Dear sona:

We are all “relationship people” because we are born social animals, so by design we are relationship people.

If you discuss your feelings toward your therapist with him, you should as a result of exploring those feelings with him, understand that it is natural to get attached to another. From our very beginning we got attached to our main caretaker. Animals do it. I see fawns following their mothers deer into the forest. They follow because they are motivated to follow by their attachment to the mother. It is as natural as nature is. And if you have romantic, even sexual dreams or daydreams about your therapist, that is natural too.

The therapist should help you understand that it is natural and that he accepts your feelings while he keeps his relationship with you professional (not physically intimate in any way, no words of affection not appropriate to a professional therapeutic context…)

Then if you were to attempt an intimate relationship in your private life, he could help you with it, step by step.

Once you develop an intimate relationship outside, sure, you will feel less attached to your therapist.

Did I answer your question? Please let me know, ask again in a different way, until we understand each other.

About your fears of starting an intimate relationship… this is it: if you and your therapist talked about your attachment feelings for him, if he shared things about himself with you (as is appropriate)- you would be taking the first steps with him in developing an intimate relationship with a man. That way, you would have a good experience to give you confidence with starting an intimate relationship outside therapy.

anita

Dear sona:

You are welcome. You can write next week or before, if you’d like. We can communicate here for as long as you want.

That hollow feeling following a session, I think I am familiar with that kind of feeling and the need to recover. Looking back at my life before my first successful therapy five years ago, i remember that feeling attached to anyone disturbed and distressed me so much that I needed to stop contact with whomever I felt attached to so to regain a feeling of safety, that was my own resetting. When I felt attached, it felt heavenly for a short while, as if I was safe, a dream like state… but then, being away from that temporary object of my attachment (often a stranger, really)- all hell broke loose in my mind. The distress was too intense.

It reminds me of being away from my mother when I was young, how unbearable it was. I remember that fear of being away from her. Maybe that fear was the trigger for the distress in me following the experience of every single attachment.

Feeling attached itself signaled danger for me. In my mind there was a strong connection between feeling attached and danger.

I think it is the pain my mother inflicted on me that hurt so much because I was attached to her, hence attachment and pain became strongly associated.

Do you relate to this…?

anita

Dear sona:

Right here, on this forum, is an opportunity for you to connect when you feel disconnected. I for one will reply to you every time I see a message from you. If I am on the computer and I see a message from you, I will read it and answer. If you post and I don’t answer, it means I am not online.

It is about connecting. I need to connect and so do you, so here is such place. Such place to take a little risk about getting to be known. It is safe in that you can always turn off the computer and you can stay away for as long as you need to.

anita

Dear sona:

You are welcome! I too wanted to be “special” in someone’s mind and life. I didn’t know I was already special.

I can hardly believe I am typing this, that I am special. That was impossible for me to write before, being special. I had no idea what it meant before. I thought if I was rich and famous, maybe then I would be special.. or if a person loved me and only me, if I conquered a man’s past and future so there was no one else in his life, then I would be special.

I thought being special meant being more than other people, more.. more worthy.

I didn’t know what Special meant. Now I know it does not mean being more worthy than anyone else. And I know it does not mean becoming everything in another person’s life, his past, present, future and the only person in his life. Now I know, now I am getting to know. This is quite amazing.

anita

Dear sona:

I believe you are making good sense. If I was you, I too would take a break and maybe decide later to end the therapy with him. He may very well have fallen short. Like I wrote to you before, this very cycle of you panicking/ feeling distressed before seeing him and then taking a couple of days to reset/ return to normal- this should have been discussed when it started or shortly after. The fact that it was not discussed raises a big red flag for me regarding the effectiveness of the therapy.

After all, it should help you with your attachment/ separation anxiety, not re-create one and keep it going in the relationship with him!

Do take care of yourself. I understand he was helpful, but psychotherapists are as limited as their own healing is, from their own issues. They can’t go farther than their own journeys in their own lives. Education and certification can take you only a certain distance and not beyond.

Post anytime…

anita