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imapatient · Mar 28, 2010, 02:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deliquesce

impy, i'm tired - so to be brief:

Thanks Deli for putting in black and white the basic steps.

Lots has happened. This is going to ramble as I’ve composed it in three different chunks and then delayed posting because it is just, well, rambling.

Talked to NYC T about it; went well.

Talked in group about it--good. One person pointed out that I was worried about making the final decision rather than focusing on the specific steps right in front of me--I was letting the big picture anxiety interfere with the immediate steps.

My group T gave me the name of someone. Group T is a supervising psychologist for a major health system here, so he oversees tons of T's spread throughout the state. He had hired the guy in question.

I've started looking through various locator services on-line--Psychology Today has one.

A major problem I run into is that there are relatively few male T's (looking for a male on multiple T advice; long story). It's at least 5 females to 1 male ratio.

I've gotten some advice at variance: Local T thinks I need to work with someone who's very behavioral oriented, NYC T thinks I need that plus some strong analytic approach--psychodynamic.

The one my group T suggested is primarily behavioral but also psychodynamic. He said he also specializes in csa, something that's been recommended (as for getting in a program for), but hard to come by so far.

Wow. It's difficult. You only get to learn so little about these T's on-line. I'm surprised at the low number of PhD T's out there, my preference for various debatable, personal reasons--spawned by suggestions from some T's, but maybe it’s outdated advice now). I haven't really looked for a T in more than 20 years and it's a different world now. A lot of T's have degrees from places that weren't producing many therapists back in the day; a wide swath of the MA-level (who constitute the vast majority of those available on the search sites) are from 2 programs that were minor-league way back, and most PsyD's are from a school that barely existed back then. Even though it's a big metro area, people with doctorates from standard full universities are quite rare. Unless they're less likely to sign up for these services. Where do they practice, or are there fewer of them these days? The local T, who’s a PhD student at the big university here, has few connections in the practitioner community—because she’s an academic (top 5 school) and the profs are fairly clueless about practitioners; only 1 of them is licensed to work with people, so she's of little personal help in coming up with names. Am hoping to get more names from group T, but just the one so far and I think he might tend to refer within his same company.

Lots of stress over this. At base are 2 fears: 1. Being back where I was 14 months ago before I got hooked up with NYC T again (after 9 years, 4 of those with no T at all) and started day treatment etc. Very, very bad, dark, scary places. 2. Fear of ending up with a bad (unethical—in a grandiose way) T (like before) and wasting years of my life with him. The stress of sorting out so many variables and my fears made me snap in an outburst, a kind of out-of-body experience that has me freaked out. I’m really on edge. I don’t know why I feel so fragile, but I feel like some other important contacts and relationships are slipping away, too.

Have had weird sleep/wake thing going on. Newly on Klonopin in past 6 weeks “as needed.” I’ll take it—but only half .25—and then it knocks me out for 2 days. Then I have insomnia for a few days. When I get so anxious again I’ll take it again and the cycle repeats. Don’t feel like I’ve had a normal night of sleep in a month. Obviously something going on there, but won’t see pdoc for another 2+ weeks (he's impossible to get into see outside of the regualr meeting). Klonopin helps calm me down when I get super-anxious and the ruminating starts getting pretty bad, but the sleep/insomnia thing is a killer, and maybe it’s weakened me overall hence my extra worries and snapping. There are so many variables involved in a person’s life at once; how do you know what is what? Hence, what to do? Maybe I need the Klonopin b/c the anxiety is so overwhelming that it’s helping, or not.

Next up: Talk to NYC T Sun at 6 pm. See local T on Tues. Group on Wed. Talk to one friend about the stress and my snapping on Wed, another at some point, though we did right when it happened a little bit.

I do have an appt. with theT that my Group T suggested, but it’s not until mid-April. He has a PsyD from a full-on, regular university, not a professional school of psychology. Thought PsyD's were usually from the latter kind of schools. Ah well. Can't find much about him on the internet. With going the PhD full-university route usually there's a longer paper trail, e.g. a dissertation, etc. But he's a blank slate mostly. That's probably better for a first meeting.

I'm really wound up right now. Apologies for the scatteredness of my thoughts.