[Human3284]

I dunno where this thread goes so I figure ill stick it here.

How often should you see a councelor? I tried to go once a week when I had 5 weeks off work back in March, then I got really depressed and decided to say hell no to counceling! then they called me to call back, now I am back at counceling. I have not gone in nearly a month though...figured i'd restart when I met up with therapist and psychiatrist. I met up with both today, psychiatrist thought I should have a meeting in 1 month, that blew me away! I've only had like 4 sessions since I started going 2 months ago and now it's almost like I should not bother going anymore..i'm cured! 4 sessions and i'm cured! meet once a month, the therapist said I should try every few weeks a month ago but I wanted to keep going weekly, both times they blew me away and I felt rejected!

I don't get those thoughts like I used to because i'm talking to them and I told them that. Now it feels like I wasted all that time thinking i'm going to finally do this! finally get better...then poof! let's barely talk now because you seem fine! I've not told them everything because I thought this was a long process, they have said people have come for years or decades yet i'm fine after 4 sessions. I always thought you go once a week or once every other week to talk about your life, figure out how to change things and it goes on for aslong as you want it to? I really don't wanna go back to my constant thoughts and alcohol like I used to all the time.

[Misterpain]

You should meet with your therapist as often as is helpfull to you, if you are really motivated to work through something you can go multiple times a week , there are people who are still adjusting to what exactly they do with a therapist and only go once a Month , or people who started with one goal only to find a flood of emotions and feelings hidden away who feel very vulnerable and then there are people who are pretty stable and deep thinkers, so there time with there therapist is just the "launcher " for working things out in your head , when you have put something to bed , fire an email to your therapist and tell them where you are with it every so often and don't actually see them but a couple times a year , you have to decide what will be most helpful and supportive for you, of course I would suggest that early on in the relationship frequent contact 1. To establish ground rules 2. To form a therapeutic relationship 3. For transference and forming the bond that is essential in a relationship once you have done those essential building blocks and are ready to dig in you should also have some kind of idea how you wanna work and just because you say make a routine appointment every 2 weeks , nothing says you can't feel stressed and pick up the phone and make another appointment for sooner , the relationship should be flexible and as active or resposeive as you need it , there is also something people commonly misunderstand , just because you have an appointment doesn't mean that every time you go it had to be deep painfull work, I sometimes would go to mine and get there and decide I really don't wanna do any work, so we instead of having a normal session we would go out and go shooting or we would talk about genealogy , or the unusual pictures of family members of my therapist ( he had a picture of his great great grandfather dead on a rock ,in the same frame he had a picture of himself on the same rock in modern times , the great great grand father photo was taken by famous war chronicler Robert Burnside, where's the picture of him was taken by his son , this probably sounds really weird to you but to give you some context I live not far from Gettysburg battle field and his relative dead on the rock was killed during the battle of Gettysburg in service to the union army , there are literally thousands of photos of the carnage and the dead after a battle, to actually know the identity of one of the dead was somewhat rare , let alone to be directly related by blood to them and for the picture to be owned by the man's descendants is just friggin amazing 150 some odd years later) I hope I have helped in some small way to demystify the relationship, from what you have said you are dual diagnosis with a substance abuse issue did the doctor mention a medication like anti abuse or anything to help you from straying and indulging or had that jot been discussed yet ? Medication assisted abstinence can be very beneficial.

PEACE

[malika138]

I find that when I am just starting a new medication or switching medications that my pdoc wants to see me frequently, and that is once a month as it often takes 3-4 weeks for medication to take effect. But I see a T every week. Are you saying the pdoc said see the T once a month, or that the pdoc said to see him/her again in a month? Sorry if I missed that in your post.

[Human3284]

@Misterpain Once a week or maybe once every other week is fine for me. I thought I would pace myself as I figured i'd be there for the long haul so why ask all my questions at once? she tells me she wants me to work on a plan for what to talk about. I went once a week to the therapist and she randomly said do you want to do this every other week? so I got blown away and felt like she didn't actually want me there. Now the psychiatrist said once a month, which IMO is useless...talking once a month? what next? every few months? you'll then forget why you even came in the first place. I said every 2 weeks.

@Malika138 My T said every 2 weeks back when I was going every week, but the other day my pdoc said we should schedule you once a month. I felt like it's going to get even longer to get appointments so why bother going? thought getting help was once a week or once every 2 weeks, how is once a month going to help me? i'm going to forget why i'm even coming and will probably just quit because i'll no longer understand why i'm even going. If they don't want me there then I guess i'll just quit going and feel like everyone but me is worthy of help and ignore people who tell me i'm worth it. I actually liked going and talking, although i'm VERY nervous, slur my words, keep my words short. I already said it feels weird to my T talking about my problems and i'm sure i'll always feel this uncomfortable.