These aren't session where we have fights, I don't express any intense or inappropriate feelings towards her, and I'm not intensely needy.
On Tuesday, when we had our good session, I said a lot of things about the gulf between us and our experiences, and how that hindered the connected. I don't think I said it in a nasty way, though. I just told her that it was clear that there were people in the world who had been broken in certain ways, early on. And that sometimes they are struggling with that brokenness all their lives, but that sometimes they take those wounds and make a self that is richer, more complex, more true than if they'd never been broken in the first place.
I told her it was clear to me that she wasn't one of those people. Not that she hadn't struggled, but that I could sense beyond a doubt that she did not understand the kind of lack of love and emotional abuse that produces a broken self--that she clearly had not experienced it.
At the end, she said, "I hope your impression of me is a work in progress." I smiled and said, "it is."
I really don't think there's anything wrong with saying all that stuff. What do you guys think?
I asked her yesterday when she was totally shut down if she was angry or upset with me because of something I'd said in the previous session. She said no. But nothing she said yesterday sounded sincere. So I am left guessing.
poster:raisinb
thread:898180
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090515/msgs/898264.html