Posted by pegasus on July 13, 2004, at 15:55:39
So, last week in t I was talking about a scary time in my life, and I started crying. I kept trying to get it under control and keep talking, and then I'd start crying again. After a while my therapist started crying too. It kinda freaked me out. It felt good - like she understood. But also bad somehow.
Eventually she said that she was crying because of how much pain I had in talking about this issue. It felt awkward to me, though, and I wanted her to stop crying.
So, I'm thinking I want to bring it up this week. What I'm thinking about saying is, "Last week when you cried when I was crying, I had confused mixed feelings. On one hand it felt validating. On the other, I felt responsible for having made you cry, which I didn't like. Also, I worried whether your own crying would distract you so that you wouldn't be entirely there for me."
I remember a thread a while back where people talked about Ts crying. I'm curious if any of the folks who didn't post there have additional thoughts about their therapist crying during their sessions.
I'm guessing that maybe she's partly trying to model that it's ok to cry when you're sad. I generally fight crying in therapy.
pegasus
poster:pegasus
thread:365728
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040703/msgs/365728.html