Seeing a therapist who is a single mother

[stMarkus]

If you're going to be traveling away, therapy over skype or the phone is still a possibility.

 

I will be 2h30min bus drive away in another city and the bus ticket costs 1-3€ so it wont be a problem to keep meeting her in person but the problem would be the cost of the therapy. It's a little scary that I will have to present myself as a paragon of good qualities for the next year and possibly without any therapy but we'll see how it goes.

 

She has given me great tools to recreate a sense of comfort and security within myself such as I've felt with her help in therapy. I would get better at it with more therapy, sad if it would end for some time.

[Sarah 92]

In your situation, it will eventually evolve into something. And it'll probably not be something good.

 

Don't wait for things to happen. Take action, go find another therapist.

[stMarkus]

Heeeey, I'm back, Instead of getting a new therapist, I found a girlfriend, it has worked well so far. Not in the sense that she's my therapist but that she just provides a certain comfort in my life.

 

I might need start a new relationship thread, though. Similarities from my mother's relationship with me are popping up.....

[stMarkus]

Regardless, it seems a much better solution to a get a decent girlfriend rather than to pay lots of money to talk to a therapist for a limited time. At least in my current situation, where my funds are minimal. With a girlfriend I get pretty much unlimited time with her and practically for free and also physical intimacy. So I'm happy for now.

 

I'm not sure what else to add here, maybe this thread is done.

 

Any thoughts on girlfriend vs therapist?

[neeeel]

Regardless, it seems a much better solution to a get a decent girlfriend rather than to pay lots of money to talk to a therapist for a limited time. At least in my current situation, where my funds are minimal. With a girlfriend I get pretty much unlimited time with her and practically for free and also physical intimacy. So I'm happy for now.

 

I'm not sure what else to add here, maybe this thread is done.

 

Any thoughts on girlfriend vs therapist?

 

my concern is that, if you are still "damaged"( dont know how else to put it, disfunctional, maybe?) , and would still benefit from a therapist, then any relationship you enter into , you may not be aware of her disfunction, or may be so needy that you ignore or disregard any disfunction on her side. You say shes a decent person, but its easy to ignore red flags.

[D-Light]

A long-term relationship with someone acting as your personal therapist is almost never a good idea.

 

While there is certainly a deep level of disclosure that occurs in a therapeutic relationship, it is seldom bi-directional which leaves the therapist in a position of power and the one undergoing therapy in a vulnerable position.  Add to this the problem of professional ethics... a therapist should never become personally involved with their patients for precisely this and other reasons such as the fact that the relationship is inherently codependent and may never evolve to a healthy interdependent relationship. Such a relationship will also leave the therapist in a potentially vulnerable position professionally because of this breech of ethics (if they are a licensed and credentialed therapist). While there certainly is much to be gained from a relationship where mutual deep disclosure occurs, it should be bi-directional for any intimate personal/non-professional relationship if it is to be healthy and last. My non-professional opinion is strongly against proceeding with a personal relationship... take that for what it's worth.

[JoeH]

To quote Stefan: "So how hot is she? On a scale of one to ten."

[Jot]

Regardless, it seems a much better solution to a get a decent girlfriend rather than to pay lots of money to talk to a therapist for a limited time. At least in my current situation, where my funds are minimal. With a girlfriend I get pretty much unlimited time with her and practically for free and also physical intimacy. So I'm happy for now.

 

I'm not sure what else to add here, maybe this thread is done.

 

Any thoughts on girlfriend vs therapist?

 

Comfort is only a small part of what the therapeutic process should provide.

 

In order for someone to be someone else's therapist, that person needs to have a good amount of knowledge of psychology and therapy practice in general and unless someone does not make it an explicit goal for himself to become knowledgeable of these things and spend a lot of time pursuing them I am really sceptical of how good of a therapist one is this was not the case for her.

 

How knowledgeable is her of therapy?

 

Or maybe it can be done even if she is not trained and I am not seeing how...

[Together-Whenever-Wherever]

Why I care about her personal issues:

I'm convinced that therapy can only be useful for me if there exists an actual emotional bond between the therapist and the client. It relates to my main problem which is betrayal by my mother, the bond between me and her getting abruptly cut off at late latency stage and me being isolated, not being able to bond with people and so on......

It's important to keep in mind that you're paying her to have a relationship to begin with. This customer interaction is part of the foundation of the client-therapist relationship and its professional boundaries.

 

That being said, I don't believe there's anything wrong with emotional bonding in and of itself. It's important for building trust, and you do need to trust your therapist if you're going to be open and honest. 

 

But the general tone of your post by the way you describe the relationship sounds inappropriate, like she's making you a substitute partner/son and you are making her a substitute partner/mother. This sounds counterproductive, even unhealthy. It's going to take you further away from the problem you wish to address -- the betrayal by your mother. Your mother had a moral obligation and biological responsibility to care for you without the financial incentives. Your therapist will end the relationship when the financial incentive is gone. And if she is acting as a substitute mother, you may feel even more betrayed and hurt in the end.

