[jkhf]

I've been in therapy for my anxiety and other issues for a couple months now, and while I can see how it'll be helping me, it's also left me with a lot of questions. I think my therapist is very talented and smart, but sometimes I remember that she's not some magic person with all the answers and is just some woman doing her job, and that freaks me out. I'm wondering if there's anything I can do that would make her job easier, or if there's anything that I may be doing subconsciously that might cause a strain on our relationship. I recently read an article about things your therapist wishes you knew, and I'm wondering if any of you have found some of the same things to be helpful. The article talks about getting in touch with not just your own feelings, but your therapist's feelings, and your role outside of simply sharing your feelings in a session, and I'm wondering if any of you have tried these techniques/found them to be effective?

[SlumberKitty]

I would print out the article and take it to therapy and discuss with your therapist what the article says. Your T probably doesn't need you to do something to make her job easier, you just work on whatever you bring to the session. As for subconsciously straining the relationship, I think that would be hard to tell. I think your T and you would benefit from a discussion about these things. Why not ask your T if there's something you can do to make your therapy sessions more effective? Hugs if you want them. Kit.

[susannahsays]

Where in that article did it say you should get in touch with your therapist's feelings? I don't see it.

[possum220]

Originally Posted by susannahsays

Where in that article did it say you should get in touch with your therapist's feelings? I don't see it.

Because therapy is not about what the therapist feels. It's about your feelings. It is about establishing a connection that will enable trust, perspective and healing.

[Anne2.0]

Originally Posted by jkhf

The article talks about getting in touch with not just your own feelings, but your therapist's feelings, and your role outside of simply sharing your feelings in a session, and I'm wondering if any of you have tried these techniques/found them to be effective?

As another posted pointed out, I didn't see that the article specifically said to get into touch with your therapist's feelings, but I also think that understanding what people are feeling is something most of us think we're good at. So we try to do it, whether it's "my therapist doesn't care about me" or "my therapist wants to put me on a greyhound bus to the state line" or "my therapist thinks I'm special" or "my therapist is mad at me." etc, etc. Sometimes it's intuition that is driving our perceptions of others, sometime's it is an empathic response that allows us to understand what people are feeling, positive or negative, other times we're inserting our past and/or distorting the present or in my favorite terminology, following a script rather than being rooted in the present. So I think that what we think about the therapist's feelings and thoughts can absolutely be important to understanding what's going on with us because . . . people impact each other, and as that article emphasize, our therapist takes cues from us, tries to follow us. Then we react to how they are following us.

I don't get the sense that you mean the content of the therapy should focus on the therapist's feelings, but I do see the relevance of the therapist in the room. But I also like the article because I think it points towards, as you said, not just endlessly talking about feelings, but about the meaning surrounding them and working towards the changes you want for your life, which often start but rarely end (for me) with understanding my feelings.

I would think you could have a good discussion with your therapist by bringing the article in and talking about what you took away from it. Likely there are some important clues in your reaction to it. For example, your desire to understand if there's anything you do that makes her job more difficult, which strikes me as a very connected way to ask a more simple question, how do I get in my own way in reaching my goals?

Originally Posted by Anne2.0

I also think that understanding what people are feeling is something most of us think we're good at.

You think so? I personally definitely don't think I am good at it, quite the opposite. Why I usually refrain from guessing and prefer to ask people if it is relevant - then sometimes get the feedback that these things should not be spoken about and I should see, read between the lines, etc. But I cannot do those things accurately at all, especially with a quazi stranger. Interesting in the context of therapy, because both of my Ts sometimes brought up whether I thought about why they did or did not do this or that - I usually answered either no or that I thought about it in passing but how would I know, I prefer not to get into unfounded predictions.

I also don't think the client need to get in touch with the Ts feelings. What I read in the article is that sometimes it can be useful to discuss the interactions with the T, but I think the idea is to do that from the perspective and feelings of the client. And it is not the job of the client to help the T at all - we pay them usually high enough money to do their job. It's more to try to implement in everyday life the lessons learned in therapy. I think many therapies become useless and frustrating because the focus gets turned too much on what goes on in therapy and the client's original goals get lost or dismissed. I do think some Ts are guilty of this, I had one like that myself, where they want to dissect too much the therapy itself. But it is also the nature of some modalities, so if someone wants to focus on goals more and remain practical, it may be a good idea not to choose Ts working in those modalities.

[susannahsays]

Originally Posted by possum220

Because therapy is not about what the therapist feels. It's about your feelings. It is about establishing a connection that will enable trust, perspective and healing.

I am well aware of that. OP said the article claimed you should get in touch with your therapist's feelings.

[jkhf]

Oh I'm sorry you guys are right. I wasn't reading it carefully enough. It says to talk about how the interaction with the therapist feels, not how the therapist is feeling. Thanks for pointing out this mistake because this was one of the big things that didn't make sense to me

I use to read about therapy in the early years.
Dont bother now. Therapy becomes enough in and of itself.
The reading was interesting and thought provoking..... Until the next book. It had no real value.

[jkhf]

Thank you all for the advice. I'm relatively new to this whole process and i really appreciate it