(((ABOUT)))

I felt so sad reading about your experience in therapy when you were a child. It sounded abusive and just awful. I don't think it's wrong wanting to know how much time you have. I don't know that it's a good thing to be dependent on the therapist like that. It's not something that I like and I think it sounds pretty wonky that she wanted you to rely on her for the time. To me, it sounds like some kind of mind game or power trip. It's bizarre, IMO, and I think you should have control over certain things. And now that I know what I know about therapists and all their unresolved issues, I don't you should accept anything blindly. I'm so sorry that you even have to question your own judgment about this.

Hey,
I read this last night and found it proper mind boggling - so much so it has prompted my first post! Just to say, of course you should be able to be and feel in control, whether in respect to time but also particularly with regards to what issues are covered and how you first broach them. But really I am baffled and intrigued by this so called therapy you had as a kid. Sounds like that would screw anyone up! It seems very unethical, unhealthy and even abusive. I hope your current therapy goes some way to rectifying that...

This is an interesting question, About. I think in good therapy, there's a delicate balance between feeling in control and being challenged to take risks and think differently. BUT - you have to feel comfortable and safe before you can be challenged. Feeling in control is so important! It sounds like your childhood T did not do a good job of helping you feel comfortable, safe, and in control. When she challenged you, you had no foundation of trust and safety there. Of course that would've been hard for you, especially as a young child! It does not sound like productive, warm, or safe therapy. I can see why your current situation is bringing up memories/feelings about your experience as a child. Do you think you can explain to your step-in T why you would like to know the time? The reasons you gave are very legitimate (my T has 2 clocks too and I really like knowing how much time I have too).

I think it is good to be in control of the therapy experience. If I saw a therapist without a clock - I would simply use my watch. I have taken the watch off and set it on my knee to be visible to me when the clock was not where I could see it. I would not turn my power over to a therapist.

Thank you all for your replies. I will detail a bit later, I am quite down and don't feel I can think properly.

Smilingpenguin: just answering the language question, because I had given it quite a lot of thoughts. Yes, the stand in T is French (that's my country). It is a challenge, I had chosen to see an English-speaking T in Canada while I could have found a French-speaking one quite easily. But it is actually a reverse difficulty: I am so very well "protected" in French, the words are just an act, I can tell lies so easily, I can tell stories. The words feel meaningless in French, because I made them so, I learned what I was supposed to say in French and I physically can't say anything about "real feelings". My French is "dissociated": I don't feel anything in French. I used to, but I have not been able to for years. I guess it used to be painful, so I detached from it. When I talk I feel exactly as if I was just using words from a play, but nothing real. Everything feels like lies in French. I guess some people may feel the same and not have the chance of using another, new, language? I protected myself so well from my feelings in French that I have no idea how to even talk about them. It's almost as if they were gone. I am not sure I am making any sense here? Do you get what I mean?

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I am not sure I am making any sense here? Do you get what I mean?

Yes!!! I totally get this.

I was going to reply to your post about control, and now you've thrown even MORE food for thought out there... hmm!

This is a huge issue for me because I very often feel like I don't have control in therapy. Reading your post has made me think about my own situation, and realizing how much that feeling might just be coming from me. I really see the logic behind what you're feeling about the clock, and I get why you'd have that response to your stand-in T. But it is interesting, in this case-- of course the time issue would be easily solved by your wearing a watch, or putting your phone in front of you, or something-- but there's something here that's standing in the way of you 'fixing' the problem for yourself, and deciding instead that the therapist is in complete control of the situation. Echoing here what stoppers said-- in a way, it's you who is giving that power over to her.

I don't mean to discredit or discount your feelings about the situation-- I would be TOTALLY turned off by a T saying "you are to rely on me"... and it would definitely play into my own fears of being controlled and manipulated. But I am also seeing that's it possible for you to bring something different to this picture, and maybe create an experience you are more comfortable with.

Good luck!

Some very good points there by effed re. wearing a watch etc.

Anyway, the language thing is an interesting one. I don't do therapy in my mother tongue and my T once said something about her wondering whether that means there is something missing; something we may not so easily have access to because of that. I didn't feel that way because to me English is very much my dominant language but consequently I started paying attention to how and why I 'choose' language. I started keeping a diary again and noticed I would often switch to English and prefer English when writing about emotions. I think that's because I learned so much about all this feeling stuff in English so it is a bit like I'm sort of lacking the words and expressions in my mother tongue. It certainly doesn't come so easily (not that it's easy in English, mind). So very much a different experience to yours but I can definitely see what you're saying...

