Posted by Medusa on April 21, 2004, at 15:45:50
I have a theory that in order to get consistent, attentive, striving-for-the-best treatment from therapists, one has to keep a figurative rope around their necks. One end tied to something stable, then wrapped around their neck, and the other end in your hand.
Apparently I haven't kept the rope tight enough. Maybe I was counting on her observation team to do that. Oops. And maybe she got a little cocky - I've had some great successes so far in this therapy - and didn't prepare or something, because she wasted a good part of the first half of the session on an analogy that turned out to be not what she meant anyway. I told her this was really frustrating and that this was part of what I'd meant by the power imbalance - I trust her to know what she's talking about, and I play along when I don't understand the point of an exercise or series of questions, and I expect bloody well that it go somewhere sensible.
She tried another angle, and that was something we'd clarified in the previous session. (I'm on a two-week spacing.) I flipped back in my notes and said, yep, we already worked that out.
Then when she asked what I wanted to work on, I said what (part of my homework), and she started on a different part of my homework. So I really let her have it. She said she was sorry I'd 'misunderstood' (huh?) but then we worked on what I wanted to, and her voice seemed a little shaky but we got some good stuff done.
At the end, she asked me how I felt, and I said I was frustrated with the time wasting, and would like to know how we could avoid that in the future. She said she could ask at the beginning what I wanted to work on. Good. And the faulty analogies that aren't what she meant to say? She said I should say when an image doesn't work for me. Well, I *had* said! Then she'd taken a long break to discuss this with the observation team, and come back and given a long explanation for why I was right. (???!) She said, well, that was her fault for not explaining properly. So I asked how we could avoid that. She repeated that we could work out at the beginning what I wanted to spend time on. HUH?! So I said, great, I'm glad we have that straight, but I want to know about how to avoid wasting time on analogies that aren't really what she means to say and I wasn't yet happy with her answers about that. She said she'd go over that in supervision.
I also told her that I have a long, not-cheap commute to get to the therapy sessions, and that it's going to be more expensive from now on because I'm moving and the new train connection costs a lot more. And that I work really hard on the homework, and do my best to put it in the best grammar/syntax possible (not my native language) and that I understand that she just wants to complete her training, but that I expect to benefit from this, too.
I guess I kind of scared myself by letting her have it so hard - and it's all on video! I can imagine that it'll be reviewed a few times ... great, we get to see Medusa's snakes writhing!
poster:Medusa
thread:338441
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040419/msgs/338441.html