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May 14, 2019 at 07:18 AM
#1
I’ve been out of therapy for a year and have been trying to settle some difficult emotions around memories of my therapist.
Lately I have been having the same recurring dream. I am crying heavily in front of my therapist and she is looking on with a neutral expression. This happened many times in our sessions and in the moment, all I felt was the sadness of what I was discussing. In my dreams, other emotions have been cropping up. The best way to describe those feelings is like a baby crying and having nobody pick her up. Emotional abandonment. I am wondering how others process crying in therapy, particularly with not being comforted? It’s interesting that resentment I never felt in the moment is appearing in dreams. |
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 HowDoYouFeelMeow?, koru_kiwi, LonesomeTonight, Omers, Taylor27
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Grand Magnate
Member Since Nov 2010
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May 14, 2019 at 10:23 AM
#2
Hugs. A lot of Ts are taught that by rexeperiencing this as an adult you can process it differently with minimal intervention from them. I call BS on that one.
The one time I have cried with current T his face softened and saddened, he got Geary eyes too and he very empathecally reached out and touched my hand to offer comfort. Personally I find his approach far more healing. __________________ There’s been many a crooked path that has landed me here Tired, broken and wearing rags Wild eyed with fear -Blackmoores Night |
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| Anonymous41422
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 HowDoYouFeelMeow?, koru_kiwi
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May 14, 2019 at 10:51 AM
#3
Quote:
My therapist didn’t always just spectate my emotions. Sometimes she cried too, which felt nice. Perhaps the inconsistency triggered abandonment? She was definitely an ‘in the moment’ therapist who expressed herself genuinely. It was really easy to tell her busy, bad days from the others because they lacked therapeutic presence. Re-experiencing my childhood emotions in therapy felt like traumatic reinactment with no positive end result. Even when she was really with me, sessions always had to end, and I’d feel just as alone after. There seemed to be a ritualized abandonment component when our time was up. I’m not particularly sensitive as an adult to abandonment but therapy definitely tapped into something deep. |
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koru_kiwi, Omers
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Magnate
Member Since Oct 2018
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May 14, 2019 at 11:02 AM
#4
Many times when I was crying in therapy, I really wasn't looking for or even wanting to be comforted. In fact, if a therapist, in those moments, had tried to comfort me, it probably would have frustrated me or perhaps put me into a panic. Fortunately, my therapists were pretty perceptive about my crying. They knew when to just let me sit with the tears. They knew when the tears were out of fear (often a PTSD/dissociation reaction), not out of a need for comfort, and helped me verbalize what was going on so I could become more grounded and present. And yes, there were a few times the tears were from grief and pain, like when my sister was dying, and the therapist knew that time to come sit with me and just hold my hand. I found my therapists very perceptive about realizing what those tears were about and helping me appropriately to what was going on.
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| Anonymous41422, SlumberKitty, Spirit of Trees
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Omers
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This is an old thread. You probably should not post your reply to it, as the original poster is unlikely to see it.|
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