Quote:
Originally Posted by Etcetera1
I would really like some help on this.
Is it possible I am just incompatible with standard therapy?
Because the way I view things and the gut feeling I have is that if I dropped emotional detachment and anger and instead tried to just make myself feel depressed and weak and low and lonely and to try to think all those irrational negative automatic thoughts and idk, all those kinds of things, it would make me LESS functional in life. It would lower my self-esteem and would make me weaker and give up on things. Rather than come at it from a place of strength and help me heal and become more functional.
The things I have been told by various therapists:
- I have a wall (?? I have no idea what they mean by this)
- Maybe I have dismissive avoidant attachment style so I can't receive help (?? I've been trying to get help for years)
- I need to learn how to have safety about difficult strong emotions, feelings
- I need to learn how to be vulnerable and when and with whom to be vulnerable with
And then I don't even understand what safety or vulnerability means. I don't understand how a bubble bath will help me or what I should need to self-soothe about. Can I not be emotionally open from a place of strength rather than defenselessly and helplessly vulnerable?
It all feels like an alien world, all the talk of a safe place, self-care, self-soothing, vulnerability, feeling depressed helpless anxious etc.
What does that mean and what do I do with all of this?
Is there a therapy where the therapist helps you not dig so deep that you get very low and nonfunctional or extremely detached going deep in the Detached Protector (Schema therapy concept). Or where the therapist accepts your anger, while you're not attacking the therapist with the anger, of course.
I would just like some place where I would be "hypnotised" enough so I can just vomit out horrible emotions and "images" and then not even remember having felt them and having vomited them out.
Like a therapist who's someone who makes the mood good around and then hypnotises me and then it's ALL ACCEPTING NO JUDGMENT of the emotion vomit and images vomit and of my anger and everything and anything.
Is there such a thing? Or anything remotely similar?
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I once asked this same question to one of my therapists...
Thier answer to be about me was...
there is no incompatibility in standard therapy. standard therapy is walking in a room, sitting down and talking then leave. anyone can talk. if someone is able to communicate to their friends a problem they are able to walk into a room, say hi to a therapist and talk about their day, their life and their problem area's
the hard part isnt whether someone is compatible with "therapy" for any one can do it. the hard part is finding the kind of therapy that a person is............willing .............. to do.
willing and compatibility are two different things. anyone can do any kind of therapy but do they want to, do they want to put in the work, do they want to change their behaviors and how they think.
willing is the hardest part of therapy. if someone goes into therapy already with a preconceived idea that nothing is going to work of course nothing is going to work because they have already decided not to talk, not to try what is suggested.
when someone has already decided nothing is going to work thats called putting up walls (a stop sign) .
putting up walls means a person is not talking, not trying, has attitudes that are sabotaging therapy time. there are many reasons for putting up walls aka putting up the stop sign, digging in the heels and not doing the work. going into a room and telling a complete stranger your deepest problems, thoughts and emotions and then making changes to your life to make your life better is a scary thing. its hard, a person has to be very strong to look at their own life, their problems and be willing to make the changes.
then she told me that she / therapists are not mind readers, they cant make things better for me, if therapy constantly is a failure for me to look at me not them. they can supply the room, the time and the objective point of view, a shoulder but I am the one that has to be willing to "do" therapy by talking and being open to discussing what my problems are. if I am not willing to do that the problem is not the therapy is incompatible. its I really dont want to do therapy.
then she had me take a week off and think about why I wanted to be in therapy and what I wanted to accomplish by doing therapy, set 3 goals to accomplish during therapy. when I came back be willing to begin working on those self - set therapy goals. If I could not come up with 3 goals then I was to just write a page on why I want to be in therapy and that will tell me what my goals for therapy are.
By doing this "homework" we were able to find out why I had not been willing to do the work, set goals and "do" therapy. through doing the work we were able to add in to therapy all kinds of different therapy models. Some therapy models worked for me and some didn't.
there are many different therapy models out there. (CBT, DBT, REBT, ACT, IFS....) lots of them out there. Some like me use a bit of this and a bit of that depending upon what my problem areas are.
But standard therapy (going into a room and talking with a therapist, psychiatrist and so on) does not have incompatibility, anyone can do it.
my suggestion is maybe you can sit down and decide why you want to be in therapy and what problems you want to work on. then go to therapy with that in mind. if you find you cant talk in therapy write down why you cant talk. this will give you an idea of what your "walls" are.
as for hypnotizing your mental problems away that wont work. its actually a mental problem and many physical health problems, when someone does not have emotions and abilities to think and feel.
Hypnosis is just a deep state of relaxation that you put yourself into, a hypnotist is just a guide that tells you how to relax yourself. they can make suggestions to you when you are deeply relaxed but you are the one who does the work, if you are not ready to make the therapy changes its not going to happen even under hypnosis. if you are not ready to talk about your problems its not going to happen under hypnosis.
example if you are not ready to talk in therapy to your therapist you wont talk to a therapist while hypnotized.
Hypnosis is just a deep state of relaxation. people cant do things while under hypnosis that they cant do when not hypnotized. since you are having problems talking with your therapist when not hypnotized you will have problems talking to the therapist when hypnotized.
here is a trick one of my therapists told me to try as a way to see if hypnosis would help me...
during therapy close my eyes and take some deep breaths then open my eyes and start talking about a problem. if Im not willing to deeply relax myself and talk about my problems in therapy a hypnotist was not going to be able to help me stop smoking. I had to be willing to deeply relax and talk about a problem before hypnosis would work for me.