Therapist client relationship

[malt2018]

I have been seeing my therapist now for a few years. I am very attached to her but well aware of boundaries and the client -therapist relationship. I have found seeing her only once a week very difficult and often find the longing between sessions extremely tough. There was a period of time where I saw her twice a week and it really helped. I didn't feel the frustration and longings that I seem to feel now.  I cannot afford to go see her twice a week so that is not an option now. I have spoken to her about how difficult I find it but all she does is listen and validate how hard it is but nothing changes. She seems to think its part of the process and I think she thinks leaving me in this frustrated state is part of the therapy. I am just so so tired of feeling the frustration and longing between sessions and I don't think I can do it anymore. The idea of leaving however is also very painful. I tell her it is like a reenactment of my mother who used to sometimes disappear for periods of time. I.e she was there for a few days and then might disappear for a week or so quite regularly and how 1 hours of therapy a week feels like that. She allows me to send her journal entries but does not respond.  She will also never tell me how she feels which constantly keeps me in a state of hypervigilence. I know therapy is about me and the focus is on me but from time to time I might ask her how something I said made her feel and she will not respond. I just feel I can't relax when someone is withholding.

Has anyone else experienced this? Were you able to come to any resolutions with your therapist?

I read somewhere before that clients with CPTSD need more explicit care from their Ts.

[Armee]

Hey...that sounds really painful. I've been really lucky in that my first and only therapist has not had these rigid boundaries. I think it may be in part because he is trained partially in DBT which has an emphasis on between session regulation. If you do switch, that may be worth looking for. I can always text him and if I am suffering he will respond and let me know that he has 15 minutes for a phone chat or time for an extra session or will give me a text response. It has been extremely helpful. I am now at a point where I don't need that contact as much. But it was very healing to have those needs met. Now that I am getting a bit better I know I can look to others for some of that support. But until I trusted that it was helpful to have T there.

[Papa Coco]

Hi Malt2018,

Boy can I ever relate to your story!

I began Therapy when I was 22 years old. I'm 61 now. In the early days, like buying pants, I had to try on a few on before I found the right fit. I have been with my current therapist since 2000. The therapist I had before him was a cognitive therapist (He called hiimself a Behavior Modification Therapist). He was a bit like your description of your T. He held his personal boundaries so close that I felt like I was bothering him just by showing up. He was helpful to a certain point, but he was a bit narcissistic (Which at that time in my life, felt comfortable because he was so much like my selfish family who'd raised me). Whenever my 50 minutes was up, he'd "turn off" his connection with me and hold his hand out for his check. If I'd ever tried to talk to him after the 50 minutes was up, he'd say "I work for money" and he'd completely disconnect from me. But I stayed with that Narc for nearly 20 years. I didn't know any better. I didn't know other kinds of Therapists existed. But now I know, cognitive therapy is NOT what I needed! And a narcissist may have been comfortable for me at the time, but I eventually needed someone who cared about ME as if I were a human being 24/7 and not just a paycheck for 50 minutes.

(Footnote, I talk about love a lot, but not romantic love: In this post, all my references to love are love as compassion, friendship and heart-to-heart connection)

I switched to a T who is the polar opposite of him. In 2000, he changed my diagnosis from Manic/Depressant to a survivor with PTSD. Because of all the Narcissists in my past, it took this new T a good couple of years to show me that I could trust him. Honestly, before he'd shown me that, I didn't even know I didn't trust anyone. I only knew what I knew. To me, love was a transaction in my family and in my therapy. I suppose that's why I stayed with the Narc for so long. Love with him was totally transactional, which fit with how I'd been raised. I thought he loved me the same way my family did. But to my great luck, my new T proved love/connection really can be unconditional.

I would now say, that at 40 years old at that time, this new T became the very first person who had ever truly earned my trust. He is kind, warm, very knowledgable, and he DOES share his reactions to everything I go through. My triggers are about being abandoned and betrayed by people whom I thought loved me. Any therapist who would choose to NOT respond to me, whether in session or between sessions, is only exasserbating my triggers and ignoring my trauma response.

Since beginning with my current T in 2000 I've made slow and steady progress. But now, after 20 years with him, when I look back I can't believe how far I've come. I'm so much better than I was when we met that I feel like my old self is a story I read about someone else. Sure I still deal with triggers, and I also feel that one visit every two weeks isn't enough, but that's why I joined this group: So I'd have people to talk with between sessions. In fact, my last session was Tuesday, the same day I joined this group. When I told him I was joining he said it sounded like a great idea.

I recently googled his name and found the most interesting thing: What I did not know about him is that he now trains other therapists and writes scholarly papers on the importance of expressing love (Compassion/Connection love, not romantic love) with clients who feel abandoned. He's a decade older than me and has no intention of retiring because he literally loves his work and his clients too much to retire. I hesitate to call him between visits because of how cruelly my last therapist scolded me if I ever tried such a thing, but this person keeps encouraging me to call him if I ever feel the pain between visits.

So, I guess you could say I've felt something very similar to what you say you are feeling. AND I will say that my current therapist is the 7th one I'd visited. My current T is definitely the right fit.

To find a therapist that is skilled with people who are CPTSD, especially from abandonment issues, you might use Google/Bing and start researching CPTSD websites. I am like a broken record when I constantly recommend the book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker, but if I were looking for the right CPTSD therapist right now I might go to Pete's website and see if there are any guides to how to locate the right T person.

Maybe other members of this forum have some tips on how to find the right CPTSD therapist in your city...?

My heart really goes out to you now. I remember how it felt to go from a T who just kept me at the level of surviving, and who felt like family (which was not what I needed because my family was just like him) to a T who finally helped me start to THRIVE! I got lucky when I found my current T, but in 2000 the internet was just a novelty that only some people had in their homes, and CPTSD wasn't even a word yet.  But now, there are powerful tools to help locate professionals.

[Dante]

I hope you can find a T that provides the support you need.  I have not had good luck with T's, which I've tried on and off with for the last 30 years.  My experience is that they don't listen to ME.  They've had their training, and that's valuable because I need someone who's got experience helping someone like me, but it's all cookie cutter.  If I want someone to not listen to me, I can get that from my FOO for free.

Best wishes to you, I hope that you find what you need to help you heal.

[malt2018]

Thanks for all your responses. I should add that my therapist is very warm, understanding and empathtic and in the 1 hour session we have a very strong connection. I just struggle to keep this connection, hold onto her in my mind believe that she holds onto me. We talk about this  regularly and she talks about the imaginary string that binds us together and that the therapy relationship doesn't just end once the session ends and how of course she thinks of clients from time to time outside session etc. Although I have a 'knowing' that most of this is likely true I just cannot seem to 'feel' that or integrate it that. Time and time again I try to explain that although logically I understand what she says is true it doesn't change the inner feeling that lies inside me. I just don't think she quite 'gets' it as although she validates how hard it is to just trust she has at times also alluded it to being a form of resistance or that perhaps I need to reframe my thoughts with some CBT exercises (although she is not a fan of CBT in general). This actually really annoyed me. I said it's not my thoughts that need reframing.... I KNOW that she is there somewhere, of course she is. I KNOW I don't cease to exist in her mind yet I don't FEEl these things.

I just wonder if there is some truth to what she says. Is it just resistance on my part? Do I maybe need to look at reframing my thoughts? Or is it simply time to change therapists... My real belief is that I just need a small connection point between sessions. It doesn't need to be another session or even a 15 minute talk just something.... I am trying to get better at advocating for myself and struggling to to do so.