worried about my therapist again

[Bloopsy]

I closed the other topic about my therapist, and my wondering about her being somewhat unhealthy for me. I got afraid. i appreciate all the replies to my note about her. I got afraid and deleted the thread. But am just feeling still weird about it--- she always brings up her experiences---- I feel so bad. I don't want to critisize her.The replies to my post told me to run from my therapist.  I do not understand. Maybe she tells me about her own experience so that I will feel less alone? But I get really confused sometimes, because then I sort of start to think of us as friends. She has helped me so much. Maybe I am just getting better and it is starting to make me feel uncomfortable the way she talks about her personal experience. Sometimes I get the sinking feeling that maybe she is trying to do one-upmanship or make sure that I know that she was just as damaged as me?I feel like she is always using her personal experience in the therapy, and I feel like it just doesn't always fit, we are two different people. Also she told me "your inner children need to know that they will "have " me for the rest of their lives". I felt really uncomfortable by that because she is a lot older than me and unless I die very early I will probably outlive her. I love her very much and I do not want to lose her .Also I feel like I must be a horrible person or something because her and the other man that I talk to always tell me to be honest and kwhatever and it seems like they don't like it when I pretend everything is okay, but then when I don't I feel like they get don't like it .

[Bloopsy]

I'm sorry for the confusing posts guys. Just confused!!!!!

[Sallying Forth]

Well maybe the healthier you get, the more you see that things you previously thought were okay and now they are no longer okay?



A therapeutic relationship can never be a friendship. That is crossing a boundary.

[October]

A therapeutic relationship can never be a friendship. That is crossing a boundary.

I agree 100%.  I once had a therapist who claimed to be a friend.  He did me a lot of damage, because of his confusion of the roles.  Ultimately he accused me to other people of having inappropriate feelings for him, and this was devastating.  His image of who I was was distorted beyond all recognition, and nearly drove me mad.  I am very susceptible, and for a while (months) could not unravel who was right and who was wrong, because he was my therapist, and I thought he knew more than me ...

I would be very wary of this t, Bloopsy.  If she cannot separate her own experiences from yours appropriately, then there is likely to be huge transference and projection going on, and any advice she gives you will be highly tainted.  As in my situation.

I would say run as fast as you can.  No therapist (difficult as that is!!) is better than a bad therapist.

[amethyst]

I closed the other topic about my therapist, and my wondering about her being somewhat unhealthy for me. I got afraid. i appreciate all the replies to my note about her. I got afraid and deleted the thread. But am just feeling still weird about it--- she always brings up her experiences---- I feel so bad. I don't want to critisize her.The replies to my post told me to run from my therapist.  I do not understand. Maybe she tells me about her own experience so that I will feel less alone? But I get really confused sometimes, because then I sort of start to think of us as friends. She has helped me so much. Maybe I am just getting better and it is starting to make me feel uncomfortable the way she talks about her personal experience. Sometimes I get the sinking feeling that maybe she is trying to do one-upmanship or make sure that I know that she was just as damaged as me?I feel like she is always using her personal experience in the therapy, and I feel like it just doesn't always fit, we are two different people. Also she told me "your inner children need to know that they will "have " me for the rest of their lives". I felt really uncomfortable by that because she is a lot older than me and unless I die very early I will probably outlive her. I love her very much and I do not want to lose her .Also I feel like I must be a horrible person or something because her and the other man that I talk to always tell me to be honest and kwhatever and it seems like they don't like it when I pretend everything is okay, but then when I don't I feel like they get don't like it .

(((Bloopsy))) That doesn't sound kosher at all to me. What she should be telling you is that your inner children need to know is that they will have you, as an adult, taking care of them for the rest of their lives. The therapist is supposed to give us the tools to heal, not become part of our inner lives.

[Marta]

Bloopsy,

Concur with SF. I too was in similar situation; it was so damaging that even years after it happened, the wounds are still so raw and I can’t even bring myself to talk about it. May be this kind of thing happens to N victims all the time because we are so used to treating others as God and ourselves as nothing. While it was happening, all I could feel was a vague feeling of uneasiness, nothing more. I too thought that the therapist was a "friend," was doing the disclosures for my sake etc. It started with pseudo friendship and ended in a disaster; since I trusted him as "friend" and also I lacked the ability to draw boundaries, the situation kept escalating. Worse, I did not even know that I was being abused, quite severely at that. Finally I ended therapy just because I knew that I must, without still quite admitting that I was being abused. That realization came months afterwards.

