Member-only story
My process journal.
I’ve not been in one to one therapy for over a year since the last one accused me of being resistant. It was session four and I was getting a sense that she was getting frustrated at me not knowing what was happening in my body.
She later admitted to having a “get on with it” process and felt unskilled at working with neurodivergence.
I, on reflection, persuaded her to stick with it because while she thinks I’m teaching her about autism I said I needed to teach her about me anyway, that was part of the getting to know you phase, so it wasn’t that I was doing unnecessary emotional labour, it was just part of the process.
Once I left the session I went for a walk to allow my body to do what it needed instinctively, creating space for my subconscious to begin processing what had happened because I felt jittery and agitated.
As I climbed muddy lumps and avoided puddles I started to feel sad, then irritated, and finally defeated. She was not the therapist for me. How could I trust her when she’d just admitted she felt ill-equipped to best hold me? And didn’t hold any space for my slow process — something I struggle with as it is.
I could see so clearly how I’d felt this possible ending coming from her and I couldn’t bear someone rejecting me so I fawned, made a good case for us sticking together and working at it — isn’t that what healthy, balanced relationships are about?
And the fact she’d said I was resistant? In session four?! Even if she thought I was being resistant it’s usually not a helpful intervention to share that with the client lest they become defensive and shutdown. It would have been better she hold onto that, take it to supervision, and wait like, I don’t know, four or five months before gently approaching the idea. Or that’s how I deal with it. Because resistance in therapy isn’t without purpose. And what one person deems resistance, another will see it for what it is: struggling to regulate, identify emotion and/or a very wise, long-held defense that has protected very vulnerable parts.
So I ended that relationship. I realised there was no way I would ever trust her to hold me; by her own admittance, her ‘hurry up’ needs would get in the way of me relaxing…
