I have tried therapy on and off for a while now. People would always get frustrated with me and tell me to “get therapy,” but I never knew what I was actually supposed to be there for. And I tried a service like BetterHelp before (can’t remember what this one was called), but it just sucked ass and I’m not sure if the people on there were even licensed professionals.
I finally started going consistently with this one therapist, but I frequently get frustrated with her for not giving me actual coping skills or techniques. One of her favorite things to ask me is “how can you deal with X?” And I get frustrated and say “I don’t know.” Because if I fucking knew I wouldn’t be in therapy. She seems to do a more meandering talk therapy style thing with vague ideas of DBT and CBT thrown in there. She’s not giving me enough skills to not get fired at work. She helped me go through a difficult time, but now that that’s over, I’m back to square one.
So I found a therapist who specifically states she does DBT. Over time I have learned that my core issue is emotional dysregulation which is treated by DBT. She told me she follows this one workbook. I got the book. It’s great! It gives you a zillion and one coping skills. But after having several sessions with her, I notice that she spends the entire time just going “in chapter 4, this happens. Then in chapter 8, this happens” while my eyes just glaze over. Today the session ended 35 minutes early because she only vaguely contributed to me talking about a problem I had today.
I have been seeing both therapists concurrently until my deductible resets in January.
I just am so endlessly frustrated with the entire mental health industry. I’ve seen so many different therapists. I’ve really tried to do any exercises that they have given me. I’ve tried multiple different psych meds (trying a new one now actually!).
Nothing works. Nothing has changed about me. I’m the same person with the same problems. And nothing I seem to try makes a lick of difference. I try so hard. I try a zillion different things…exercise, getting good sleep, eating right, therapy, meds…nothing changes me. Nothing helps me.
What in the everliving fuck am I missing? Do I have to go through 30 different therapists before I can find one that can help me? Am I just doing therapy “wrong”??? What am I supposed to be doing here?
Through all this, I’ve found that telling someone to “go to therapy” is almost offensive…it just absolves others from caring about you and makes it sound like you’re not willing to do the base effort in bettering yourself.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for taking the time to read.
I think I went through maybe a dozen or more therapists. Most of them disagreed with the previous therapist. All of them changed my prescriptions immediately while scoffing at my last prescription. One of them did an outstanding job, but then they left my area. I still think about the things they told me. They were right; I was doing a good job of getting myself through that bullshit, and that bullshit was tough for anybody to go through. Even though I didn’t do any of the things they told me to do, I know now that they were right, and I should have. Sometimes I think about tracking them down to say thank you, but I’m pretty sure that’s the beginning of more than a few horror movies.
Keep looking if you can and need to. Sometimes, just looking will help you realize what you need, or don’t need. If you know what that is, then you’re halfway to where you need to be.
You’re working on you, and that’s more than most ever bother to do.
i’ve found that therapy is good for practicing social skills, and explaining your feelings to other people. these are generally valuable skills, but they lack in what you’re looking for - trying to get yourself to a less reactive state
have you read a book called “the body keeps the score”? it talks a lot about PTSD/CPTSD, the causes, and, most relevantly, the treatments. if you want to stick to therapy, i would suggest EMDR, it seems to have better outcomes for people dealing with trauma. for stuff you can do today, i would practice 4-7-8 breathing and yoga. down the line, i would recommend looking into neurofeedback. it helped me a ton. but i think breathing + yoga are sort of the slow, manual path that neurofeedback takes you down, and are worthwhile in their own respect
good luck in your journey, i hope you find this helpful. one day, may trauma be as easy to treat as any other condition humans can be afflicted with
All I can say from personal experience:
I had to find a therapist who specialized in cult survivors. The other ones I just traumatized. Keep searching if you haven’t found the right fit for you.
Daily meditation helped me as much as the right meds did, and in a totally different way. The meds make it easier to meditate, but meditation let me become the kind of person who doesn’t automatically react negatively to stimuli.
It takes 21-66 days to re-route neural pathways. So now that you’ve gotten a basic overview from reading the book, maybe picking one thing out of it to work and focus on for 2 months straight will help more than trying to juggle all of the tips simultaneously.
