Quote:
Originally Posted by 1914sierra
I don't always believe what a therapist says. In fact, generally, my beliefs are so set in stone (especially when completely irrational) that it takes years of therapy for me to break down those walls of irrational belief so I can finally discover the truth about myself. Notice, nowhere in there did I say I take what my T says about me as truth just because he says it. What I do though is perhaps take it under consideration, very tentatively, and using my own faculties, put up my beliefs against his over time and make my own decision about it in the end.
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What Chris said.
Also, I know that some of my ways of thinking are very distorted - for example, the idea that I'm not allowed to be angry and that if I am, I should take it out on myself. I find it helpful to hear a more normalized view of things - anger is normal, I'm allowed to feel it, I don't need to punish myself for feeling angry. I may not immediately believe my T, but I take her words in to consideration, and think about them and see how they might apply to me.
I don't implicitly trust my T, trusting her took years to build up, and we still have disagreements. Not everything she says to me feels right for me...sometimes, if I think on it, I may see that her view is less distorted than my own, and sometimes, I know that she's just off base and I tell her so.
I feel like my T knows me very well, and sees who I really am, so I trust her opinion on most things, because I've taken the time to let her see the real me and she's taken the time to get to know me. My T has a wide array of experiences in dealing with others with similar issues to draw upon when providing feedback; I don't have that same experience. I only have my own experiences and those are the experiences which caused me issues in the first place!