In my mind, good therapy is when T and client are able to work together to find out what works well and that includes seemingly tiny things like what language to use to define issues, to timing, to what subjects are discussed in any given session.

For me client autonomy is absolutely massive. I have very strong feelings about the difference in power between client and therapist and always go to see someone who shares my opinion on minimizing the power gap. I think it's very important for Ts to be aware of the power they wield and how even small conversations can affect the therapeutic relationship.

For me, control is very important. I hate not being able to see a clock. I want to be able to make decisions for myself on what is safe to bring up and how much processing time I have. I think that is a perfectly reasonable expectation. I'm an adult and I have chosen to enter a therapeutic relationship. That doesn't mean I have entered a relationship where I have to blindly trust someone else's 'expert' judgement and somehow submit to a way of working that doesn't feel right. I don't think therapists should be viewed as wise, all-knowing experts and most modern therapy is moving towards the therapist taking a far more de-centred position.

The short version of the above is no, I don't think the sense of control you like should be avoided. In fact, I think it should be embraced

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I guess some people may feel the same and not have the chance of using another, new, language?

wow, that must be why I feel so at home writing in English here. I know it's not perfect, but every word is true, and in Dutch I don't really trust myself. Thanks About, this is new and important to me!

Hi!

Just letting you know that I read your answer, I am just stuck in the middle of nowhere for the annual family vacation, so... I can't answer right now. But I am not forgetting or ignoring your answer.

Thank you a lot.

I am back, and successfully survived, in spite of the ... cold atmosphere (basically, I came out to my sister 2 weeks ago and she told me "I destroyed all her dreams of a happy big family because she would not allow her (future) children around me, because that's not what she will teach them". Great, she will teach my future nephews/nieces to be homophobic. Anyway, that's beside the point, but spending time with her is not exactly among my dream holidays right now).

So back to answering you.
First, thank you all for your answers and validation. It matters HUGELY. Any time I talk about that with my mother (or topics like control/feeling safe in general) she massively invalidates my feelings and basically tells me that whatever I feel is just cowardice/laziness that has to be forced out of me against my will. And yeah, she's my mum, so I keep somehow believing her! So... really, thank you for sharing your experiences, it was very helpful.


Second, update on the situation, because I feel that the individual answers will be clearer with the update, but feel free to skip it. I met the stand in T three times in total, last time this morning, and I told her it was the last time (it was not a surprise, I had indicated from the beginning that I may not have time to come the last week of August). The thing is, and that was an interesting experiment, those sessions triggered a lot of... memories/feelings/transference (as in "feelings that actually relate to a completely different person") about my Childhood therapy. I had dreams (I mean nightmares) where the two therapists were interchangeable. I am very aware that this is not something that the stand in T "deserved". She just stepped on some traps that had lied dormant until now, because my Actual Therapist is 1) not the controlling type, 2)the best (... )
I feel I need to say some more about my childhood therapist: she was sometimes vastly ... misguided. Especially during the last 5 years (that's still a lot). But she did help me a lot before that (actually saved my life), and while I do not actually remember it, it still happened. So... I think I should have stopped seeing her much earlier, before it became "potentially hurtful", but she also helped. Anyway, I just felt that it was a bit unfair to not mention that.
I brought up again the clock in the session 2, and she actually said that if I could not bear the current situation, I could look at the clock. I am proud, so of course I said I did not need it. Also, I actually don't need it. I find it useful and reassuring, but not necessary. Which led me to realise (Session 3) that what really upsets me about it is not the actual clock (indeed, if I really want the time, I can get a watch or my phone), but the fact that she would want me to not look at it and rely on her. This is basically my problem: why does she want that? I asked, and she re-explained that it got the patient (France.... people are not clients, they are patients) to let go and, again, rely on her.
I am at least satisfied she explained her reasoning (again, CT would never answer any of my questions, because anyway "that's all my projections", and... yes, it totally feels like mind games to me. And it is also very invalidating), but not actually satisfied with her reasoning, which, to me, basically asks me to not have control over my time in my session.
During the session 2, she also tried to get me to not intellectualize, by changing topics every time I stopped 'experiencing physical things' (cold, etc.) I feel I am being very unfair because, ... obviously therapy has to challenge me, right? The thing is... I am fine with intellectualizing. Which leads me back to the question of control: my ultimate "demand" is that I define what I want in therapy. I mean, what I consider to be the goal. A lot of my fear is that... therapists define one "well-being" and just try to get you to fit in it. My CT had defined it as "heterosexual, sexualized, accepting that she (me) used her brain to avoid feeling she was not a boy". This T (and I am making assumptions) obviously thought that intellectualizing was "not a good thing", like my CT had done (and.... I swear, I have friends, and I do enjoy intellectualizing and do not want to change it per se. And use it as a defence when required. And sometimes don't control it. But ... that's what defences do?)
So... who defines what "health/good" is? Because that's somehow the ultimate control, I feel. If you say "the therapist", somehow, it does justify quite any means and forcing health onto you. And how could "a sick person" define "healthy/good"? But then, how different is that from blindly trusting some random stranger? (I am guessing that the point of the therapeutic alliance is to admit you have the same goals and to trust the therapist to help you get there). But then, I feel I am being paranoid and resistant...
Sorry, that was a very long update, I'll try to edit it to shorten it.

