On the Adult Choice scale, I think today would rate maybe a B-.
I woke at my regular Tuesday time, to sit before heading off to my BNI group, my business marketing group. But, with this cold lingering and it raining outside, and it being 5:30 am, I decided to crawl back into bed, in the space-heater heated bedroom, and get a few hours more sleep before going to see clients.
My first session was with a couple I've been seeing for about 10 weeks, who have been struggling for a while, and today felt like they were back on their cliff edge. Couples are both a joy and a pain to work with, and such is this duo. Well, clients in general...well, like therapists often say, what a strange ass profession we've chosen. It was a very rough session, with the male half saying he was going to leave her, and that's how it ended.
Now, it's difficult not to get attached to your clients, especially your couples. Well, at least for me, and it feels like a chunk of my work to find a detached compassion. Because when the therapy seems to go south, it can be incredibly wrenching, calling up all sorts of feelings, usually negative, in varieties of "I'm terrible at this," "I made horrible mistakes," and "Other therapists are going to think I suck." And apparently these thoughts never really go away, you just get better at managing them. It's no work for dedicated control freaks. However, for CF's in recovery, it's a wonderful practice in letting go and acceptance.
My second client, I struggled to stay present with her as the recently departed couple's energy kept intruding. I asked their ghost traces to stay out in the lobby, and I'd be back for them after the session, but they kept coming in to complain or point fingers at me, or each other. But the session ended pretty well if not real elegantly, and my client seemed to get some benefit.
Then I had coffee with my mentee, a brave soul starting his practice from the ground up, just recently being out of grad school. It was a good, ranging talk
So, heading home, I debated what the most Adult thing, but felt more like curling inward. Heather helped me recenter a bit, and did some EMDR with me. Then we went to see "The Mist," for distraction. Thus the B-. ("The Mist" was a credible B monster movie, but with a contrived, emotionally manipulative, falsely bleak denouement.)
Home, still carrying my stuff from session, I sat, which was somewhat clearing, and then came to write this. Well, actually, I spent some time with this new program called Sketchup, a simplified AutoCAD program, which I'm using for sort of a virtual abstract sculpture. And now, at the end of a long day, I'm glancing up to watch Heather play Halo on the new Xbox 360.
Brain is more or less fried, so not much depth for this one.
