I have found that trust is not all that is necessary in a T patient relationship. I had a psychologist for over 6 years that I trusted to listen to me & was someone to talk to without bringing out alot of crap that is inside of me. Yes, he protected me against some of my stupid things I did. While going through the trauma that went on with the home RN that was taking care of my mother while she was dying with cancer, he was there to talk to by phone, but when it was all over, he had no concept of the trauma & fears that I actually went through that keep haunting me.

After getting my mother into a nursing home & I ended up lying in the hospital with a central line providing me with the TPN to give me the nutrition I needed to stay alive, I was provided with a psychologist via my GP that had privilidges to practice at the hospital (a hospital without a psych ward). The new psychologist was there during the time just before my mother died & then I left the hospital for the funeral (I arranged while in the hospital). When I retruned to the hospital to continue the central line, the new psychologist came back to continue talking to me daily. I didn't even know him to trust him, but I found out in those 2 months more about myself from this new psychologist than in the 6 years I spent with the nice psychologist I trusted & had been going to for so long.

For some reason, the new psychologist had the "ability/talent/or whatever" to get my feelings & thoughts out of me that no one else has EVER been able to do over the past 10 years. Once I was medically stable, I was released from the hospital with the hope that I would be able to turn things around with my normal life & the psychologist & my psychiatrist I had been using.

They also decided that I needed to be inpatient for ED & when that turned out to be caused by the PTSD instead & couldn't find a place to be treated inpatient, so I continued going to my previous psychologist until I realized I just wasn't getting anywhere except worse. All my doctors said to find a new T including my T since he realized he didn't know how to deal with my problem. I just can't seem to click with anyone and I was getting nowhere with him. My energy level is so low that it's taking so much out of me to do the searching. For me it takes more than going to someone & trust comes over a couple of sessions.

I really think there is something more than trust that needs to be there since this new psychologist just came in & the chemistry was there. I can't understand what it was that was there immediately. I haven't experienced that feeling before nor have I since. My need for a psychologist / T is desperate & I am at the point where I don't think I can do it without one. Physically I'm getting worse not better, but I feel like all I am doing is hitting my head against a block wall...trying & just getting no where.

I think there needs to be more than trust between the patient & T, but I don't know how to define what that "?" is & I don't know how to find it. Unfortunately I am desperate to find someone who I can actually work with since my GP & I are not liking the necessity to put me into the hospital to get me physically well almost monthly. Finding the right T is not easy & when you are psysically slck caused by a mental problem, it even seems to make it harder.

I agree that trust is definitely necessary, but what that other part of the chemistry is I can't seem to find & just can't seem to get there again. Has anyone else found that there is something more than trust that is necessary? I'm not just picky it is just not easy for me to talk to many people. It still is beyond my understanding how someone who I never knew before could just come in, get my trust immediately (which my other psychologist had too) & get me to talk about things no one else has ever been able to...I just don't understand what happened or how to make it happen again.

The search is giving up,
Debbie K