To think of your therapist as a friend is one of the worst things you can do for your self-esteem, because by doing so you are giving yourself the message that (1) you have to shell $$ to get yourself a friend! (2) your friend can talk about herself anytime she wants, but you don’t have the power or the right to ask her about her life (therapist disclosures are always at their discretion and they are in control.) (3) your friend has the right to talk about herself during your therapy hour, instead of you. (4) you are betraying yourself by undermining your hunches about this situation and second guessing yourself. (5) what you NEED from therapy is someone who’ll teach you boundaries, not someone who’ll violate them. That’s a crappy way to treat yourself!
 
Run as fast as you can! Presumably you can find a better therapist; may be you can even get a referral from this board.

Marta

[amethyst]

Thanks for your excellent posts and points, Marta and October. They really helped me understand that some people become therapists for some very sick reasons. 

[Brigid]

A therapeutic relationship can never be a friendship. That is crossing a boundary.

I have to disagree with this.  I consider my therapist a very good friend and that aspect of the relationship has been very helpful to my healing process.  It has never been inappropriate, nor has he crossed any boundaries or ever made me uncomfortable.  I firmly believe that when our professional relationship is finished, that we will remain lifelong friends.  I have never felt like I was paying to have a friend.

I admit to having very limited experience with therapy and perhaps in most cases they shouldn't be friends, but maybe the term "never" is too strong.

Brigid

[Bloopsy]

I thought that we were friends in a weird way but I asked her and she said that we aren't " friends friends". I am so scared. I feel like the world is falling down. I have an appointment today.  I don't know what to think. But I know that she helps me a lot of the time, there are just a few things that worry me.

[Bloopsy]

if there is anything going on it is very covert. But it seems like nothing should be going on even covertly. Loveb

[amethyst]

(((Bloopsy))) When I have been in therapy, I wanted a friendly and nurturing relationship with my therapist. but I can't imagine having one as a friend, as I define a friend. A therapist is an authority figure. You hire them to help you. You use their expertise to heal. When you are healthy, the relationship is over, other than the fact that you may run into them now and then.

A friend is a peer. I do things with my friends like talk on the phone, go out to eat, we help eachother out, maybe give eachother rides or help eachother move, exchange books and recipes, see films together, go for hikes, and hang out at eachothers houses. I have never done any of that with my therapists.

[Bloopsy]

I sort of feel like if she fits all these guidelines of what is wrong to do in therapy that she must be doing something wrong. It just seems like there is something wrong with her talking about her relationship to me. One time I was worried that my wedding dress was too "sleazy" and she asked me " is it as sleazy as that shirt you are wearing?" That felt like cruelty. I might just be having some kind of delusion. I don't know what to think. She has been the closest person to me for about four years. Thank you so much for supporting me.

[Marta]

That felt like cruelty.

Yes, that's definitely a put down and your therapist should never use that tone with you.

I have been in your situation, and I felt really concerned for you. So to get a better idea of where you are at, I tried to look up your past posts on the board; hope you don’t mind.

Anyway, I found you had posted things like you talk to your therapist every day, and you are afraid that you are a narcissist and a creep!  You also said that your therapist says that you have narcissistic tendencies. Which tendencies do you have that you think are narcissistic? May be instead of just assuming things about yourself or taking someone else’s word about it, you can slowly examine them yourself?

You are NOTHING like a narcissist, and not a creep either. If after four years of therapy, if you are still afraid that you are a narcissist, if you feel you are a “horrible person because of her” (i.e. your therapist), then could it possibly be that this therapy may be helping you to survive on a day to day basis, but not helping you very much to get better? 

I can understand your being afraid. You have been close to her and she has been your main source of support all these years. However, it is really good that you are asking these questions, and putting them out there where others can share their experiences too. Just take it slowly and mull over things.

In the meantime, take care of yourself…..

Hugs, Marta

[Sallying Forth]

I thought that we were friends in a weird way but I asked her and she said that we aren't " friends friends". I am so scared. I feel like the world is falling down. I have an appointment today.  I don't know what to think. But I know that she helps me a lot of the time, there are just a few things that worry me.

Interesting ... that is exactly how my therapeutic relationship was with my third therapist.

When I got healthier I began to question her tactics and motives more and more. It wasn't until I started reading up on things that I realized she was a N. She also wanted my little ones within to rely on her. Thankfully they never did. I "mothered" my own little ones and that is the healthy way.

That t wanted me to become dependent on her. Sick, sick, sick.

[Sallying Forth]

That felt like cruelty. I might just be having some kind of delusion.

You sound perfectly sane to me. That was cruel!