I have a problem when the psychologist only sits there & listens without any feedback. The psychologist I had in California for many years before I moved 3 years ago it was about all he did was listen. Even when I was going through the trauma with my Mother & the home care person, all I got was his ear when I really needed some real support & suggestions (even if it was only ideas) on how to handle some of the problems I was experiencing. When I was in the medical hospital for a month at that same time, my GP provided me with a psychologist daily in the hospital & he seemed to be good at feedback & asking questions to get me to think things through.....but the problem was that they had their idea of what was wrong with me (anorexia...not stress related like it really was) & really didn't hear what I was really saying either (grrrr), but it felt so good to at least to be asked questions that I realized that was seriously what had been missing all those years. The psychologist I had been going to had back surgery while I was in the hospital & was not practicing for awhile after that, so I went back to a psychologist in the town where I lived.....nothing but invalidation for the trauma I had gone through & was still experiencing depersonalization symptoms from. Only thing worse than someone that only listens on one that only invalidates.

I had only bad experiences with T's/psychologists from 1994 on.....also hated the one that promised to "be there for me until I got better"......ugh.....what a line!!!! Within 2 weeks, I wasn't seeing him anymore. I didn't give them much to work with at the time though because I didn't want to get better & just wanted life to end which I kept trying to do. Not much they could have done for me even if they wanted to at that time I guess.

When I moved to KY, I went to one T in the large town, thinking that would be a good thing & they took Medicare but charged a huge amount on top of that, so when I ran out of money after 2 months, I quit going to T......but after a year & when fall hit, the time of year when the depersonalization seems to haunt me, I tried to find another psychologist. I went to a T that was recommended by my friend. She was one that really gets in there & asks questions & provides her patients with much food for thought. Intellectual therapy seems to be where I feel the best actually....looking at my thoughts & trying to analyze them.....just where my mind is at.....brain is just a computer that needs to have the program debugged....but have to find out the path that's broken before it can be fixed......T/psychologist asks questions, provides thoughts & works with the reality of my mind & helps me figure out where the problems are so I can come up with what works for me to fix it....ugh, my engineering technical mind.....what a pain but it's the way my mind works best). I thought I found the perfect match until my first session with her when we talked & she realized that the problems I have were too complex for the T training that she had......wow, was I disappointed as she really seemed to have the technique that matched my needs & she also took payment on the sliding scale.

So I got a list of other people she suggested might be able to help (all were psychologists). None took Medicare so wouldn't take me as a patient except one guy who said that I could pay what I was able to pay (almost nothing?). I decided to give him a try. All he did was brag about the treatments he had done & then told me how much he charged per hour & that I could take as many years as I needed to pay him off. His philosophy on life was way out of line from where I was coming from....sounded like a lot of BS to me. I never paid him fully for that first visit. I chalked off the rest of the money to it being an interview of him to see if he would work (NOT, NO WAY!!!!!). It took me almost another year before I decided to give the local community mental health treatment center in the neighboring town (not about to go to the one in my little town which is located right in our little down town area).

I had a recommendation for one of the psychologists being really good there but my concept of community care was so bad from California that I procrastinated about doing anything about it until right before fall hit again. I finally called & was assigned a psychologist (not the one that had been recommended but another one). My first meeting with her went really well. I was so pleasantly surprised, I couldn't believe that I could find anything of quality through community treatment. They also lowered my payment & waived my deductible & with all the problems I was having, she also got one of their T's to come out to my farm on the weeks that I wasn't able to get there so she could work on the issues I was dealing with around the farm so that my psychologist could work on the deeper things that I need to work on. I have never experienced such a quality psychologist in all the years since 1994 of dealing with therapy. She doesn't invalidate the things that I am dealing with, she asks questions that I have to think about to really answer honestly & provides thoughts (not demands but ideas that I can take or leave) when I am feeling so overwhelmed that my mind shuts down. The ideas are just enough to trigger my mind into functioning & coming up with it's own ideas if I don't agree with her's or if I need to adapt them to the reality of my life. They offer a DBT group at the facility which she suggested that I go to to at least try it. They have pdoc's but she understands my problem with meds, so is only pushing my getting back onto the supplement that really worked well from my California Pdoc (Omega 3 - EPA extra strength).

It's amazing to find a Psychologist who is really working with ME, not just her thoughts of what works in general but really working with the real me & reality, not just her preconceived notion of what she thinks.

What I realized is that I just needed to keep on trying until I found the right one (trying not to get frustrated, angry, or give up before I actually got to this point).

Sometimes the best ones are hidden, very well disguised in the middle of a place where we would refuse to even look because of our preconceived ideas. I hope that you will be able to someday take a risk & end up as pleasantly surprised as I ended up being. I know that the chances of this happening are low, but we never really know until we try & keep on trying (along with trying not to allow discouragement to take over).

I can so relate to how you are feeling about finding a psychologist. Now that I have the experience of having a good quality psychologist, I know how bad the others I went to really were.

The worst part is that sometimes all our analyzing & minds eliminations can end up eliminating the one who is just right.

Hope that you will be able to come up with the right Psychologist that fits the method that you need for therapy & not the text book methods that many don't know how to go beyond in order to help. Those that step outside the box & work with the actual needs of the person are few & far between.

Hope you will be willing to talk yourself into continuing to take more risks until you are able to find the right T/psychologist that really clicks with what you need. It isn't perfect all of the time even then, but for me, it seems much better than all the other options.

Who would think that I would ever find the best psychological help in a Podunk town in the middle of KY when I lived right in the heart of UCLA & other schools that claimed to have the best training & most up to date current treatment's available. One never knows where the right help will be found. It seems like it's just a matter of continuing to search until we find that right person with the right personality & method of treatment that works. I always had a hard time giving them a one time trial unless it was obvious they weren't right......I always felt like I needed to give them a chance to see if it would be better the next time.....but I realized that wasn't going to happen & it's OK to judge on the first meeting. I also guess after enough experience with looking for the right psychologist, we do learn how to judge accurately almost immediately.