Posted by onceupon on October 23, 2008, at 16:37:06
I've realized recently that I don't do such a good job of maintaining continuity between my therapy sessions. I go one week, have an intense experience, and spend the next day or so in a kind of therapy hangover during which I feel kind of crummy mentally - almost analogous to how you can feel really sore after a good massage sometimes. The intense longing for closeness with my therapist and distress over my life peaks during those two days, during which I'm preoccupied and distant. Then, over the course of the week, the feelings and intensity dissipate. I recognize that this is probably normal, but it's such a weird process for me. Sometimes by 4-5 days after seeing my therapist I start to wonder why I'm even going because things feel at least tentatively OK. Then I go back and WHAM! the feelings hit me again.
I admit that I'm prone to avoidance - which has been a big topic in therapy - and that therapy is the one guaranteed time per week or every other week when I will be focusing on painful stuff. So to some extent, I consciously "put away" therapy stuff during the week, if only to feel like I can be a functioning employee/mom. I'd say spouse, but I haven't really been functioning there for a long time.
Does anyone else experience this? It's also difficult for me to remember the content of our sessions week to week. Sometimes, almost immediately after meeting, I will try to reconstruct a she-said/I-said kind of dialogue in my head, but I just can't. It's even hard to recall the general themes we discussed, outside of a very broad recollection. This is frustrating, obviously, because it makes it seem like there's not so much progress week to week or month to month, or going on, year to year.
poster:onceupon
thread:858989
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081018/msgs/858989.html