Emotional disregulation is a hard one. Have you seen examples irl of ppl reacting to things in a more regulated way that you can admire and emulate? If so, it might be cool to pretend for a minute that you are that person in that situation, reacting the way they did, and try it on for size, feel how different it is, and mentally practice in made up situations reacting with calmness.
Good luck 💜
Yeah thank you. It’s tricky because with this second therapist I actually did search with my new found knowledge of what my issue is. But it doesn’t seem to be panning out.
I’m just a bit disappointed that this second woman doesn’t say anything else in the sessions beyond “hey I love chapter 7! You’re gonna love chapter 4! Here’s a spoiler from chapter 6!” Even when I try to relate something to my personal experience she is just like “yup I love that technique in that chapter” or “I’m not a huge fan of that particular technique in that chapter” It’s kind of like talking to a wall.
The book is absolutely fantastic in that it actually does give you ideas of what to do, but yeah they are a bit overwhelming.
I like your idea of just practicing a couple at a time and figure out if they are working for me. The second lady essentially gave me the same tip so I’m gonna try to be a bit more focused with it.
Cool, let me know how it goes, it turned out to be a good experiment for me, so I’m crossing my fingers for you!
therapy doesn’t change you.
you change you.
i’ve known people in therapy their entire lives. they don’t want to change. they just use therapy as a means to further justify their shitty personalities.
think of it as if you wanted to run a marathon, but every time you ran three miles you gave up. but you kept telling yourself one day you will get there, but it’s so hard and at mile three you give up. Then you decide marathon running is stupid and pointless and there is no way it you will ever be able to do it. This is what you are doing.
you can’t run 26 miles if you can’t run 5. it takes a long time to get there.
I was going to say this. The reality is you can do well with a mediocre therapist, because it is actually 80% about you. You do the work, you answer the questions, you decide, you change.
To me, it sounds like the first therapist was trying to do the right thing. Help YOU think about what is going to ACTUALLY work.
But instead you kept hoping they would say a magic word and fix you. It doesn’t work like that. Nobody will know you better than yourself. You talk to them for an hour, and might be bullshiting them, you are with yourself 24/7.
The way to do therapy is to think. If you don’t know the answer to the question “How do I stop gooning?” Then the work is to figure it out. Like a puzzle. You might need to ask more questions: Why don’t you know? What can you do to find the answers? What would it look like if you did have the answers? And so on. But those are quesitons for YOU not for the therapist.
The therapist is there to help you think and give you options.
I mean like for example one thing she essentially asked me was “how can you deal with the fact that people will sometimes hurt you and be mean to you? Your only two options are to not communicate with/communicate with them superficially or to find a way to compartmentalize it.”
Which like ok that one was a really good and fair point. But I cannot for the life of me figure out how in the world to do the latter. I have had hours long conversations with ChatGPT to try to come up with ideas. I can’t. I’m stupid or defective or both.
If you can’t figure it, that’s not the answer. That was my point. Try something else. Take a step back. For example, “why does it matter that people are imperfect and hurt you?” “why are these the only two options?” “Can someone else see a different path?”
See if maybe those are problems you can solve more easily.
That is my point. Someone can give you things to try, but you have to try and evaluate yourself. No human or machine can do that for you.
If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Try to solve the puzzle a different way. That’s what therapy or counseling, or even coaching is supposed to help you do. But not do it for you.
I’m confused. Obviously that’s not the answer. I can’t figure out the answer. I have went through this one concept for hours and hours with ChatGPT in a zillion different ways for many different days. I am never able to come up with a solution. I just need like a little bit of a push in the right direction as opposed to just telling me to figure it out and leaving me to it. If I wasn’t an incompetent dumbass crazy person then a therapist could probably be a lot more vague with me.
They aren’t being vague with you. You are missing the point. Asking and answering questions IS the work. Like reps at the gym.
They won’t give you a little push in the right direction because thats up to you. They can only point directions and tell you to try, like working out, different techniques, talk therapy, etc.
If you genuinely believe you can not use these as exploratory tools, you might want to talk to a psychiatrist instead. Not in a mean way, but maybe the rigid thinking and looping can be helped with medication. Then therapy might be more effective.
