Swingpirate

I agree with everything that has been said and would never do that to my children. My disappointment is that I have been blind to this lack of commitment to principle on the part of the therapist. Where he apparently sees "grey areas" I see only sadism and cruelty. My concern now, as I have expressed to him, is that I cannot risk him doing to me what he sadly seems to consider morally acceptable to a child – to comply with or even push others towards abusive relationships under the pretense of "grey areas". And even if I genuinely believe that his approach to this scenario is a sign of confusion rather than of intentional cruelty, the end result is the same. Unless he changes his mind of course. I'm not sure a therapeutic relationship can or should survive such a fundamental discrepancy in values. What do you think?

I agree this probably shouldn't even be up for discussion – it's kinda deranged when you think about it. I was really upset and think I wanted some extra validation given that the other person is a professional therapist for whom I had a lot of trust before this happened. He does not have any contact with his parents, but would consider his seven year-old son to connect with them, under certain conditions. He did say that in most cases it would be natural not to let it happen, but the reasons and conditions given to the contrary were: A. The son may request to see his grandparents B. If so, the parent can monitor the behavior of the grandparent towards the child, thereby ensuring child's safety C. In such a case, the child will not be dependent upon the grandparent in the same way as X once was, and the child could quickly be isolated from the grandparent, should anything inappropriate occur D. If successful, the grandparent may offer the child values that the parent cannot provide himself E. In any case, the child may still be better off being babysitted sometimes by the grandparent than in daycare/public school (!) Interestingly that's the exact example that I used. Of course not.

You know – as dsayers already pointed out – what I sense spontaneously is that you are writing about the relationship with yourself as a completely passive side of the equation: that she was the one who revealed that she knew what you felt about her, the she gave you the chance, that she came to the conclusion that she wanted to be together, and that you only agreed. If I were you, I would invest a lot of my resources into finding out what signals you send out that lead you to that kind of situations of self-erasure, and why. I am curious on your thoughts as to why you got interested in her in the first place, that is, before you started to go out?

I am having - it seems to me - a very fundamental disagreement with someone who is important to me, a disagreement that has lead to some trust issues, thereby affecting the relationship adversely. The topic for disagreement was a (not entirely) hypothetical scenario that came up during a discussion between us, namely the following: Person X breaks contact with his or her parents due to having suffered continual abuse in childhood. Would it ever make sense for X to allow his/her parents to grandparent X:s children, and if so, for what reason and under what circumstances? What do you think? In order not to have a minimum impact on any potential responses, I'll leave out the details of the discussion for now, as well as my own approach to this problem. Highly grateful for your wisdom!

Congratulations, that's really, really great! I think you have probably succeeded with that conversation at least once more than I have. Given the length of the conversation, what did you feel was the turning point that really allowed him to side with you? Did you feel that your way of putting forward the argument was important or was it just a matter of time for him anyway to reach that conclusion?

The relevant critique of inflation is not that it causes prices to rise, but rather that it shifts the relative prices of goods and services in ways not justified by demand, causing a misallocation of real resources. Keynesians and monetarists assume that prices tend to rise evenly over the economy in the aftermath of monetary shocks, which is why they advocate inflation to "stabilize the price level".

You're not having crazy standards… This you could say: But dear therapist… If my parents should not be held accountable for "doing the best that they can", then how am I to be held accountable for blaming them? Surely, you must have noticed that blaming them is "the best I can do"…? If he or she actually responds with some curiosity to that and acknowledges the contradiction, I would want to ask lots of questions about his or her own childhood, if you haven't done that already.

Well, I'm not a surgeon but I'll take a stab… Let me know when I'm projecting I feel that the dream is about your journey towards real freedom and independency - "the project". It is your desire to gain self-knowledge, and in order to do that you must - naturally - first be able to assess your present situation - to take a snapshot of the current so to speak. Yet, this is not encouraged by your environment in the dream. In fact, your antagonists are basically undermining that path by confusing you and telling you that the necessary tools (the cameras) are not available to you; that they are elsewhere at some unspecified location (in another school) and that it would be foolish of you to embark on that journey in the first place. According to them, there is a more convenient way of living and being: to remain in a "swamp" and to never look at the real picture. What is a swamp? It is an environment that - although unpleasant - is difficult to escape from and almost impossible to navigate. It may be other peoples opinions and expectations or their indifference to your longing for genuine connection. It may be, for example, your mother's disturbing lack of empathy with a child who was physically maltreated and then rejected for attempting to understand its consequences.The suggestion that examining the self is unnecessary for completing "the project" is like offering you a nice suit (at best) - an insult that you have all the right in the world to walk away from.Does that make any sense at all?

What I would be worried about if I were you – and I don't mean this in any critical way – is why you are communicating what you feel about the relationship to us and not to him directly. The only thing that you can do – assuming this person really is your friend – is precisely that: to tell him how you feel about the relationship. If he is your friend he will greatly appreciate your input, right?