Monday, August 02, 2004

I had an exasperating tug-of-war with my therapist this morning. I started off talking about having some sadness on Saturday over my younger son’s long-term prospects and how it would feel like total and complete failure were certain things to happen. My therapist started to push me a little and I said "I don’t want to go there." He continued pushing me. I told him again that I didn’t want to go there.

My therapist said that what was going on was a tug-of-war, with him trying to get me to articulate feelings and me shutting him down. He had been reviewing his notes on me, and he noticed a clear pattern of minimizing, rationalizing, compartmentalizing, and cutting off discussion of, strong emotion and the subconscious. That tendency was apparent even to me at the dream-interpretation group last week. I had been able to move the discussions to a more comfortable, intellectual plain in the past, but not today. He tweaked me a little by telling me I say I "don’t want to go there," then pointing out that I keep going back, which means that I do want to go there. Just before I left, I told the therapist that I usually felt agitated leaving his office. He told me that I need to bring that up and talk about it.

I hate it when people won’t allow themselves to be outmaneuvered.

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