You don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m spinning my head around and around and trying to come at some of these questions from all angles. I spend hours and hours trying to figure it out…bouncing ideas off of ChatGPT, wracking my own brain, working without ChatGPT to come up with new ideas.
I’m already in my head entirely too much and was already trying to dive into there to figure things out before therapy. It just made things worse and ended up with me spinning in circles in bizarre thought loops and ideas.
I cannot for the life of me come up with my own solution to my problems, no matter how many hours I put into it or how many different angles I try to come at it.
Is it really such crazy of an ask ask for me to want a therapist to vaguely help to slightly point me in the hope of any direction at all whatsoever to even start to begin to figure out any of my problems at all? Like even just giving me the hint of an idea? Or like some sort of coping skill? Or some sort of new way of looking at something that I haven’t managed to think my way into yet?
Here’s an example of a convo in therapy.
Me: I’m having a lot of trouble with X. I can’t figure out how to deal with it.
Therapist: How do you think you should deal with X?
Me: I don’t know. I can’t for the life of me figure it out.
Therapist: You need to figure out how to deal with X.
Like I just want some sort of direction at all.
Am I just too mentally challenged for therapy then??? I just don’t understand what else to do.
I have been trying a lot of different medications, with my provider, yeah. I’m not sure how a medication could make my thinking “less rigid” like you say.
Idk what to tell you if thinking about something when you’re asked a question is too hard.
You said you’ve been given direction. Literal workbooks, but you insist they don’t work. I’m not sure what magic word or secret you think therapists have that will fix your life, but it doesn’t work like that.
I suggested meds because then the responsibility is with your provider, not with you, which seems to be what you want. You can talk to them about how they might help you.
Idk why everyone in this thread is telling me I am not trying. :( I am trying so hard. I do all of the exercises they tell me. I practice the skills. I listen to what they tell me and try my very hardest to digest it. I have been attending therapy for many many months now and I have been really truly trying. But I am still the same person.
There’s no magic moment when you Become You. It’s gradual and takes years and most of the time it’s effective it’s also apparently unrewarding, and there’s no way to tell the difference between “this is useless and i should move on” and “this isn’t immediately rewarding and i should be patient” except to experience the results. With experience it does get easier to tell the difference. At this point, I know within 3-4 sessions with a new shrink whether it’s a good fit or not, but I’ve been at this for decades by now.
I can say that the session ending 35 minutes early for any reason other than one you agreed upon ahead of time is extraordinary and almost certainly unprofessional.
It’s okay to say “You’re not helping me, I need X, Y, and Z from now on” and if they can’t provide that then just move on, or if you’re sure just say “You’re not giving me what I need, I’m moving on.”
I also dunno about all this workbook shit. At that point you might as well join a support group or get on an app or shudder talk to AI for a helluva lot cheaper. In fact, I’ve had several support groups that were leaps and bounds more helpful than the shrink I was seeing; more honest, more direct, more empathetic and experienced. If someone handed me a workbook and told me to do “therapy” out of it I’d drop it on the floor, never return, and refuse to pay for that session. Therapy is done with a therapist, afaic. They’re welcome to recommend reading or whatever (and often that helps), but therapy isn’t a fucking worksheet, it doesn’t follow a formula or a flowchart. I’m willing to bet $20 most of those zillion skills are just so many myriad reframings and permutations of the same two or three principles.
A good therapist doesn’t just ask you how you can deal with X (though that is in fact an important part of it), a good therapist works with you to help you figure out how you can deal with X, including making suggestions of their own. A good therapist doesn’t just watch you sputter and flounder on the high sea asking, “jeez looks like a tight spot you’re in there, how ya gonna get outta that?”, they throw the therapist’s metaphorical equivalent of a float and bring you aboard and place you (to the extent possible in the circumstances) in calmer, shallower water. Conversely, a good therapist also knows your strengths and will challenge you when they know you’re not living up to them, whether through laziness or mental block or you just hadn’t thought of it that way or whatever.
