Posted by Medusa on April 22, 2004, at 0:09:57
In reply to Re: I yelled at my therapist » Medusa, posted by Dinah on April 21, 2004, at 23:32:38
> Drat. I thought I had posted a reply to you. I guess it's lost in cyberspace.
>Bummer.
> Is this the same therapist you usually see?Yeah, the face-to-face therapist is always the same. I could go into the observation room and say hi to the others if I wanted, but I've never felt like it. So maybe one of them works days in the shop where I buy my underwear or something, and I wouldn't know it.
> If so, was this the first session where she was unhelpful?
>No, there have been a couple of others. Once, she gave me a lecture that was pretty much verbatim the stupid broken records playing in my own head. NOT helpful.
>But I suspect some of my own work days are like that too. :(
>This is a little different, I think. Sure, shrinks work for more than just our sessions, but I have one session every two weeks, and I need it to be prime time.
> If not, can you ask for another team member to be your face to face therapist?
>It's a training program, and although I'm sure I could work out a switch, I'm not sure it makes sense. My rope-around-the-neck theory has worked pretty well so far. I really don't think she wants to be yelled at again. Also, the face-to-face therapist wears an earpiece and gets feedback and direction from the team, and this wouldn't change much with a different face.
I suspect that my therapist is just overtaxed by my expectations. For one, she spends a lot more time on my case (supervision, reviewing videos) than in my sessions, but I only hear what she tells me during the session. I don't get the benefit of whatever insights she had in the shower unless she articulates them for me. I can't read her thoughts, and I expect her to state them clearly. Further, I think faster than she does. One technique of this therapy approach is for the therapist to be slower than the patient, to be sure that the patient's change is stable and that the patient is driving the growth. But in a lot of situations, I really do think faster than she does.
A friend's older sister is doing a psych PhD in a program that's geared to this approach, and she said that it sounds like my therapist has already had far more than enough "success" in my case to do a great write-up for her dossier. She (friend's sister) was a management consultant in her first career, and says that therapists who don't have this kind of world-work exposure bring a completely different ("sheltered" was one of her words) perspective to the patient's experiences. I don't think that this therapist is necessarily jealous of me, but good grief, I'm living a very different life than she is living, and she's openly stated that she hasn't had many of the experiences I've had. (Living outside of home country, academic opportunities, social stuff.)
I'm really bothered by the therapist's (and the team's) denial that there's a power imbalance. Until now, they've mostly determined the subject matter. Which I can understand - clearly, my mother issues take priority to my sister-in-law issues, but often I'd have preferred to scream about my SIL. Further, no matter how many field articles and texts I read, I have no idea where some of their questions are going, and I mostly just go along and give it a shot. I know I'm an arrogant snot, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make any difference to me that I'm out here living and facing new challenges and blazing new paths, and most shrinks I've seen are holed up in their offices in provincial areas, hoping at most to write a book that'll make them stand out in their field and get them invited to present at a conference in the capital city.
Anyway.
poster:Medusa
thread:338441
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040419/msgs/338627.html