I guess my first thought was that if your mental health issues are balanced by the use of Ambien, what does your therapist hope to address in therapy? What are his goals and are they yours?

My second thought is since you found a psychiatrist that works for you, are you in a system that will let you stay with him for as long as he will see you?

In regards to learning in psychotherapy: for me, my journey, and the mode that my t/we are currently using, it is more about replacing memories of painful outcomes from experiences with memories of positive outcomes from experiences - all in a pre-verbal part of the brain. There is lots of talking around the experiences both historical and current. There is a lot of pushing through embarrassing requests, wants, thoughts to experience something that is healing, supportive, loving, and being attended to. Ok, typing that up really doesn't seem like it makes much sense. I guess, what I am trying to say is that the learning is not intellectual in nature for me so typical education methods don't work. I can intellectually know all kinds of things, such as I do this because of that. The knowing has to happen in part of memory that isn't so concrete - implicit and explicit learning.

I think once the knowing has happened we just change and it filters out into our daily life.