Quote:
Originally Posted by susannahsays
Labrat, I'm sorry if this hurts or isn't helpful, but I feel like someone has to say it. The fact that your therapist was so resistant to identifying that your childhood was worse than average, which we all know (even you, if only on a rational level) is really concerning. I try not to throw around the transference/countertransference labels a lot, as they are often used to distract, avoid taking responsibility, and invalidate. However, it really seems to me, judging by what you've said, that your therapist is having some sort of abreaction. There is really no reason that he should have avoided validating your childhood as worse than average.
Edit: Unless you specifically asked for his feedback on your childhood in comparison to his other clients.
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I didn't ask about in comparison to other clients. I just asked "do you think my childhood was worse than average" and he said he couldn't really say.
He's described parts of it as horrible and awful and did validate that there was abusive behavior... But he said like when he started practicing he was shocked at the number of women who disclosed sexual abuse by a family member (which I'm a bit upset about because I was not physically or sexually abused and I've told him before that anecdotes about other clients with "worse" situations make me feel worse and feel invalidating, even when I can understand the point he's trying to make...)
Then he told me that that's not what matters though, my feelings matter, and all that other ****.
I appreciate that he didn't just lie to me and tell me what I wanted to hear I guess.
I just don't know what to believe. I thought I was kind of understanding what might be true at least on some rational level but I guess not. Maybe I was wrong. Just because I want it to be true doesn't mean that it's true. Maybe it really wasn't that bad. No one else at the time really believed my father was being abusive. At least my T believes that...
I don't know what kind of countertransference would make him reluctant to validate it, it's not like he wants to hurt my feelings... This is just why I should know better than to ask questions if I can't handle the answer. I kinda brought it on myself by asking.
(on some level it's validating that at least two people have said they disagree/think it was worse than average... it's what I want to believe, but I don't know if I'm allowed to believe it. So thank you, and I appreciate disagreement with my T/validation on this one)