Fuck anyone who implies you’re not trying hard enough or that a mediocre therapist is good enough. You can tell good and well for your own damn self that it ain’t workin; TRUST YOURSELF. Yes, it’s important that you do most of the work and yes, some people or some issues can tolerate mediocrity, blah blah blah. Is that working for you? Seriously ask yourself. Keep trying 'til you find the right one. But don’t drop the one until you’ve picked up another, if possible. less-than-ideal therapy is usually better than no therapy at all.
Oh, and medicine. It’s very important that you get the right medicine. In my experience, I know within 2-3 weeks whether and how a medicine is working and when a psychiatrist tells me “lets check back in 2-3 months” It’s almost always more to do with their scheduling than anything of theraputic import.
I can say that the session ending 35 minutes early for any reason other than one you agreed upon ahead of time is extraordinary and almost certainly unprofessional.
Granted, I didn’t exactly try to stop her from hitting the end call button. But when me trying to talk about my experiences was just met with “ok well I don’t like that part of that chapter” or something, I just didn’t know what else to say. We stared at each other for a while before she was like welp see you in a few weeks! Idk…I did try to contribute. It just wasn’t met with anything overly meaningful. She also spent like 10 minutes talking about how her dog needed extensive treatment and she had a not great day. Like I get that sucks but I would have rather you cancel the appointment than to just not listen to me and then end the call 30 minutes early.
also dunno about all this workbook shit…
I agree with you to some extent. I was excited when she showed me the book because it’s actually a gold standard book for DBT. BUT I was hoping that it would be a supplement to the therapy, not just her telling me how much she loves the book for the entire session and not really say anything to me when I relate things back to my own life. The way she talks about the book all day, you’d have thought she wrote the thing lol!!!
A good therapist doesn’t just ask you how you can deal with X (though that is in fact an important part of it), a good therapist works with you to help you figure out how you can deal with X, including making suggestions of their own. A good therapist doesn’t just watch you sputter and flounder on the high sea asking, “jeez looks like a tight spot you’re in there, how ya gonna get outta that?”, they throw the therapist’s metaphorical equivalent of a float and bring you aboard and place you (to the extent possible in the circumstances) in calmer, shallower water.
Thank you so so much for saying this. Everyone in these comments is assuming I am not working hard because I don’t even know where to begin to deal with X. All these comments effectively saying “introspect and figure it out” isn’t helpful to me when that’s all I do and I still can’t figure out anything!
I kind of feel like I’m a teen just learning how to drive. And instead of explaining how the car works, your parent is just like “drive to that stop sign there.” And I’m like…ok but I don’t know how to drive yet can you show me? And they are just like “well figure it out. Go drive to the stop sign.”
Everyone in here is chastising me for being unable to figure out how to reach the stop sign on my own. I am trying as hard as I can, but I can’t get there without being given at least some idea of how to turn on the car, put it in gear, etc. I get that eventually someone could learn to drive that way, but it’s gonna take them 20 times as long.
Fuck anyone who implies you’re not trying hard enough or that a mediocre therapist is good enough. You can tell good and well for your own damn self that it ain’t workin; TRUST YOURSELF. Yes, it’s important that you do most of the work and yes, some people or some issues can tolerate mediocrity, blah blah blah. Is that working for you? Seriously ask yourself. Keep trying 'til you find the right one. But don’t drop the one until you’ve picked up another, if possible. less-than-ideal therapy is usually better than no therapy at all.
Thank you very much for your kind words. It has been very disheartening for me to hear on a mental health community of all things that I am just not trying. I honestly didn’t expect that kind of response from half of all of the people there. It certainly isn’t motivating or helpful to me. It just makes me feel even worse.
This second time around, I was searching specifically for a therapist who does DBT because that helps treat “emotional dysregulation”, but now I’m wondering if I need to look for a trauma therapist instead.
I look for competency first, not any specific methodology; A doctorate is a good sign but no guarantee. Published papers are even better, read through some if they have them, thought that might correspond to academic competency instead of clinical. I find that the specific method they employ has a lot less to do with success than the person administering it or their experience. Lots of diverse experience is good. Current shrink did some years working in prisons, some years working with disabled veterans, some years working with the blind, some years working with the elderly before she settled down to private practice. I find it allows her a much more open-minded and empathetic perspective just from having seen so much of humanity. Always send them an email before you propose to book their services, that will tend to give you a decent idea of their communication, especially if you can get a decent email chain going, though of course some people are terrible emailers or texters or phone callers but are great in person so don’t take any of these as gospel but as clues. I straight up would not consider seeing a shrink over telephone or televisual unless I’d already established an excellent rapport with them in-person.
