I made an extra session with my therapist because something in some of the reading he gave me really triggered some serious depression (The Happiness Trap). I was embarrassed about the extra session, because I was afraid he'd think I was too needy or bothering him too much. But as it turns out I'm not even sure he realized it was extra. He shares a practice with several other therapists and they have a secretary who seems to have just put me on the schedule without making a big deal about it. Anyway I didn't bring it up and neither did he.

I did bring up how depressed and angry I got when I read the book. I think that I misinterpreted some of the things that the author was saying about depression. That's one of the problems with self-help books. You can't ask for clarification from the author.

I also think though that I was reacting to some other reading he had given me earlier about something called tapping. It is based on some theories of acupuncture, which I am not a fan of. I told him that I was angry that he had given me something that was not empirically based. He told me that he had other clients who were helped by it. I told him that I figured that was probably the placebo effect and that I didn't think it was likely that the placebo effect would work on me since I was so skeptical of the whole thing. I pointed out that there were some very critical research articles on tapping out there. We pretty much agreed to disagree. He doesn’t really care why it works if it works for some people. I’m not going to do it. I did feel heard, so that was good.

Somehow we started talking about black and white thinking. I told him that I didn’t think that was a huge problem for me. As an example, I told him that even though I thought that tapping reading he gave me was stupid and I got angry at him about it, I still thought he was a good therapist. I can hold both thoughts in my head at the same time. He just sort of looked at me. And then I got to thinking about how just a few minutes before we had been talking about how when I overeat I have a tendency to tell myself what a horrible, no good person I am. And so I had one of those things that therapists call “insights” and realized that while I don’t have a problem with that black and white thinking thing with other people, it is possible that I do with myself. Why can’t I believe that I don’t like when I overeat, but that I’m still a decent person at the same time? I said that and he agreed that would be a good thing to shoot for.

Time was up, so as I was leaving I asked him “am I fired yet?” That’s as close as I can get to asking him if he likes me or if he is angry at me. He told me that he doesn’t fire people. They fire him. He said that he read somewhere that the average number of sessions a person usually goes to is about 8. I was thinking that I was probably going to shoot his average way up, but I didn’t say it.