Posted by baseball55 on January 15, 2013, at 19:30:46
In reply to Re: Attachment to therapist » tetrix, posted by Dinah on January 13, 2013, at 14:33:37
> I don't think it's the childlike attachment that is helpful so much as the ability to naturally outgrow the childlike attachment.
>
For me, it was both. I had a weak sense of self that I concealed behind this armor I had built up. When it started to come apart, I literally lost my sense of self. My therapist "held" me, as they say. I used my attachment to him to regrow and develop a more balanced self-concept. It took a long time for me, but I came in pretty damaged.I guess you could think about this as my attachment serving his self-interest in money, but the truth is that he could have made twice or more as much per hour by sending me to someone else and just prescribing meds. The insurance company allowed him only 115 for an hour of therapy compared to 85 for a 20-minute med visit.
Plus he had to take on this major responsibility for someone who was falling apart, had become suicidal, was going in and out of hospitals. I have a friend who is a therapist and she said that most therapists would not have taken me on -- I was too intense and too high-risk -- and that, if they did, they couldn't have more than one patient like me in their practice or they'd burn out.
poster:baseball55
thread:1032695
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20120922/msgs/1035590.html