Hey Christy, I think good for you that you're open to even playing with the idea of therapy again. Sounds like the last ones were bad experience.

Most of the therapy I've done has been very much in the now, like talking through things going on in my life and how to best handle them. A lot of it is about getting to the root of emotions and leading to a deeper understanding of myself. Relating directly to bipolar, this helps me learn to really reason things out. For example, a couple days ago I got panicky that I was going to fall into depression again. But I had awareness that I was tending towards catastrophic thinking, black-white thinking, and almost like the urge to smoke after you've quit, I rode it out, used my skills learned in therapy and didn't fall. I let myself have a day of crying and kept on going.

Regarding going to childhood issues, I did have one therapist who really wanted me to remember something from my childhood, something anything. The memories weren't there and I was annoyed she wanted to go there. So if that happens to you, you're the client, tell them you don't want to go there.

Your last question, do I blame everything on the mental illness? No... I don't... at every session with my pdoc, she asks me whats going on around me in addition to how is mood. So that has really helped me have a larger perspective to the triggers affecting my mood. It's like being able to see that I'm a tree in a forest, not the only tree, like I don't have to feel so alone. I'm not sure if that makes sense?

I hope this helps, I think everyone can benefit from therapy if they're into it. And you need to find the right person to work with and all that.