I'm not a practitioner, but this forum seems like the right place for this question...

 I used to go to a psychotherapist a few years back. I stopped seeing him after being with him for 4 years. He had the classic psychotherapist "stone face" and it really infuriated me - even now, after 2 years since I stopped seeing him.

The stone face felt very dehumanizing. Normal people show reactions to things. I would like a therapist to show compassion, which he rarely did. He didn't feel human - in fact he often said that therapists are expected to be inhuman. As a result I didnt feel human either with him - I felt like I was a puzzle he was solving, not a human being he was empathizing with.

I tried tapping on this issue but it doesn't want to budge. It's gotten worse recently because a friend of mine is an aspiring therapist and he's started using the stone face with me, and it's affecting our friendship. Any suggestions?

 hi Ricky, i...have...a...similar...complaint...from

...folks...however...its...that...i...wont...stop...laugh

-ing...at...them...some...folks...just...take...stuff...far

...far...to...serious!

peace&love...vern

Hi Ricky,

I am sorry you had this experience with your therapist. As a coach and non-therapist, I don't understand why it would be successful too work with deep issues with someone who is not human. So much of our pain is still persistent in us because it was never acknowledged, confirmed and understood. That is often what hurts the most: That nobody helped, nobody understood and nobody cared. Feeling abandoned and not cared for can feel like betrayal on the deepest level. Why should the same behaviour result in successful therapy?

I believe that compassion and the willingness to feel with a client that leads to successful sessions. Allowing ourselves to be there for a client, to care deeply and to have the focus on helping someone heal is work on the soul level.And it is our soul that gets hurt.

I work with many Veterans, and if I had a "stone face" I know that they would get up and leave. Why would they want to talk to a rock about that which hurt them so deeply, which has been unbearable to share for all these years? Why would they want to trust me and feel comfortable if I sat there "Inhuman"? The pain is human, and it needs human care.

The beauty of EFT is, that we can put all this in our tapping sequences. We can put our understanding and compassion into powerful and appropriate suggestions for set ups, and gentle sequences which truly help to feel understood and shed a light on the situation as it truly happened, coming from the understanding that everybody did the best they could.

I tell my clients that my job is not to judge, not to condone and not to excuse what happened; My job is to help them heal what happened.

But we have to be able to relate to where they are in order to help them find their inner truth and heal. EFT allows them  to see things in a new light, and the gentleness an compassion of the practitioner is important.

My two cents....

Hope you can tap on this.

How about:

Even though I am hurt that my therapist doesn't see me with compassion and understanding, he feels like a rock and I don't need that, I deeply and completely accept myself.

Even though I am angry that he withdraws the way he does, and believes that this is good professionalism, I can choose to let that go and heal.

Even though, his withdrawal and stone face feel disrespectful and triggers old wounds, I deeply...

Even though my therapist believes that he has to be dehumanized, and I wonder if deep inside he truly believes that, I deeply...

Even if my needs weren't met in therapy, and I am angry about that, I coose to let it go and move forward in a way that works for me.

You can also tap on aspects of the "stone face": The look in the eyes, the lack of facial expression, your feeling when you were searching for a response or reaction in his face and it didn't come, and how that felt as if you were wrong or invalid, or whatever else you might have experienced (I don'tknow if  that is true for you specifically, am just bringing out some general thoughts), and then tap on that in a separate set up statement.

For the Personal Peace Procedure, I always recommend to my clients that they treat themselves to a beautiful composition book, where they can't rip out the pages, and take one page per issue, give it a headline, in your case: The rage at my therapist" (btw: rage and feelings of betrayal often go together, you might want to look into that direction when you work through this)

Then start on line 1: This fear of....., put a SUDS behind, don't be technical, just give it your best guess

then line 2: this fear of,.... and so forth. When the fears are on the paper, write down your limiting beliefs, and give there relevance also a SUDS rating.

Then tap from the top, one or two rounds, and just keep going. It is OK to do this quickly. You will see that your life will change in wonderful ways.

Please remember that the therapist did the best he could, and don't forget to forgive him at some point, when you are ready....

Hope you find some of this useful. 

Love

Ingrid

Hi Ricky and All,

I often have to spend at least one whole session with clients tapping on the trauma of having gone through talk therapy, so you are not alone.

What I do with my clients is ask them for a particular time that stands out, such as "When I told him about my mother beating me after I stole roses" or "When I told him about the attack" or "When he said I was disruptive" (some of my clients got Stoney Face, others got judgments) etc.  For just one of these events, tap it all the way to zero.  Then the next time you tap, choose another event and tap that to zero.  After you have done a representative sample of these, it should collapse the whole lot.