Dear Carole:

Yay indeed: I see no greater achievement than you doing a great job parenting your sons, especially coming from the childhood you had! My appreciation of you and respect for you is immense.

It is difficult to abandon such a historically embedded role of the rescuer. My psychotherapist, the only good enough therapist I had told me that he is not able to help his sister because he is not able to be objective with her. His way of dealing with a suffering sibling, he told me, was “Zero advice and zero in on their feelings”- I think these were his words, I do remember the zero part. What he meant from my best understanding is that he reflects to her what she feels, that is something like: you feel hurt… lets her know he SEES her feeling hurt but he does not try to change it, to resue her with either advice or doing anything at all.

I can see how helpful it can be to a sibling/ person to just be VISIBLE, to hear another say: I see you. I see you hurting.

And that is all he does with her. He doesn’t try to accomodate her, make her feel lovable, make her feel anything at all. All he does is say with empathy: I SEE you feel (this, or that).

As good as my ex therapist was- and he was good- he was completely aware that he is not ABLE to help his sister with anything but “I see you.”

What do you think?

anita