Posted by raisinb on February 5, 2009, at 8:07:18
In reply to Re: If my Therapist doesn't call......, posted by sharon7 on February 5, 2009, at 7:24:10
I think it really does depend on the therapist. Mine *always* notices and brings it up at the next session. She didn't always call me back after I just left a message canceling, until she learned that I had deep fears of something happening to her. Now she always calls so I don't worry.
As for what you should do, I know this pattern of testing and back and forth oh so well. I've been doing it with my therapist for four years and counting. Now the backs and forths are much less dramatic, but I still feel the need sometimes.
I agree with Witti that you probably are testing her, but I disagree a bit, I guess, that it's only your issue.
I think some tests are valid tests. We all go through a period of testing in every new relationship. And a therapy relationship, in some ways, is so imbalanced and ambiguous that maybe you need more tests.
My advice might not be the wisest in the world, precisely because I'm still going through exactly what you describe. But I know that my therapy really took off when two things happened. I decided to commit to my therapist and she started expressing caring feelings about me. I stopped fighting and she stopped being closemouthed about her attachment to me. I don't know which is the chicken or the egg, here, and I don't know if it matters.
We are humans and many of us inside still feel like unloved, unimportant little children. It is not unreasonable to want to be at least a little significant to someone so important to you.
My advice is to talk about this with your therapist honestly. But if you decide that it's essential to you--as I have had to--to have a therapist who cares deeply and shows it at least a little--then you are within your rights. And she might just be the one for you, but maybe not. It doesn't sound like you're in that final decision mode yet, or any time soon.
I wish you the best as you struggle with this.
(((Sharon)))
poster:raisinb
thread:878066
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090129/msgs/878174.html