Post Therapy Autopsy - Afterglow or Aftermath?
by Sonia Neale on August 17th, 2009Every time I leave the therapy session, I can never get a really true sense of how it actually went till I have spent at least the rest of the day, and sometimes the next, analyzing all the spoken words, visualizing the facial expressions, exploring the subtle nuances of tone and cadence and reliving the shared, attentive, attuned and mirrored body language or the complete lack of it.
While my therapist, bless her legal notepad and poised pen, goes onto her next client, effectively and professionally “forgetting” about me, I am left in a visceral twilight zone of mixed feelings, conflicting emotions, sweaty palms, tense muscles, shaking body and heightened senses with a dual conflicting head-space so intense the lack of concentration could cause a traffic accident. Sometimes I bask in the afterglow of a loving/kindness, merged warm euphoric connection and sometimes I’m stuck in the aftermath of futile envy, hostile resentment and impotent rage.
Luckily the latter doesn’t happen nearly as much as the former. One thing I have learned over the years is to own my own feelings. Therapy isn’t a walk in the park on a sunny day, it’s a hike up a steep hill or a climb up a snow covered mountain dodging all the obstacles of suppression, resistance, hiding, underplaying and even lying along the way.
The former is a blessing. It’s true attunement, connection, strength of character and progression. Your therapist is there to learn about you so she can support you. The more knowledge she has the more able she is to do her job well. I’ve felt every emotion under the sun with her but I’ve never felt judged or invalidated even when I spend weeks hiding the truth from her. If I end up feeling a bitter fury towards her, I take responsibility for it. My behaviour and feelings are self-induced and are not about her. Luckily she is authentic and well-balanced enough to know this.
There is always an underlying situation I am not addressing …



