Confusion

Does anyone ever feel confused after leaving a session -- confused by something a T has said or done?

Oh yes, feel free to read my most recent thread.

What are you confused about?

Yes, I would often feel confused and it would take me several days to "figure it out". I always took the opinion that it "meant" something (what they'd said or done, not the confusion :-) and that my T wasn't trying to confuse me (and may not know I was confused). I just worked at it until I figured out something to help me and then would check, starting the next session, telling the story of my confusion, to see if I'd gotten it right.

> feel free to read my most recent thread.

I did. Thanks. I am impressed at how good a job you seem to be doing of trying to understand what is going on between your T and you. I find that very, very difficult: understanding what is really going on, what is my part and what the therapist's.

> What are you confused about?

I think I will leave that alone for a while, until maybe some other people respond to my question. Actually it happens often, and there is more than one subject (on the surface) that is involved. Maybe I will try to be more specific later. I also suspect that when I get more specific people here will not understand why I get confused over such "small" things...

Well, I am trying but failing Pachyderm. He's given up on me because I've given up on myself. I don't know where to go from here. I feel invalidated and bad.

Anyway, anything that you think or feel is not small to you and it won't be small to us. Some might think I'm fretting over nothing who knows.

Confusion is part of the process but it is also painful especially for those like me who read into every word and tone of voice...

> Confusion is part of the process but it is also painful especially for those like me who read into every word and tone of voice...

I suspect that is true for many (all?) of us here. It comes from what we learned to be sensitive to as children in a (vain) attempt to cope with what was going on around us. It is our strength and our vulnerability.

More thoughts on confusion: suppose we think we identify where our T has said or done something related more to his/her issues than to ours. What do we do then? Do we think we can cope with discovering that (assuming it is real), or not? What if the T does this sort of thing frequently? Is it dangerous to us or not? To me it certainly feels dangerous most of the time -- I know why that should be, considering my personal history. Can I deal with it now? Do I really want this new "learning opportunity"?

Could you explain a little more? I don't think I'm fully understanding.

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pachyderm said:
More thoughts on confusion: suppose we think we identify where our T has said or done something related more to his/her issues than to ours. What do we do then? Do we think we can cope with discovering that (assuming it is real), or not? What if the T does this sort of thing frequently? Is it dangerous to us or not? To me it certainly feels dangerous most of the time -- I know why that should be, considering my personal history. Can I deal with it now? Do I really want this new "learning opportunity"?

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I have thought that maybe last night was about what you just posted. I'm not clear though because when I asked him for some clarification is invalidated it. It may have been my defensiveness but I felt like he was suggesting that I am encouraging my sons devaluing of my husband lately. This hit a nerve because of my value/devalue issues at times. I say at times because if I disagree with someone's point of view, does that count as devaluing?

I'm assuming he was trying to indicate that I have no earthly idea for sure

Almeda, "but I felt like he was suggesting that I am encouraging my sons devaluing of my husband lately;" is very confusing to me because there are too many, he said that I thought that he thought that the other guy might be thinking. The more "direct" either with your husband or with your T you can be, the less confusion there should be. But trying to work on your husband through your T isn't going to work. What the other person "sees" is not what you "are" but only what you are projecting (as onto a screen at a movie theatre). For your T, it sounds like what he had heard before from his sister and he gave you his opinion/feelings about that.

It is not up to your therapist to deal with your husband's lying or spanking your child or even necessarily to support you in what you want in that arena. You need to confront your husband and deal with the consequences of whether or not he "complies" with what you want. It sounded to me like some of your T's questions were only looking for what you want, not commenting one way or the other about what you want. Not everyone is against spanking but I can't imagine anyone being "for" lying. What are you going to do about your perception that your husband lied. . . again? That is the question. I think worrying about what your T is doing/saying/thinking/meaning is avoidance of that immediate question.

Mouse:

> Could you explain a little more? I don't think I'm fully understanding.

You mean -- you are confused?

If my therapist does something that reminds me of my mother, is that totally a misinterpretation by me, or does he actually do some similar things? If he really does things which are in some way similar, is it dangerous to me, the way the things my mother did were dangerous, or not? Can I admit that he does some things that are similar, and still cope with it -- or do I have to try to deny that he really does such things?

An example: he tells me how he is making things "safe" for me -- rather than doing them, he tells me he is doing them.

