For a while I’ve been fascinated by the therapeutic material that can be provided through encountering the practical parameters and circumstances of therapy – for example, how we pay (which I wrote about here), and what we wear (which I wrote about here and here). In my latest article for welldoing.org, I wrote about what we learn through our response to the time-limited nature of a session, and the 50 or 60 minutes that circumscribe it. I enjoyed reflecting on this, and on how my response to the clock changed as trust and my therapeutic relationship developed. The article can be found here:
https://welldoing.org/article/watching-clock-time-keeping-trust-relate-therapy
Life in a Bind - BPD and me 
July 30, 2018 at 3:46 am
I have what T and I call “my seven minute clock”. Everything can be going fine, and then I get a scared tummy feeling and ask: “How much time do we have left?” 99 times out of 100 (I see T 3x a week) there’s 7 minutes left. I have yet to figure out what that 7 minutes is about. Best guess – something important. Being hidden for some BIG reason… heck, I’ve remembered so MANY cruelties over my therapy years.
Thank you for this article, Clara. TS
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August 28, 2018 at 9:03 pm
Thank you so much for reading and commenting, and apologies for the delay…..your 7 minute clock sounds like my 15 minute clock! As for what it means, if it’s significant and important for you to know, I’m sure it will come to the surface in time….it’s interesting to hear you’ve remembered many things in therapy, as this is one area where I sometimes wonder if there’s ‘something wrong with me’. I feel I have very few memories of my childhood and teenage years, but I wouldn’t say that therapy has revealed or awakened old memories as such. However, I guess it’s true to say that based on how I respond to things in the present, in therapy, I’ve gained an insight into how I _might_ have felt about things growing up. But that’s extrapolating from reaction now to reaction then, rather than bringing up concrete memories……..
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July 30, 2018 at 5:38 pm
Yes! Yes! Yes! The clock. My internal clock wakes up with about twelve minutes to go … ugh!!
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August 28, 2018 at 9:04 pm
It’s interesting to hear that the phenomenon seems to be fairly common! It’s horrible though, isn’t it…..
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August 23, 2018 at 6:14 pm
I used to bring up anything I wanted to say about 5 minutes to the end. It was when I realised that we were going to end it, and that I really wanted to discuss it.
I think I also wanted to see ‘does he really care’, my thoughts being along the lines that if he’d care he’d respond, rather than leave something so big in the air (which he never did. He always ended it on time). And along the lines that it was too scary to bring up, but when we were at the end and I really wanted to, than I had to just if I really wanted to.
Thanks for sharing…
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