Sometimes I challenged the assumptions behind the pointed questions...

I stopped seeing my therapist after 10 months because during our sessions it felt like he was more interested in finding a label to put on me than seeing me for the person that I am. In the beginning I thought I might be imagining it, but at times it was so blatantly obvious that he was trying to pin something on me, it was impossible to ignore it. So for a while I decided to pay attention to my resistence to being diagnosed. I came to see that I don't like the idea of someone squashing me into a box. We all take shortcuts in one way or another I know, but it doesn't make me dislike it any less.

Eventually I resented my therapist for trying to steer me in a certain direction. Sometimes I challenged the assumptions behind the pointed questions but this only made him retreat. It would have been helpful if he openly shared his thoughts with me every now and again. If he was more up front about how I was being analysed, I wouldn't have felt so objectified by his secret agenda. Laurie

Laurie. I am sure your experience is not unique. There are people in all trades and professions whose approach to their work is reductive rather than open to enquiry. You could call it the traffic policeman's approach to therapy: a limited number of roads and all drivers expected to go in one of these few directions. It sounds like you let your therapist know your unwillingness to accept his attempts. He may have dismissed this as "resistance" -in my experience, more often a sign I am missing something with my client than a signal a client is in denial. You obviously sought out a therapist because of something that was troubling you. I hope that you went on from this therapist to another who was less categorical in his or her thinking and more interested in risking a journey with you. As therapists are individuals too, I am sure there is someone out there with whom you would match with and be able to work with to resolve issues. Good luck. John Hunter, Counsellor