From: nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu (Nancy Lebovitz)
Subject: Re: Confronting my mother (LONG)
Organization: UDel, School of Life & Health Sciences
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 15:18:54 GMT

In article <1992Aug13.211500.28022@unislc.uucp> erc@unislc.uucp (Ed Carp) writes:
>Nancy Lebovitz (nancy@genie.slhs.udel.edu) wrote:
>
>: Just one more thought on staying in touch with your original family--
>: watch out for "family therapists". In my experience (I've had one for
>: a therapist and listened to another regularly on a radio talk show),
>: they really want to get people back into their families. They also
>: have the awful habit of saying "I'd love it if you....." when they
>: want you to do something you don't want to do. It's important to
>: remember what they'd "love" is their problem, not yours.
>
>: I just know that I feel more solid and happier when I'm out of touch
>: with my parents, and worse when I'm with them. *This* *is* *strongly*
>: *true* even if I feel a lot of pain about not wanting to be around 
>: them.  (That pain is why that therapist kept trying to get me back
>: to my family.) 
>
>: I haven't healed yet in any general sense, but if it seems as though
>: someone is trying to drag you (or get you to drag yourself) into
>: someone that feels as though it's very bad for you, don't do it! 
>:     ^^^ 
>:      (I meant to say "something", but it's such a great Freudian
>: slip that I don't want to erase it.) 
>
>Don't let someone force (or attempt to manipulate) you into doing something that
>you feel isn't good for you, but also remember that the other person sometimes
>has very altrustic reasons for doing what they do.  If your therapist didn't
>feel that that would be good for you, he/she wouldn't do it.  That might help
>you to deal with them on a more rational basis, and not generate as much
>anger towards them.  Often, it's not a deliberate attempt to hurt or manipulate.
I don't see that whether the therapist has "altruistic" reasons is especially
important. I believe that malice is rare, but it's easy to hurt other people
through incompetence or spacing out. My bet is that he didn't like feeling
his own pain when he was exposed to mine, and he was willing to act without
regard for me in order to feel better. No, he isn't some kind of a monster,
but I'll be _goddamned_ if I'll let someone like that be my therapist.

As for manipulation, my specific memory on this was of him pushing one of
my buttons by saying that I'd "learn something" (I'm an input junky) by
going home for Thanksgiving. I could tell I was being had, but somehow my
recognition of this still left me paralysed. (There was just something about
_knowing_ that I was being manipulated that made me freeze.) (This is obviously
worth more thought--what _was_ going on there? but I don't have the time
now.)  

Yes, I'm still angry. If my defenses against that sort of thing get better,
I probably won't be as angry, but for now, that's my emotional reaction.
I think that anger is a perfectly good and useful response to feeling
one's boundaries violated. 

I also think that family therapists might be a perfectly good resource
for people who want to be in contact with their families, but improve
the relationship. I think that f.t.'s are a _very_ bad idea for people
who hate being around their families. 

If it's of any help, I distinguish between anger, hatred, and rage. 
Anger is a "this has to stop/must not happen again" reaction. Hatred
is a "this must be obliterated" reaction. Rage is "destroy everything
in reach". I suspect that you confuse anger and hatred---I wasn't 
saying that family therapists were evil people who must be stopped,
I was saying that I wasn't well-treated and don't trust them with
my mental well-being, and recommend that people with situations
similar to mine should be very cautious around them. 

                          ----Nancy 
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