Liese: Thank you a lot for your answer. I think that a lot of it also came from doing Very Short Therapy, and she may have tried to rush a bit... and therefore skip the slow learning to trust process which would have made those admittedly small things (disturbing, but factually small) into bigger things, especially since it also triggered bad memories. On the other hand, at the very beginning, my AT (Actual Therapist), only had one clock, that she would see. But when asked about it, she simply offered to move it, but explained that she needed to see it for obvious practical reasons/asked me what it evoked.... and it felt okay (not convenient, but not a control thing trying to "trick" me into a "state of depending on her").

Dazed & Confused: Thank you! And welcome here! And yeah, I am doing a lot of "trying to get over the previous therapy"!

erica: Thanks! And I explained, and still... said no to moving the clock, because sometimes I am stupidly stubborn, and because, even more that the feeling of not being in control, I disliked the reasoning that justified it, that it was for my own good.
Also I am very interested in thttp://psychcafe.ca/groupee_common/ver1.3.7.2147483647/platform_images/blank.gifhe use of the words

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warm, or safe therapy.

I read them. My actual current T uses them. But I had never heard them before about therapy. Since then, I rarely ever saw them used in the context of French therapy. So I am wondering whether that's just random (after all, I did not study psychology) or that it is something cultural (but then, where do I fit? and why do I want something that is not my culture?)

Smilingpenguin: thank you for your replies! And I admire you for relearning English (switching languages is obviously the easy way), I tried, for the past 3 weeks, and... that was an interesting challenge.

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seeing someone willing to talk about power and autonomy and minimising power gaps is incredibly important

Thanks for saying that. I needed to hear it (*baby About* my mum says it's baaaad, the power gap should be felt as painfully as possible).

stoppers: Thanks. But I am ... playing power games. I do not just want to see the time. I want to have therapy accepting my wanting of the clock? *I am secretly evil*

effed:

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and it would definitely play into my own fears of being controlled and manipulated.

Me too! Thanks for answering.
And you have an interesting point with the fact that I am giving her that power by not bringing my own watch, I had not looked at it that way. I guess that I would also feel uncomfortable for bringing my "own time" while clearly said I was to rely on her, because... she does has some power (she's the therapist) + I feel it would not solve the underlying issue, rather avoid it?

Mallard: Thanks! And thanks for expressing very exactly and clearly how I felt, in a muchhhh more concise way. It helps to think more clearly!

Elsewhere: I'm glad you could recognize some stuff! (and yay to all the non-English speakers using English in such a weird, interesting and under-studied way (I wish I could read academic stuff about doing therapy/talking about therapy in another language and how that works!)

Thanks to all... sorry for my belated and very long answer!

I agree that there definately is a balance between control and the subject you are going to talk about. I am always defensive and have learned to let my guard down. My T has helped me to understand that the anxious/defensive part of me is there to help me and the more I try to suppress feelings/thoughts, the worse it gets. I have learned to compartmentalize, but there is a time to compartmentalize and a time to talk about it. It has taken me a long time to realize that I don't always have to have control. He says he has other clients who have run around the room, screaming, to try to deal with their issues. And that's the one thing that I don't want to do is to look like a freak. But, the more I work with this wonderful, understanding, compassionate T, the more comfortable I am talking about the difficult things. He knows it isn't easy. But he pushes me and he nudges me along. He knows I need it and I know I won't get any better if I don't face it and deal with it. And I like the fact that he has a lot of different "tools"/modalities in his arsenal that he utilizes to bring about change in me.

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and yay to all the non-English speakers using English in such a weird, interesting and under-studied way

Moi?