I think maybe, like my mother, he sometimes does things to get my approval. Or the "judge in his mind"'s approval.

My mother used to promise that things were OK too. They were not.

Have I confused you more?

pachyderm, your therapist is not your mother and, presumably, didn't know your mother so the "reminders" are coming from your head/thinking. Too, what your mother did is in the past and your therapist is in the present. That's why therapists are so good for us, they can help us sort out what was past/mother and present/whomever so we don't continue to confuse them.

My mother died when I was 3 and my father remarried when I was 5. I wanted a mother very badly and "fused" my mother and stepmother together only my stepmother and I weren't a good match. It took 10+ years of therapy to "sort out" which mother was which (I didn't have a "name"/know what to call my natural mother and could not refer to my stepmother as "stepmother" (she was "Mom" or "my mother")) and get out from "under" my stepmother's forceful (putting it mildly) influence so that I could see what I wanted and run my own life without all the confusion of not knowing what was "mine"/my idea or thought and which my stepmother's influence and beliefs/ways of doing things.

> pachyderm, your therapist is not your mother and, presumably, didn't know your mother so the "reminders" are coming from your head/thinking.

I don't fully agree with this. I think he does some things that have the same origins or motives that the things my mother did had. The same kinds of psychological processes take place in people who aren't clinically disturbed as in those who are. "Disturbed" people are not some kind of human that is essentially different from "normal" people. It's a matter of degree. It makes it harder for me to separate the two in my mind.

I think the degree to which healthy people differ from unhealthy ones (psychologically speaking) is the degree to which those people are consciously aware of why they are doing the things they do. Sometimes, I think, my therapist does things (says things) inadvertently for reasons that he does not understand at the time he does them.

Needless to say I do that sort of thing all the time. I am increasingly aware of the fact that I do not understand what I am doing many times.

I don't know what your mother did so I cannot really say. But my stepmother was angry, controlling and often abusive, physically and emotionally.

Your T doesn't live with you and only sees you an hour a week so it doesn't make a lot of sense, to me, that he would want the same things from you that your mother does who had "control" over you and lived with you and knew all about you for so many years?

My stepmother would always ask, "Why did you do that?" and I never had an answer for whatever it was. I was constantly conflicted because I was often in a double bind situation (A double bind is like when a man is asked: Have you quit beating your wife?" There's no way out of the situation; if he answers "yes" he admits to having beaten his wife and if he answers "no" then he's labelled as still beating her!) An easier way to understand, for me, is when my next older brother told me I was "wrong" handed (I'm left-handed :-) and I was too young and unsophisticated to to know how to get out of the problem using logic. I knew that the opposite of "wrong" was "right" and I wasn't right-handed so I must be wrong-handed!

Therapists (hopefully) help teach us "logic" and a bit more helpful experience we didn't get under our parents' narrow abuse/thinking.

But whenever my therapist would ask me a question, any question, I would feel as if she was trying to "trap" me because of my experience with my stepmother. It took many years of experience with my therapist to know her and to separate her and her actions from those of my stepmother's. My stepmother's unanswerable questions made me fear and "protect" myself from questions from anyone. But talking to my therapist for 18 years :-) (1978-1987 and 1996-2005) and "experiencing" the results of that conversation, how I was not "trapped" or "tortured" and my therapist did not get unreasonably angry or leave in disgust, etc. helped me sort things out so I can see things clearer and not be confused in the ways my stepmother confused me.

Perna:

> I don't know what your mother did so I cannot really say. But my stepmother was angry, controlling and often abusive,
> physically and emotionally.

My mother acted in such a way as to make me feel that it was life-threatening for me to differ from her in any way. The expression (and thus for a child the mere possession) of any idea that made her afraid was punishable by death -- or so I felt. Those feelings are still present today. As an example, it makes me feel uncomfortable (afraid) even to differ with you! So long-lasting are the effects of childhood terrors.

> Your T doesn't live with you and only sees you an hour a week so it doesn't make a lot of sense, to me, that he would want
> the same things from you that your mother does...

It may not make "sense" to you, but unfortunately, some therapists do want the same kind of control. I have experienced that personally: that some of them are threatened by the patient's attempts at independence, and do stigmatize their patients for such attempts. It happens. I know.

I am needing to know if my present therapist is one of those or not.