One thing I always do now is, If I decide to book with them, intentionally find something to criticize. Was I made to wait 5 minutes past the appointed time? Is the chair in the room uncomfortable? Is there a distracting smell in the room? What you criticize doesn’t matter as long as it’s true and valid, falsity won’t do here, just be honest and kind. It should ideally be something they have control over, but I don’t nitpick. So, “I’d prefer the shades drawn” is probably a nitpick (unless you’re photosensitive or something) but the chair is something you’re gonna be sitting in for an hour. What you’re looking for is not the solution to the critique, but the response to the critique. Are they dismissive, apologetic, aware-but-there’s-nothing-they-can-do-about-it, do they accommodate you, etc. This will tell you a thousand times more than their website blurb about their style. It’s testing whether their ego can handle criticism, and whether/how far they’ll go to accommodate your needs. I test potential employers this way, too. You can tell a lot about a person by their reaction to honest, valid, kindly-expressed criticism. You’ll never be able to tell whether they will be a good fit for you from this, but you can tell from an bad reaction to criticism that they won’t be a good fit.
hope this helps
edit: Oh, and ironically I find that it helps to have someone who is different from you in important ways. With a friend, you want someone who you share a lot of common interests with and by extension probably think pretty similarly to. With a therapist it’s practically the opposite: you want someone who has Therapy in common with you, and can see things from a different perspective than you do. There’s such a thing as too much of this, but in general a perspective that significantly diverges from your own is a good thing.
It’s difficult to offer specific ideas, as we don’t know what country you from. Based on the notion of ‘insurance’ I’m assuming the U.S.
I’m hearing a lot of frustration in your therapy journey, and there may be some confusion on the role of a therapist.
A licensed and trained therapist will have been trained in a method (Modality). This particular therapist seems to have a grounding in something that’s person-centered adjacent. The theory in person-centered (outlined by Carl Rogers) is that it is the client who is best placed to know their own solutions.
The process works by exploring the world from a client’s perspective, and helping them see and articulate solutions that will work for them. This type of therapy is useful for the broadest category of people when done well. It is not useful for everyone.
Emotional Disregulation, as you have described, has two primary sources.
- Medical: a client cannot, on their own regularly their emotions due to issues with hormone production. This requires a doctor or a psychologist to diagnose.
- Developmental Trauma: a client has been disempowered with emotional regulation during key development stages. It may be compounded by adverse experiences when showing emotion.
However, it can also be a mix of both, and one could be feeding the other.
A therapist is going to seek to help you explore your own self-understanding, to see which areas are a struggle, and help support a client towards readiness to change, and change itself.
You say in your writing that your looking at support in your job, I wonder if there’s some anxiety there.
You also ask about tips on dealing with things. Those kind of responses are better supported with a more practical modality, CBT, DBT for example. These require practice, and repetition. Lots of repetition. It is no suprise, therefore, that your therapist revisits the same sections of a book.
I wonder, however, if the mixed use of person-centered and practical therapies is not functioning here in a useful way. I wonder if it would help to approach different therapy sessions seeking different outcomes. Exploring CBT/DBT with one, then to explore if there is anything underlying with another.
Generally, a client should only with with one therapist at a time, however.
I hear your frustration with the process, and the desire to moved forward. From your writing you’ve already taken the biggest step in finding therapy. Hopefully you can find a therapist that works for you.
Ah so let me clarify some things.
I did a lot of research and found that DBT therapy is supposed to be the “gold standard” for this sort of thing. My current/old therapist does use some of those concepts but in too vague of a way for me to be able to find it more than incredibly mildly useful. She doesn’t use a book. She does talk about the trauma thing like you said which I find interesting and I guess does look at more of the root of the problems which might be useful in its own way in the long run.
