Since I became a therapist, I have had clients expected me to tell them "What to do", "what to think" if I had the "right answer". As a therapist, I’m trained to understand people and help them sort out what they want to do, but I can’t make their life choices for them. I’m not a real-estate specialist, career counsellor or, most important, I don't have a magic wand.
So, you ask your therapist: Should I do this? Should I do that? Since I am the therapist I am the one who knows best, who is believed to be the expert, on the other hand the surrogate Parent, whilst you the client is the child in the adult body who fantasizes about how nice it would feel to renounce from all those responsibility and let a capable adult making all the hard choices, even if things are going pear shape is still seem a safer place, a relief to be able to blame someone else for a wrong decision. That is a deceptive kind of protection, your therapist’s advice will make you feel angry and unsafe, but once you have pleaded for and your therapist has reached the point of exhaustion and has given in, it all ended up with you, the client, procrastinating, and making up all sorts of reasons why you haven’t gotten around to it yet.
And then you’ll feel bad for not doing it, resenting your therapist for intruding in your personal boundaries, feeling shame for displeasing her by not doing the thing she wants - even though the ostensible point of her giving the advice was to please you, not her. In the end, nobody’s happy.
Therefore, getting advice is not the solution to your problems, my hope is that one day you will be ready to spread your wings and fly the nest, not because I do not care, it's because I do. For every and each session you attending I want you to be getting the helps and support you need, to explore at your own pace and to reach your own goals.
I am a mortal too, who does her best to understand my patterns, my pain and my wishes, my desires, so I can take responsibility for my life, and I want you to do the same by showing you to practice listening to yourself. So, as your Therapists I do give you guidance.
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