therapy, 9/21/10

Therapy on Tuesday brought up a lot of anger. The session began with me explaining some negative feelings I have toward my mom. We hashed that out for a while, and then my therapist, Mr. J, changed the subject to my blog. (If you don’t already know, I printed out my first post of this blog and gave it to him. On the bottom of the post there’s information about the blog, and I forgot to remove it when I printed it.) Anyway, he went on and on about how it’s important not to disclose stuff that happens between us to anyone, as it diminishes the experience. I agree with that. I think that if I posted something specific and asked you to analyze it, I would hurt my therapy experience. On the other hand, I think it’s good for me to share what’s happening because it helps me integrate my experience. He concluded by saying “I just want you to be mindful. That’s all.” Very cryptic.

Afterward, and after a long silence, I told him I felt angry because he changed the subject.: “Whenever I’m in the middle of my feelings and change the subject to something intellectual, you point it out, remind me that therapy is hard, and then kindly ask me to return to my feelings. However, when you change the subject, it’s okay. You have all the control and all the power in this relationship.”

He then tried to cleverly point out that my anger is just a defense mechanism. In other words, I use anger to avoid dealing with my feelings. This made me even angrier. I understand his point, but does that apply to every situation–to every time I’m angry? Is anger ever just what it is–anger? I think he made a mistake (by changing the subject) and then he tried to cover up for it by hiding behind my anger. Now I feel like I can’t bring anger into the room because now whenever I do, he’ll just say it’s a defense mechanism.

It’s not okay anymore for me to just feel angry.

Sometimes he spins me around so much in one direction, while my anxiety spins me around in an entirely different direction … by the time the sessions ends, I don’t know what to believe.

Also, not all behavior needs to be analyzed, even in therapy. I think sometimes things are what they are; there’s nothing underneath. I feel like half the session was a waste because we tried to go deeper when there wasn’t anything deeper. I guess I understand that it’s good that what happened happened, so we could uncover something about our relationship. But I don’t know where to go with it? I feel like if I bring this up in therapy, he’ll just use the same argument: that it’s a defense mechanism. Or he’ll just try to appease me by saying stuff like “I appreciate that” or “I understand that therapy is hard sometimes.”