I researched and found a therapist who does specifically does DBT. She told me about the workbook and it is basically just a zillion different skills to practice! Which is great! But I noticed that in practicing these skills all the time I just don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere. The intensity of what I feel is the same and under extreme reactions my brain shuts off and I have difficulty accessing the skills. It actually is useful for mild scenarios. The thing is that DBT therapist doesn’t actually do anything during the sessions like my current therapist does. She is just like “I like this chapter in the book. I like this concept in the book.”. I have tried to talk a little bit about a specific issue I had and tie it back to how I succeeded or struggled to use said methods, but she just doesn’t have anything to really say in response and we just end up staring at each other.
My new plan is to see the old therapist for conceptual things and work through the workbook on my own.
I just wish there was some way to make my emotions less intense because nothing helps me with that. It’s why I started therapy in the first place and also why I’ve been trying various psych meds. Idk.
Yes I have workplace trauma tho even lol.
A wise person of my acquaintance once said ‘Feelings are Newtonian’.
What they mean by this is that you feel in reaction to things. The strength of your feeling will be related to what happened.
For a simple analogy, if you get stabbed, it hurts. If you never take the knife out, it will always hurt, and every time someone pokes near it, or the knife itself, it will hurt. If left, the wound festers so the pain becomes so intense.
When it comes to emotions, we feel them in response to something. If you have a wound, a trauma, it will intensify the emotion. Of course, emotions are quite a bit more complex than this.
The strength of emotion is one thing, how we deal with it is another. These are two different approaches. DBT for dealing with how we respond to them, counselling for the intensity of the feeling.
Of course, you mentioned at the end that you were trying various psych meds. If your emotions are connected to a medical response, counselling can still help reduce them, but sometimes it requires a perscribing psychologist to manage it
Therapy takes time. It can also take practice. Keep at it!
Yeah I noticed that even while sometimes I am able to actually use these DBT skills when minor stressors happen, it doesn’t at all help the intensity. And for larger triggers, the intensity is still immense and it doesn’t make the intense pain go away. It might make me react in a slightly less externally obvious way, but it still hurts so much and isn’t improving my life. And when the intensity is crazy high my brain just seems to totally shut down. :(
I hear you saying how that intensity is immense.
You are on the right journey. Therapy is not a straight line, more of an upward spiral. It might seem like your not making progress, yet you’ve already seen how the techniques are working as intended - they have reduced your outward reactions.
The intensity will need more self exploration in an emotion-based therapy like person-centered, or psychoanalytic. You may find some support in emotion-based group therapy, for example, anger management or anxiety support groups. The loudest emotion will help to identify a relevant group. While these groups are no substitute for therapy, they may help you in the journey if your location makes therapy inaccessible or too expensive.
You’ve expressed that you shut down even the intensity it too much. Being able to articulate that is an important step. Hopefully you can continue your journey in a way that’s helpful for you.
Usually “get therapy” from an acquaintance means “I am completely in over my head and am unqualified to help with this”. The tricky thing is that not only does not all types of therapy mesh with the same person but there are also a lot of shit therapists out there to muddy the waters even more. Some brainstormed ideas are: maybe find an actual phd psychologist and see if they are any better, look into group therapy (which was my first kind of therapy and my brother swears by it), and maybe take a basic psychology course to better understand what options there are out there.
Totally agree. It’s like any professional relationship… it can take a while to find the right fit. It took me years to find my current therapist and it’s been life changing.
Keep trying, OOP… It might have taken me a while but there were lots of really good ones along the way.
I dont know if it’s any consolation but I was also disappointed in better help and also found that therapists are generally not good. Ive found the people who tell me to go therapy have either never been or are the kind of person who doesn’t use critical thought frequently.
Do I have to go through 30 different therapists before I can find one that can help me?
In my experience, pretty much, yup. Most of them suck for one reason or another, most of the ones that don’t suck aren’t a good fit for you specifically, and most of the ones that are a good fit for you specifically are already booked up.
It took years before I started to see actual results with my therapist. Not that she isn’t a good therapist, but sometimes you literally have to work through one tiny problem at a time until you’re actually changing your daily actions consistently across the board.
You want your therapist to change you. You want your therapist to tell you the skills to make your life magically better…
Stop. Stop running away from your responsibilities. They don’t get to tell you what to do. They don’t get to control you. They aren’t your master. With time and luck, they can help you find better ways of handling things, if you’re seriously trying to make that happen, but that certainly isn’t happening now.
