Therapist's Diary: From Caution To Contact

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How often psychologists write about their clients and how rarely do they write about their own client experiences. And today I want to share not how I help my clients, but what I personally receive in this process.

I recently had a very important session that, like many others, did not go a bit because of the course that was expected.

I was astonished at a fast pace, I thought at a high speed, and after coming to my therapist's office, for a long time I still could not walk mentally. Good contact came at the end of the session.

I felt a little uncomfortable that I had spent so little time in good therapeutic contact. (yes, a good psychologist is a profession, and outside of it a psychologist is just a person, that's why the driver “be perfect (client), work well:-))

It was very important for me to hear one phrase that caused a lot of feelings in me. The whole process from the moment I became open to therapeutic contact to the end of the session took no more than 10 minutes, but it was the most therapeutic 10 minutes you can imagine.

My therapist told me, “Yes, today you sat outside the door for most of the session. So you had to "sit outside the door" and you needed time to get in touch. This is normal and important for me. " (Literally I will not convey, I was in feelings, but I heard this meaning):)

It would seem a very simple phrase, which for many does not carry a special emotional or semantic load. However, you know, I caught myself not just by thinking, but by a powerful feeling of how important it is when a person respects your right to get in touch with his own speed and to observe him (contact) for a while. from the side, and not included.

For example, when we get into a relationship. I know from my own experience and from the experience of many of my clients that when we feel lonely and feel the need for a relationship, we take while we give. We force ourselves to get closer much faster than we really are ready for it. It usually ends very badly.

This simple but important phrase aroused in me great gratitude and warmth, which shed tears during the session. During the 10 minutes that we ended, I took a huge step towards myself and this qualitatively changed my relationship with people and myself.

Then during the day I thought for a long time about the importance of this personal distance from caution to close contact with a person or at least minimal trust.

There are people who "fly" into relationships, begin to trust almost immediately. This is how they give themselves security, persuade their Inner Child to trust the new person. Sometimes it works, we are lucky and we find ourselves on a really reliable person who is worth trusting. But sometimes it happens that we talk to ourselves that we can trust someone who is not safe for us. For example, a scenario - a familiar unconscious model - of a relationship, where we learned to be with a cruel or indifferent person, but there was no experience with a safe and accepting person and the skill was not formed.

Why is this happening?

My opinion is that it's all about the fear of being left without contact at all. We try to grab a larger piece while it is. Even if this piece of "product" we do not like. With hunger and not so swallow.

What to do?

I won't say how for you, but I found a working model for myself. I risk giving myself time and choose a quality contact with a trusted person, whom my Inner Child is not afraid to approach. Let it take time, let the seemingly more worthy "candidates" drop out, let me doubt … but I will not step over myself for the sake of a compromise with my own needs.

Try it, maybe it will help you too.

I would be glad to hear your responses and your experience in the comments to this post:-)