Lots with your post that I can agree are largely unrecognized issues with therapy, not dealt with effectively by the profession or many individual therapists within it. But how to get the word out to potential clients, without the involvement of the profession and standards for consent forms? I don't know. Plus, when I have been in a bad state, I haven't known what to do for myself, and have not been in such a great state to make important decisions by definition, and so I have "reached out" to our society's licensed "helpers" and the result has been similar to what you describe.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rayne_
....the therapist continues with intense psychodynamic therapy when the client doesn't have the ego strength or the right environmental that support work that involves a high level of intensity.
There are times when a client needs less exploratory and more supportive therapy, and it shouldn't be difficult to recognize. Unless the T is as dumb as a bag of rocks...
I am so angry about my T not understanding this, or believing me when I told him this. I've always considered my T to be a very intelligent person, but I guess book knowledge is much different than applied knowledge/wisdom.
When I started therapy with him, I was severely depressed. Had major losses and life events. My score was very high on this scale:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes...e_stress_scale. Yet, he made therapy so hard for me--he couldn't give me any gratification; (validation, comforting words, etc.) because that would prevent me from 'doing the work'. That also brought out intense transferences, so it took me some time to realize what was going on.
The negative effects were so cumulative. I experienced a lot of psychic stress from reexperiencing trauma, and the constant rejection, then the stress and negative emotion caused more negative emotion, then spiral. Then I lost my motivation. Then confidence. Got more depressed--sui. Hopelessness. Spiral. Etc. Everything piled up so much, it had some kind of domino effect, now it's so beyond control it seems like I will never recover. I am so mad at him.
This shouldn't have to be taught in training. It is common sense. Why in the world would a T not consider this when doing therapy? It took me a while to figure it out, but I even told him about this. I told him exactly what I needed. Anytime I told him what I needed, he treated me like I was trying to 'get' something from him rather than the adult me knowing what's best.
People need to know this. If you are in a bad state--watch out for intense psychodynamic therapy as it can cause a lot of harm, and you can end up in a much worse state then when you started. |