Quote:
Originally Posted by pixiedust72
Hi guys, I’m the one who made the post earlier this week called “don’t want to get better”. I brought this up to my therapist today. I talked about the resistance I have to continuing to work on my mental health. My T asked if I was saying I wanted to end therapy. I said I was thinking about it but wasn’t sure. She said I could if I wanted to and wasn’t sure why I was hesitant.
It was hard. I know I didn’t explain myself super well and didn’t go into it perfectly. It’s hard for me to really go there and get deep. Basically, this might be the end of our therapeutic relationship or the end for a while. She said that if I really didn’t want to do the work, there was no need for me to keep going. My symptoms have improved a bit. I decided afterward but I’m not wanting to stop going to therapy. However, I might want to go to a different therapist. Mostly because I just felt really uncomfortable with how our conversation went.
1 I felt a little abandoned and felt like I was really on trial for my feelings. This wasn’t really her fault just my past experiences coming up.
2 I think maybe she doesn’t want to continue to do therapy past the point where I desperately need it. So since I’m doing better even though I’m not 100% where I would like to be. Maybe she’s not as interested in continuing therapy. So I don’t know if I want to continue with her. In fact, I was thinking of bringing this up to her when I follow up and let her know where I’ve landed on continuing or discontinuing therapy.
I don’t know what else to say on it. It was a little heartbreaking but I don’t blame my therapist at all. I absolutely loved our sessions but I question if maybe she thinks we aren’t a great fit. I’ve had an inkling recently that maybe we aren’t. It’s been about 3 months total. Sorry this is jumbled, I’m having a hard day.
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I'm not sure I completely understand the 3 months here - have you been seeing this T for only 3 months or have you been having the thoughts about not wanting to get better for 3ish months?
Her response does seem a bit black/white. I can see how her response would bring up feelings of disappointment and abandonment. It sounds like you had some thought/wishes that her response to your statement would be met with some type of encouraging to continue, a welcoming to her space so to say. Maybe some type of warmth - that may have led to feeling cared for, wanted... or something along those lines. It's understandable that not receiving something along those lines would hurt and be confusing.
I think what you've said here is really good stuff to bring up in therapy - letting her know that you do want to continue with therapy and how her response felt. There's lots of maybe's as to why you might be fearing or thinking about not wanting to get better and those are some really powerful things to explore, as is the feelings/thoughts that came up from her response.
The thought/feeling is not the doing - as my T often told me early on, thoughts are thoughts, feelings are feelings and we are humans that have thoughts and feel things. So, the fact that you brought up your thought/feeling about not wanting to get better is actually doing some of the deeper work that you say you struggle with - it is the doing. It's a shame that your T didn't recognize how open you were being with her when you shared that and doesn't/didn't see it as being curious as to some of your inner world. It is possible that her question/comment about you being hesitant was her way to try to explore if you were saying you wanted to quit or if you were saying, hey I'm having this feeling/thought, can we explore it. I have gotten better with my T about saying qualifiers around my thought/feelings.. saying something like -- I've been thinking about something and I'd like us to talk about the thoughts without us/T doing anything about it or with it.
There maybe another element to this exchange at play and that is your T's modality of practice. If your T is more solutions focused or skill building focused; she might be limited in the way she practices therapy. And like some other's have stated, there is an element of not 'chasing' the client and the client has to want to be there. I'm not sure you were saying that you didn't want to be there. I think your statements were around the realization that changing meant something was going to be different - loss and gains, uncertainties.... that getting better means changing/being different in some way.
Good luck with how you choose to handle this experience.