My advice is see a male therapist. Females are way too emotional and reactionary in my experience (not saying all women are like that or that there aren't men who are).

Agreed. Also they are susceptible to the maternal urge to nurture, which may take them out of their professional role.

 

I went through six therapists, all women, before I decided to see a male therapist. The difference was night and day. First session he listened to my issues. Lots of probing questions as to what I want from life, what I believe is stopping me, etc, then saw me off with some materials to read on CBT. Second session he brought out the white board and we went through the models of CBT and constructed a gameplan. He held me to the gameplan. He made it clear that this was his most effective strategy, and if it wasn't doing anything for me, he could recommend me to someone else.

 

Very professional. Very clear boundaries. He helped me change my life considerably.

[stMarkus]

But the general tone of your post by the way you describe the relationship sounds inappropriate, like she's making you a substitute partner/son and you are making her a substitute partner/mother.

 

Yes.

 

I think I have changed somewhat at least by now and I can evaluate this a little differently as of today.

 

As I started writing this, my mind is turning into mush so it’s not easy after all. But basically my way of reaching out for love has been through obsessive fixation. It makes me zone out, anxious, focus on external clues, insecure etc. This of course can’t have anything to do with real love or connection and I have discovered that the major underlying feeling in this state is fear. Fear of what? Of people like my mother, who is unreliable, whom I can’t trust to be a good person, mother, woman. I can’t trust her not to stab me in the back, not to betray my devotion for her etc. Growing up with people like this is like being constantly surrounded by fucking tarantula hawks. Of course I concentrate all my available conscious energy on her like she was the best person I ever met. But it’s not enough. Nothing is not enough for them as long as there is even a thread of sanity inside you. And this truly is really scary, even now that I think about it. The scores of people who have been driven beyond the edge and are in an asylum or worse and nobody will ever know what happened to them or who did it to them.

 

Anyway there seems to be a trigger or several triggers for me that activate this kind of obsessive fixation to someone. I don’t know yet what these triggers are but this therapist, it seems, might have activated one or more of these in me and she didn’t address this issue. This process has more to do with me rather than her but still as she was open to having a therapeutic relationship with me from which, as she said herself, she received personal benefits/satisfaction, she should have addressed this issue of my triggers and fixation.

 

Looking at this obsessive fixation and why it seems inappropriate as Together-Whenever-Wherever said, the reason seems to do with all the mixed, confusing signals I am sending as I am trying to divert my attention away from the fear that is really the underlying feeling. It’s like I decided a long time ago to act out a kind of satirical version of love and affection toward my mother to get her attention but since she didn’t care, it stuck with me. That’s what it is. I don’t really understand why I felt affection toward that therapist, I just went with the flow but I didn’t understand a lot of it so I was probably scared.

 

 

To quote Stefan: "So how hot is she? On a scale of one to ten."

 

The therapist was a 10. This combined with virtue signalling could have been the trigger.

[Together-Whenever-Wherever]

Just to update, I went to another therapist for one session, an older woman. The session went well and she was very different from my current therapist. Still, I've had more sessions with the one described in this topic and they've all been very positive.

 

Now with regard to seeing a male therapist, I think it's good advice that I might want to try out but the downside is that I've never connected with my father whereas I have invested very deeply in my mother. Having a positive mother figure substitute triggers the deeper emotional responses and cravings for love and connection for me. This helps with getting results in therapy.

 

I don't really know how it would go with a male figure but at this moment, it wouldn't be as beneficial for me.

 

Another update is that I've been accepted into training for a job that I've wanted for more than a year. I'll be moving to another city and the training lasts for about a year during which I probably won't be doing much therapy. Or at least I don't know when the next session will be. So for now, it's at least a good ending to the story.

 

Also I've begun to journal more. Mostly dream analysis as I've been having interesting dreams. Probably will have one tonight as well.

If you didn't have a connection to your father, then you didn't have a good male role model for a long time. I think that alone is a good reason to see a male therapist. For one (if you are seeing a good male therapist) they can be the positive male role model that you perhaps have been missing; that the world is so badly missing. When you were a child, your mind developed in response to the interactions of both your mother and father to you and to each other. One of the ingredients for a healthy mental equilibrium is balancing the male and female voices in your head. It sounds like you have a lot of voices stemming from your maternal investments relative to the paternal. A positive male role model, like a male therapist, can start building up the male voices to provide counter balance to the heavily weighted Mom voices in your head.

 

Don't knock it till you try it  

Most of my greatest gains and insights in therapy were doing the complete opposite of what I initially thought I needed/wanted.

[Ninja]

I'd say avoid censoring the truth. If you trigger her to the point of agression then you may need to get a new therapist but you will have assisted her in identifying the truth. Seems like your concern for her is more friendly than professional. Friends endure each other out of love, that's the difference.

[stMarkus]

I think that alone is a good reason to see a male therapist.

 

I watched this thing and now I'm convinced I need to try out a male therapist.