This is an offensive as fuck comment. I am putting in all the effort with these things.
there is no right way to do therapy. you are open to it being useful and that would have been the only barrier. have you been direct with these therapists? this is your mental health. you are allowed to be an advocate for your needs. tell them you think this isn’t working for you and you’d prefer to talk skills building. you can tell a therapist when you’re not getting any use out of their current approach.
however, yes, unfortunately the mental health industry is underfunded and underpaid and therefore understaffed. there is a shortage because more and more people need therapy now than ever. you may have to cycle though a lot of bullshit before finding something truly worthwhile. it sucks and is unfair.
I tried to be very direct with my current therapist and her response was pretty unhelpful. She seemed to get mildly offended and then gave me a zillion specific therapy terms as if I just said she wasn’t knowledgeable or something. That is not at all what I said to her and I was a bit disappointed in her response.
I started off very direct with the second and I really liked her initial response, but she doesn’t seem to say much to me during the sessions other than “I really like X chapter in the book. I really like Y chapter in the book. How are you liking the book?” and I try to respond but there is only so much I have to say. I’ve had 3 sessions with her and this is what each of them are like.
So my goal for the moment is to keep my current/old therapist and then work on the workbook as a supplement.
that sounds like a decent plan for now. i would recommend perhaps in the future moving to a different therapist if the pattern continues. but i think this would be an okay way to handle things.
I’ve had a multitude of therapists in my life, and honestly it’s been a crap shoot of success; mostly crap.
But my current therapist is awesome. She’s not your traditional therapist, and if I’m being honest she’s not the type of person I would be interested in listening to for advice. That is to say that she and I are polar opposites with our personal belief systems. But, somehow, it works. We mutually respect each other. I don’t always agree with what she says, but I get what she is trying to say. And that’s what matters.
Listen for the intent, not the literal words. And if you feel your therapist and you aren’t vibing, find another therapist. It’s like dating. You’re not always going to match with someone. That’s okay. But staying with them because you don’t want the conflict of rejection, or the idea of starting over, is very wrong.
Slow down. Think about what you want from a therapist. Short of that, remember what has not worked for you in the past and use that as a guide going forward.
Gove them, and yourself, grace while you figure it out. I mean it when I sag there is no right or wrong answer here. Do what’s best for you.
Apologies if this breaks some rule, i’m on mobile so I can’t read them.
if you really want to skip to the heart of things…just do lsd, it will show you who you are. with one very important caveat…if you have any repressed trauma serious PTSD etc. then don’t, not everyone is ready to see themselves and if your not (and if you don’t have good trip-hygiene, good setting/mood/company are key. and of course always test your drugs). hell, you can even find therapists out there that support dosing ontop of therapy sessions…asking therapist about this would be a good way to flush out the bad ones imo
and hell, if you don’t feel up for a full trip (can last 8-10hrs) even just microdosing and going about your daily life will have you thinking through those same old stuck thoughts in a whole new way.
Today the session ended 35 minutes early because she…
Bullshit. You got angry at something she said and ended the session yourself. Then you came here to complain about it. For you, the work to do in therapy isn’t about learning skills because there’s no step-by-step manual for learning how to confront your own bullshit. Therapy happens precisely at the rate a good therapist can get you to see your own bullshit without rage-quitting every session. Other therapists you have tried phone it in because they can tell you aren’t willing to do the work. If you found one willing to upset you, go back and apologize because you found a real one who is good enough to handle you.
What the fuck are some of these comments???
I did NOT get angry with her at all whatsoever. I did NOT end the session with her. She kept babbling on about what each chapter is about and then when I didn’t know how to comment on it she was like let’s schedule the next session and we did and then she said ok see you then! And then she ended the call.
I am willing to do the work. I do all the exercises that are given to me. I think about all the concepts they tell me. I practice these coping skills in the real world both when nothing is happen and in distressing situations. You don’t fucking know me and assuming I’m not willing to work is the farthest off you could ever fucking me.
Hey, you’re doing the work. You’re in mid battle right now, and there is more to go.
