Posted by Tamar on August 13, 2007, at 18:51:08
In reply to Re: ***** Long, tedious and triggery *****, posted by Honore on August 13, 2007, at 15:26:15
Hi Honore,
> Your T sounds extremely unreliable, and I'm really surprised that you feel as accepting as you do of his very negligent and IMO unacceptable treatment.
I guess I accept it because I know he doesn’t mean to hurt me. Don’t get me wrong; I’m often very angry about it. And he listens to my anger and handles it well.
> I'm sorry to be harsh, I just feel strongly that forgetting appointments, being very late to appointments, or omitting to tell you that he was moving to another office are all actions that are beyond the pale. I can't imagine ever being able to feel trust, security, and confidence in the ability of a T to be consistent and self-disciplined if he did any one of those things-- much less all three.
I will admit that trust has become a problem…
> It's not just the issue of forgetting appointments, etc-- it's the issue of how someone gets to the point where they are so lax, self-indulgent, or subject to unresolved (and apparently unaddressed) countertransference that they can act as a reliable person on any level. There's something in allowing yourself to do those things that's more disturbing than the things themselves.
I tried to lay a countertransference trip on him. I’m not sure he took my point. I’m pretty sure his view is that the unreliability is a feature of his ongoing personal difficulties and that it isn’t influenced by the work he’s doing with me. I don’t entirely believe that… But then when I think about it, I suppose I want to believe that I’m important enough to him for him to have countertransference reactions to me, and in fact I’m probably not; it probably is just his personal sh*t. And that feels awful too, because I would like to be important enough to him for our work to be meaningful to him.
> What a rigid or firm frame has to do with resolving these very serious derelictions, I have no clue. People usually invoke a firm frame or boundaries when a patient is asking them to do certain things that might threaten the frame. I see no indication that you've done that-- or that that's the problem.
That’s an interesting point. I think he believes that keeping the frame and the boundaries secure is even more important after he has been unreliable, because he doesn’t want to compound the problem. I’m not aware of anything I’ve done to threaten the frame or his boundaries, but maybe he sees it differently.
> It's easy for us to get caught up in liking and admiring, and trying to "help" our T, if he's in trouble (eg you imagine that his partner is sick, and therefore not only would understand his actions, but be worried and want to do something to support him through this). But that's understandable, but so unhelpful to you right now.
Well, I know there’s something going on because he told me. And I guess something so serious that he would be so unreliable looks like a personal or family health problem. Interesting that you picked up on the idea that perhaps it’s his *partner* who is unwell, because I said ‘his own health or someone in his family’. But you’re on the money: it’s often his partner I imagine - maybe because I know he has a partner, whereas I don’t know whether he has kids. But actually I quite often imagine it’s his own health, or perhaps one of his parents. I’ve gone through all the other possibilities too: financial problems, work problems, substance abuse… everything I can think of. Sometimes I wish he’d tell me so that I can concentrate on worrying about just one thing and score the others off my ‘list’ of possible catastrophes! And yes, I’ve told him that I worry about him and he apologised and admitted that it isn’t helpful to me.
> I guess if I had a T who did all those things, I'd be feeling so awful about myself, a lot of the work would have to be in addressing my issues of feeling put down, etc-- which, if he weren't in fact doing provocative things, might be legitmate-- But when someone is actually mistreating you, the beginning of the solution is in their treating you differently, not once or twice-- but all the time. And their doing some work on themselves-- perhaps with another therapist or in supervision-- on how they could have let things get so out of control.
Yes, we have done a lot of work on my feelings about all this. And again, he admits that it prevents me from getting on with the stuff I come to therapy to work on.
> Barring that, are you sure you're safe in the hands of this guy-- however brilliant he is when he's there?Ooh, ‘safe’ is a powerful word! Many months ago I used to think of him as some kind of embodiment of safety. That’s harder now. But I don’t think he’s in any way unsafe. I mean, I know he wouldn’t do anything utterly outrageous.
Y’know… despite his shortcomings, his integrity as a person is obvious. I don’t know much personal stuff about him, but what I do know indicates that doing the right thing is important to him. So I think he’s probably quite distressed at his inability to be more reliable. If I weren’t so sure of his integrity I’d have left a long time ago, but I’m confident that his unreliability isn’t just carelessness or self-indulgence.
Thanks so much for your thoughts about this. You are right about so many things. I feel a need to shout at him…
Tamar
poster:Tamar
thread:775888
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070807/msgs/776080.html