When you lose trust

[Cat Dancer]

Is it time to end the therapy? Time to look for someone new? I don't think I could go through that again. It just seems like issues keep happening and maybe this isn't the right way to go for me.

Do you tell your therapist you've lost trust that it took a long time to gain? I'm having trouble even working out a time to go back and I'm wondering if maybe it's time to just quit because of this and other issues.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Perhaps you need first to ask why you lost trust and what caused that to happen... it may be (often can be) a misunderstanding. Could you have misunderstood something he said or did?

 

[ThatLady]

What has made you lose trust, Janet? Did something specific happen to cause you to feel this way? I remember that something happened before that troubled you, and I'm wondering if something else has occured that's undermining your trust. :hug:

 

[Cat Dancer]

Well, it's just the whole "self injury is sin and wrong in God's eyes and morally and ethically wrong." I thought I was ok with it. We never really talked about it.

I think I'm scum and a horrible sinner anyway and I just feel even worse about it and ashamed and don't know if it is appropriate to talk about it anymore. Maybe I can just deal with other issues?

But it's like I've gone back to the way things were in the beginning, unable to talk or look at him.

 

[ThatLady]

This is something you definitely need to approach with the therapist, Janet. While he may be making a good effort to help you, because you're so steeped in the idea that you're a sinner and inherently bad, the way he has chosen with this statement is not what you need at the moment.

Since you've said you've not really been able to be completely forthcoming with your feelings about yourself, he may not realize how you think of yourself, and how his statement has affected you. Once he understands what's going on inside your mind he can adjust his treatment to better fit your needs.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Talk to him about it.

Remember, he's just expressing his opinion. Period.

I personally would not ever even try to impose my individual religious or moral beliefs on any client. That said, I still think it is important for you to clarify with him what he meant by the statement. It's possible you misheard or misinterpreted him.

 

[Banned]

Hi Janet,

I had something similar happen to me in therapy and it took alot of guts but I finally talked to him about it. He looked at me and said "No no no - that is not at all what I meant". Sometimes we hear something different than what was said or intended - and that happens in any conversation, not just in therapy. Tell him you're having trouble with that statement and maybe you misunderstood but from what you took away it sounds like (insert your own feelings here). That will at least open the door - even if he does all the talking from there on in. If you're nervous about saying that much, tell him that you're nervous (or scared) before you even begin. Half my therapy sessions used to start with "I'm really afraid to tell you this" or "Don't freak out on me but...".

 

[comfortzone]

Janet,

Things that happen while you are in therapy are valuable. If a therapist says something that is upsetting to you or feel negatively about provides an opportunity to let him/her know this information. In doing so you are able to use this conflict to learn, to grow and to heal. Communication is the key. Sharing your feelings with your therapist is so important. I am a firm believer in asking clarifying questions. It sets up a foundation for use in your daily life. The relationship with your therapist is not fragile but rather an opportunity for growth.

 

[Banned]

The relationship with your therapist is not fragile but rather an opportunity for growth.

I love this sentence. I think it has alot of value.

 

[Halo]

Janet,

I agree with what everyone else has said and I just want to let you know that I was in a similar situation lately where I was afraid to ask my therapist about something that he had said. I agonized over it for the whole week between sessions and about what I "thought" that I had heard from him. I went through so many emotions from being hard on myself, hating myself, to being angry with him, to hating him, to not wanting to go back...you name it, I felt it. But I knew that I had to confront the issue with him because there was a good chance that I had misunderstood him or not heard him correctly. As it turned out I had not heard him correctly and had let what I "thought" he said run away in my head with lots of negative thoughts. If I had never confronted him with what I "thought" he said (even though I was sooo scared to actually do it) I would have always wondered if he really said what I thought he did and I honestly don't think that my relationship with him would be as strong as it is today.

So the moral of my long and rambling story is that the only way to know for sure what you therapist said and meant by his comment is to ask him. I know it is scary and hard to do but like Comfortzone says, it is an opportunity for growth.

Take care
:hug: :hug:

 

[Cat Dancer]

Thank you all for your insight. It is possible/probable that I have misintrepreted something or at least am viewing it through my own twisted mind incorrectly. He does have very strong religious beliefs and I am struggling with my own beliefs and maybe sometimes it is just hard to hear the truth or hear what I used to believe myself and now I'm not so sure of.

I am hoping to get to go back at least a couple of times. Hopefully we can clarify this issue. I guess my fear is that I didn't misunderstand and he thinks I am hurting God and sinning and being morally wrong by keeping on with the self-injury.

The relationship with your therapist is not fragile but rather an opportunity for growth.

I like this part too, but I guess I'm not so certain about the relationship not being fragile. It seems fragile to me, but that also is probably my own twisted thinking.

One thing I've noticed since starting therapy is I seem to have developed a bitterness inside that I wasn't aware of before. I don't like it. It is a bad feeling.

I guess the main thing is to try to communicate better and try to clarify and ask more questions and talk more. I do know I tend, at times when I'm upset or overly emotional, to take things out of context and misintrepret them. I do that here and I do that in real life. It all seems so mixed up and confusing and impossible to sort out.

Again, I really appreciate everyone here and thank you for writing about this.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I guess my fear is that I didn't misunderstand and he thinks I am hurting God and sinning and being morally wrong by keeping on with the self-injury.

Even if he does believe that, it needn't be something you have to believe (most people do not believe that) and it shouldn't be something that should be allowed to affect therapy. There are many things about most religions that i do not agree with - that doesn't mean I can't be an effective and compassionate therapist with people who do believethose things. I don't personally believe that my religious or moral beliefs have any place in the therapy session, or at least not in the sense that they are ever imposed on anyone else. Your religion should be a personal thing. Your relationship with God should be a personal thing. I have never understood evangelists.

One thing I've noticed since starting therapy is I seem to have developed a bitterness inside that I wasn't aware of before. I don't like it. It is a bad feeling.

Anger isn't a good feeling. But on the other hand, you have a lot to be angry about and you've never been allowed to express it. Perhaps the reason it's coming out now is that this is the first place you've ever felt safe enough to feel it.

 

[Cat Dancer]

I agree that religion should be a personal thing. I'm not even sure what I think or feel about God at this point. Well, I do know in a way. I see God as being like my father and it's hard to talk about God because of that and it brings up a whole bunch of horribly unpleasant thoughts and feelings and memories. And it is a big part of my obsessive thinking. And the guilt is really hard to deal with which turns into the self-injury which makes me feel even more guilty and it goes around and around and around.

And the ANGER (yes, anger, hard as it is to admit) and bitterness are absolutely terrifying to me. I have tried my whole life to not feel those feelings and I don't know what to do with them other than to be self-destructive which just makes everything so much worse. I feel like I'm stuck in an impossible cycle. And I was thinking, I do feel some anger toward my therapist, but even thinking of telling him causes some kind of physical panic reaction, heart pounding, shortness of breath and so on. I don't know. What I really want to do is grab the baby and go on a vacation to the beach. I think that would be nice.

 

[ThatLady]

I can understand that feeling anger and bitterness is distressing, Janet. I've been there. However, when we've denied ourselves these normal, human emotions for so long, it's not surprising they're pretty overwhelming when they finally surface. We need to remember that in order to learn to deal with a feeling we have to experience that feeling. We can't learn to cope with what we don't allow ourselves to feel.

Anger is a normal human emotion. Some anger is righteous anger. We have good reason, and every right to be angry at times. As we learn to let these feeling come to the forefront and be felt and validated, we can learn to cope with them in less self-destructive ways. It's not an easy trip, but the destination is worth the effort, once reached. :hug: