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Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby Tea » Tue Oct 11, 2011 8:05 pm

mooshoo wrote:Would it be helpful to email your therapist and give him a heads up that in your next session with him you want to talk about some things in your counseling relationship that have been triggering in you? Once again, I think that space and time are important, so that you can get clear about what is coming up and be able to express yourself in a way that you will be heard.

I'm here for you.


Thanks very much, you have been really helpful. I hope you are doing well today.
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby MissAli » Tue Oct 11, 2011 9:49 pm

I agree that you should talk to your therapist about this situation.

I agree also with the fact that you're projecting. I also think that your therapist was being honest with you in saying that he found the sessions difficult, but that you took it as "you're difficult". I find that interesting, and I think that is something you should think deeply about.

I applaud that you didn't keep up the behavior, and used your "rational hat" :0). I giggled at that - if you don't mind, I'm going to hijack that saying, because I want to use it too!!

Best of luck to you!!!

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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby Tea » Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:10 am

I agree that you should talk to your therapist about this situation.

I agree also with the fact that you're projecting. I also think that your therapist was being honest with you in saying that he found the sessions difficult, but that you took it as "you're difficult". I find that interesting, and I think that is something you should think deeply about.

I applaud that you didn't keep up the behavior, and used your "rational hat" :0). I giggled at that - if you don't mind, I'm going to hijack that saying, because I want to use it too!!

Best of luck to you!!!


Thanks for your response. I don't know, I might copyright that "rational hat" line...but I guess, for now, you can use it! :-)
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby Z1t23ch3 » Wed Oct 12, 2011 3:56 pm

Any update?
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby expressivecreative » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:22 pm

How long have you been seeing this guy? I can relate to a lot of these issues. My therapist is female and I agree that it would harder to work with a male therapist. Here's a few issues I've dealt with and how I've put them into perspective.

-I get pissed that my appointment will be at 10 and she never comes to get me in the waiting room until 10:15. I want an entire hour, dam nit! (Probably she's just using the first 15 minutes to "prepare" for the session - review notes, etc.)

-I get pissed that she doesn't answer an email - I've only sent a couple. (But then I realize if she opens herself to emails and phone calls from every nutso client that she will never have a break)

-I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm "difficult" because I talk so much. (But then I realize that is sort of what you are supposed to do in a therapy session).

-She does cancel appointments a lot due to "illness," and I think it's because she doesn't like me and doesn't want to see me. (But then I realize that I take a lot of time off work as well and I know she has children, so that's probably part of it).

- sometimes I think she doesn't believe my ex was truly a narcissist and he totally is. She hasn't addressed that issue at all. (Then I realize that being a cluster B myself, it must be difficult to believe that a relationship ending in the manner mine did was NOT my fault. And she has told me HPD/BPD people tend to be attracted to narcissist men.)

-When my N ex was causing me trouble at work and accusing me of "stalking" him, I worried that my therapist thought that as well and that pretty much everyone in the world thought I was a dangerous lunatic. (I told her this and she assured me she didn't think that and never had).

Therapy has to do with trust. You MUST trust your therapist or the therapy will not work. Everyone has these sorts of assumptions, but I think the thing to do, as others have said, is to tell your therapist. Most likely he will explain the difference between reality and your perception.

I don't think he should be telling you he "feels anxious about you being difficult." He needs to leave his own anxiety out of the session. His problems are not yours - he's the therapist, for ciol. Who cares if he feels anxious? He needs to just deal and hush about it (for YOUR sake).

Hope that helps.
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby Tea » Wed Oct 12, 2011 4:33 pm

Z1t23ch3 wrote:Any update?


No, our session isn't until tomorrow night. I haven't emailed him about it yet; have been trying to get some distance (and with that, hopefully, clarity).

Therapy has to do with trust. You MUST trust your therapist or the therapy will not work. Everyone has these sorts of assumptions, but I think the thing to do, as others have said, is to tell your therapist. Most likely he will explain the difference between reality and your perception.

I don't think he should be telling you he "feels anxious about you being difficult." He needs to leave his own anxiety out of the session. His problems are not yours - he's the therapist, for ciol. Who cares if he feels anxious? He needs to just deal and hush about it (for YOUR sake).


expressivecreative, it's a bit of a relief to hear that you have some issues with your therapist too and are working through them--that you're recognizing the need to "trust." But ",mistrust" is one of the very things we are addressing in therapy--it's sort of like the chicken and the egg. Can't trust until I've had therapy, can't progress in therapy without trust. Meh.

I do agree with that last point. I get that he wants to communicate how he is feeling, but wtf am I supposed to do about his anxiety? I've got enough of my own, and who is paying whom?

I guess I will e-mail him in a little bit. Feel the icy pit and cramps in my stomach already just thinking about it...

-- Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:36 am --

OKay, but my telling him last time that I was doubting therapy and him prompted him saying the "difficult" thing and I can't handle that again!! I don't think I am going to tell him.
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby mooshoo » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:09 pm

Tea, do you have a long standing relationship with this therapist? It is really important that you have a therapist that is strong enough to take whatever you throw out at him, and if he can't handle it then he shouldn't be seeing you as a client. It's not really appropriate for a therapist to share their feelings with the client, especially when the client has BPD (as we tend to take on other people's emotions).

Of course I am not saying that a therapist should subject themselves to abuse from clients, so I don't want what I said above to be misconstrued. I am coming from the perspective of client, and someone that has been in the role of therapist. Not every therapist should see clients that have personality disorders.

I think that creativeexpressive mentioned reality testing; I think that is really important in your situation with your therapist.

Sending you good vibes.
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby Tea » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:24 pm

Tea, do you have a long standing relationship with this therapist?


only started seeing him in august. he is a cbt guy and is doing schema therapy wit me, which was developed for treatment of bpd. but, when i emailed him a couple of weeks ago to tell him that i had previously been diagnosed w/ bpd (was too scared to tell him in person) here is what he said:

No need to find a new therapist ;-)

As you probably know, there's a certain amount of controversy about
diagnosis' that fall under the grouping of "personality disorders".
There has been much less research done on them (than say Anxiety or
Depression) and the criteria that define them are a lot less clear.
And there's no medication that specifically targets those diagnoses.
Some people have advocated for a re-write of that section of the
DSMIV.

There are certain indicators that someone might be dealing with
challenges in that general area. Things like: 1) Something messed up
happening in childhood 2) difficulty trusting (friends and partners)
3) feelings being hurt very quickly 4) self harm, suicide attempts,
substance/alcohol abuse etc etc. and that's generally how I think of
it. But thanks for sharing the info, and sorry I didn't get back to
you sooner to let you know that it doesn't make a difference!


Do you think this is bad and means he doesn't take it seriously and can't help me?
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby mooshoo » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:51 pm

I don't think that is bad at all. I actually think it is quite a good sign. If he has experience with personality disorders that is also a plus, that means that he is not going to get easily thrown off working with you. However, I think that it wasn't a smart move to give you an option about Monday's appointment. Consistency is key in working with BPD, and rescheduling appointments isn't a great thing to do with a BPD client when you are trying to work on issues of trust and abandonment.

Do you know about his background with personality disorders? I would think that since he is doing schema therapy that he must have experience with BPD.
I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me —
I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living.

Anaïs Nin
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Re: Villainizing my therapist **TRIGGERING**

Postby Tea » Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:16 pm

mooshoo wrote:I don't think that is bad at all. I actually think it is quite a good sign. If he has experience with personality disorders that is also a plus, that means that he is not going to get easily thrown off working with you. However, I think that it wasn't a smart move to give you an option about Monday's appointment. Consistency is key in working with BPD, and rescheduling appointments isn't a great thing to do with a BPD client when you are trying to work on issues of trust and abandonment.

Do you know about his background with personality disorders? I would think that since he is doing schema therapy that he must have experience with BPD.


I just want to say that I really, really, super appreciate you writing to me. IF you were okay with it I would give oyu a big hug. So thanks very much. I've been having a hard day, a very borderline day.

Yes, he does have experience in dealing with the "traits" anyway, even if he thinks that BPD is maybe not addressed properly in the DSM-IV. He's been in practice for 15 years.

I just found my rational hat (I'm always misplacing it!) and, putting it on, I think he he thought he was doing me a favor by giving me the option on Monday, like, if I needed it he would give it to me. But of course I subjugated my need, and then freaked out when he didn't magically detect that I was subjugating and was heading for abandonmentville on a bullet train.

I'm going to write him a short email just saying that my abandonment/mistruct issue were triggered by not having MOnday's session, and leave it at that. Hopefully I will be able to leap off into a deeper discussion in therapy once he knows that.

Thanks again.
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