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Originally Posted by OnlyOnePerson
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I think a lot of my problem in therapy was that the therapists were trying to break through defense mechanisms and get me to challenge unhelpful thought patterns and all that. Only, in retrospect, the therapists were exactly wrong. We're talking things like trying to challenge unhelpful behavior patterns that were keeping me from getting support from my family, when the truth was that my family was abusive and the things the therapists were trying to get me to challenge were the ones that were keeping me safe. Or with the recent ADHD diagnosis, therapists were constantly trying to get me to challenge the supposedly distorted and unhelpful idea that I might actually have something different about how my brain works. Turns out that was exactly the truth.
But then I'd talk about this and people will say things like, therapy is hard and you have to be open to new ways of thinking. Or that a therapist who just agrees with you all the time isn't helpful. And you shouldn't quit therapy just because you're uncomfortable or don't like what the therapist is saying, because if you do that you'll never be able to get better.
The trouble is these two events in therapy look exactly the same from the client perspective, so far as I can tell. And most stuff on keeping yourself safe in therapy seems to start from the assumption that you're already in a basically safe place and able to confidently tell the difference. When the fact that we don't understand or aren't sure is often what drives us to seek therapy in the first place.
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I'm sorry, I don't think my first reply was very help so let me see if I can relate it more to your specific experience.
What I've learned, specifically, in the last few months on this forum is that when therapists and clients can stick through the misperceptions that happen
on both sides, including in the case of the therapist a misdiagnosis, then something better in terms of understanding or relationship or perceptions -- or some things else IDK -- can happen. Yes, the client needs to stick through it and accept challenges to our way of looking and doing -- it's hard. BUT the therapist does, too. When they can't, then . . .it can end up badly for the client.
Unfortunately I, too, couldn't recognize when it was a therapist-problem, in part because of issues I went into therapy, I believe. The last therapist did eventually recognize that she had a problem, apparently, but still couldn't deal with it, so she bailed. That has been bad for me, and I have not chosen to look for more long-term or relationship-oriented therapy to "help" with that. Some people have, in what seems similar situations, with results they feel to be good.
So, from that, therapy is "hard" when you're challenging stuff inside yourself that may be unhelpful or painful. It's "bad" when -- I don't know exactly how to describe it -- the therapist is screwed up and gives you screwed up ideas and advice and neither client nor therapist can see that.
Often you can't tell, in advance.