Psychotherapy is a complicated process, fraught with its own difficulties that a person doesn’t always understand or appreciate. One of those difficulties is understanding the boundaries between you and the therapist, and how to keep them intact all the while the therapist is asking (or …
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“…you just want to get legally adopted by your therapist and walk together hand in hand towards the quintessential sunset.”…
Oh gosh. I really dislike seeing this type of thing treated in a seemingly fascious kind of manner. I don’t think that anyone who had actually experienced the grief of losing their relationship with their therapist would intentionally make light of another person’s pain. One of the main things I learned from my therapy is that I’m very protective of my relationships and this one was no different. I loved and still love my therapist and have gretaly valued those feelings throughout my experience. I always knew we wouldn’t be “walking off hand in hand”. That’s just plain ridiculous. I didn’t want him to “legally adopt” me either. I just care a great deal about him and I miss him. It has been a difficult and painful journey, but one that I have never been sorry for taking. One can both truly care about their therapist AND understand and respect the boundaries within this type of relationship. Why make fun of a beautiful thing?
I should read the rest of this article, though, before passing judgments. My apologies. The beginning paragraph cited here is just a bit painful to me. I value my feelings, but I do also know where they have to stay.
“facetious”, I meant. Sorry.
Hi Beth,
The sunset scenario is simply a metaphor for very strong feelings of secure attachment that can happen when you become dependent on your therapist. As my therapist pointed out to me once temporary dependency is sometimes necessary for good therapy. It’s sometimes hard to resolve those dependency feelings after they have served their purpose because one can fall in love deeply with ones therapist and that can be a major problem.
That is what my article is highlighting.
Regards Sonia
I’m sorry. I overreacted, of course, and did also fall deeply in love with my therapist. But in the end I have seen that as a positive thing. Throughout my entire experience I have felt a lot of minimizing of my feelings from other’s perspectives and so was set off by the metaphor. As painful as falling in love with my therapist has been at times, it also has been very healing.
What a wonderful article! And I laughed at seeing myself over and over. I am not sure I have finished learning enough to live comfortably, but I do know I HATE the dependency which just happens! and my dread of this dependency and apparent inability to control it, my dread of angry transference issues which never seem to get resolved over the years with many different therapists, is now pushing me out the door after decades. I still have pervasive anxiety which physically hurts, and reoccurring deep depression, but I now have many good days when my dissociation covers the pain of my symptoms, and I have accepted this is how it will be until I depart this earth. I think we not only have to accept that the therapist is not “perfect”, but we also have to accept that life is full of pain and adjustment, life is one challenge after another and if we are to grow and learn from our experience here, then we have to face and walk through these challenges, no matter how scary.
I once told my therapist that my wish would be that I was small enough to sit, and ride along with him, in his shirt pocket.
I call myself Misery. Sometimes this dependency/falling in love with your therapist is absolutely miserable. It causes such upset, jealousy, loneliness, etc. At other times it’s wonderful because it makes me feel loved when no one else has ever cared before and I can open up like I never have trusted anyone before. It’s wonderful and horrible. She’s saved my life and yet may cost my life. She’s helped tremendously and I want to run at the same time. I hate this.
Dependency is not the Boogeyman! Geesh, it is part and parcel to therapy. Your therapist will help manage how it plays out, so relax and enjoy feeling cared about. It is a tool of therapy, not something that will leave bodies in its wake. Psych central writers have a real fear of dependency issues in therapy- What, no self-psychology people at PC?
In retrospect, my mother-child therapy relationship was expert instruction in how to be a passive, helpless, childish depressive. It was a fantasy, a folie a deux, which reinforced only bad emotional habits. Creating dependency for health and independence is therapy’s delusion at its finest.
What are the benefits of becoming dependent upon one’s therapist for a short while? I can’t find anything about it on the www?
Please publish something–or send me a hard copy at: #312-101 Marion St. Winnjipeg, Manitoba CANADA
R2H 3C5
Thanks!