It takes time, a lot of time, to practice new skills in the real world. It won’t happen very fast, because behavior change is complicated.
Keep doing what you’re doing. Therapist can be difficult. It took me a couple years to find a good one. I’ll share just recently, I had a med prescriber intake. To spare details, she asked all the questions that put me in a vulnerable place. I cry through family history and she got detailed, more detailed than I should of answered. Then, at my most barren, she rejected my case and recommended elsewhere. It took everything I had not to explode in that moment, but I didn’t. Private practice is a shit show. I cried in my car before leaving. This woman embarrassed me, then rejected me. Ugh.
I’m sorry you are having a hard time. It’s okay to hop therapists, your comfort comes first. That’s good you are working the workbook, and I’m here to tell you, your efforts are not for nothing. You’ll get there if you don’t give up on yourself, but have patience.
Hey man I’m really sorry that happened to you. Why in the world would a prescriber do that to someone? What an incredibly bizarre experience. I had a bit of the opposite experience…when I first went to a psych provider to ask about possibly trying meds, I was surprised at how readily they want to give me some to try without going into too much detail about my life.
I hope you’re working on that issue you seem to have where you like to assume you know people from a single post on the internet- and then proceed to ridicule them as a result of it- with your therapist.
Nailed it!
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One of her favorite things to ask me is “how can you deal with X?” And I get frustrated and say “I don’t know.” Because if I fucking knew I wouldn’t be in therapy.
She’s not a mind reader…
Tell her how you do deal with it, even if it’s not ideal.
Then she’ll lead you to talk about other ways you could have handled it. If you’re getting frustrated and lashing out just talking about a hypothetical, what the fuck are you doing in real life?
You want to react well in situations, and that’s great, and the first step is getting help.
But I think you need to adjust expectations. Before you can react well, you have to not react shitty.
Aim for that as your first goal.
If you’ve never read the Tao Te Ching, it could actually help. It’s all about just letting go and not working against yourself, bend don’t break basically.
Why the fuck does everyone think I’m lashing out at all of these therapists? These are not at all the type of comments I was expecting in this thread. I get frustrated because I don’t know how to deal with these things and need guidance on how to do so. I don’t get openly angry with these people. I am in therapy exactly because I don’t know how to deal with things and don’t have the skills to do so or know where to look. Telling her how I deal with it doesn’t make sense because the point is that I don’t deal with it. I DO express to her how I react and what happens.
Why the fuck does everyone think I’m lashing out at all of these therapists
That’s something your therapist will explain…
Like, my entire comment was about how you need to chill out first, and now go back and read your comment again and see how you reacted to it
This is why people you know and interact with in real life keep telling you to see a therapist
I’m sorry, dude. I don’t react with anger at others like that in person. I mostly just get erratic and self sabotage and cry. Please understand that the Internet is a different sort of environment.
I was just frustrated with many of the comments in here saying I don’t want to try and that’s why I’m not making progress.
So I read yours the same way. I’m sorry. I just feel like I’m trying so very hard at all at this is all and to read so many comments that I’m not trying hard enough is a bit heartbreaking.
If you’ve never read the Tao Te Ching, it could actually help
It’s not gonna solve all your problems, but that books thousands of years old and helped millions and millions of people deal with what you’re talking about.
It’s a really short (and cheap) book, it’s worth a shot.
I just feel like I’m trying so very hard at all at this is all and to read so many comments that I’m not trying hard enough is a bit heartbreaking
Like I said, don’t jump straight to trying to react appropriately. Focus on not reacting poorly in the heat of the moment.
Break it down even more if you want. Setting small frequent goals so they can be reached consistently is going to solve that issue where you feel like nothing is done. Like, a first goal can be just stay calm the next time you get heated. Not a permanent personality change, you just need that one good interaction to hit the goal and your brain will give you dopamine.
Keep it up long enough, and it becomes normal. Then you make your goal slightly harder to get more dopamine. Think of it like a video game, because they’re already designed to exploit how our brains work.
Quick edit:
But don’t talk about it. Talking about achieving goals gives the same dopamine hit. And why so many people fall into the trap of just talking about stuff
The Tao gets into that as well, but science has caught up enough to know why.
