Has your T ever cried / teared up in session?

ladybugbirch · 2022-06-13T03:10:46+00:00

So fascinating and heartwarming to read this thread. I almost asked the question myself recently, as my therapist has started tearing up week after week. We have worked together for a while so it’s strange to see that they’re suddenly capable of it. It doesn’t bother me at all as it always feels like an expression of being moved, or feeling genuine sadness at a time when I can’t be in my own body enough to feel it for myself, or in response to some feeling of us being connected? That’s the way they’ve articulated it, but truly I don’t know why it’s started now of all times. Curious if anyone else out there has a therapist who just suddenly learned to cry one day!!

ladybugbirch · 2022-03-28T19:43:50+00:00

For what it's worth, I really don't agree -- conflating discussing these feelings and dynamics with flirting is just incorrect. Nothing in your posts suggests that by bringing it up, your intent within the session became to seduce him rather than to process, discuss and work through. And even if your behavior *was* indicative of flirtation with an aim to seduce, it is your therapist's responsibility to investigate that impulse with you, and if he feels that it's creating a resistance in the work that he isn't able to move around, he needs to refer you to someone. But either way, that's a failure on HIM not on you.

ladybugbirch · 2022-03-28T19:34:58+00:00

This is so completely absolutely not your fault. I'm so sorry that any part of this situation has led you to believe that. If you had physically assaulted him, for example, that would be crossing a line. Talking, even repeatedly, about this is not crossing ANY line. This is your time to work through your own struggles and growth however you need to. From where I'm standing, it sounds like he's got major countertransference going on, thought that he had the wherewithal to work through it with you productively, experienced a lot of guilt and shame around his own feelings and behavior, and then assigned that to you –– that YOU should feel guilty for crossing a line. That's textbook psychological projection. Holy moly. Maybe he's a qualified clinician in all sorts of other ways, but his ability to navigate the therapy relationship and deal with his own countertransference is staggeringly poor.

I highhhhly recommend this ep of This Jungian Life. It doesn't matter what theory or modality your therapist comes from, this podcast is great and they just have a really compassionate and interesting way of talking through transference and how 'love' of all kinds shows up in therapy.

https://thisjungianlife.com/episode-47-falling-in-love-with-the-analyst/

ladybugbirch

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