I have had well over a decade of psychotherapy without being aware of any improvement. I am currently in therapy again, not because I want to be, but because it is the only way I can get a prescription for Ambien. In fact, my psychiatrist is also a psychoanalytically oriented psychotherapist. So I am pretty much stuck with this. But very frustrated. I really need to make psychotherapy work, but I don't know how to do this, despite many years as a patient.

Now, online when I look for advice about how to make therapy work, I often find something like this: "You must apply what you have learned in therapy to your life." This raises the question: how does one learn anything in psychotherapy? My career is education; I've spent years teaching. So I think I know something about learning, but it beats me how one can learn anything in psychotherapy. It's not a class. Can anyone help me with this?