[Dani]

Lately my therapy sessions have been very unproductive and I feel like everything is just stuck right now. Over the past year I've made a lot of progress with my anxiety to where I am getting out of the house more, and the panic attacks are a lot less frequent. But I'm at the point where I feel like I've shut down, somehow disconnected from my T. I can't talk during therapy anymore, I feel awful for wasting her time, I almost think I should just quit therapy because if I can't talk and open up to her, then what's the point? I don't know what's wrong with me, when I'm with my close friends I can talk just fine, but once I walk into that office I clam up and am afraid to speak. She knows I'm having trouble talking, so usually she'll ask questions to try to start a conversation, and sometimes I answer her, but other times I just pause for a minute and just say I don't know. I know this has gotta be frustrating for her, but it's just as frustrating for me because I wish I could tell her everything on my mind and just let it all out. I even started crying a bit today during therapy, because this is frustrating me so much.

This same situation happened about 13 years ago when I was seeing a different T when I was a teenager. The beginning of therapy went fine, I felt comfortable talking about myself, and made a lot of progress, and then I just stopped talking, and even though I wanted to talk to her, something inside me just told me not to say anything. And she got extremely frustrated with me, and several times asked me why I bothered to come to therapy if I wasn't going to talk. And soon after that I quit seeing her.

And now with this new therapist it seems like the same thing is happening, and I want to talk, and tell her everything that's on my mind, but when I try to, I can't speak, and there's just a lot of awkward silence. I'm sure a lot of others have had the same problems and I'm wondering if anyone could give me some advice on what to do.

[phoenix7]

Can you print out your thread and show it to T? or write down what you want to say - I wrote down things to take with me to T when I couldnt tell her and it really helped get things going after I felt we had stalled.

The other thing I do and this sounds really dumb (and feels it) but I close my eyes and answer when the words dont come - it takes a while but the words come then

I hope you find somthing that works for you

[lifelesstraveled]

((((dani))))

wow, it seems like we are in the same situation, though I have been in T for about 6 months now and still have hard time opening up to T. I finally told T that I'd don't know why I can't open up to her. that everything is telling me not to even though my brain knows its okay...

can you talk to your T about not being able to talk? maybe you are moving into more difficult territory? T and I talked about it and ways around it like journaling and sharing it with her. I like what P7 said about printing up what you wrote here and take it to your next appt.

It's sooo incredibly frustrating not being able to open up trust me i am sooooo there right now. T and I are working on it though. I am sure if you bring this up with T and how it's affecting you then you two can figure out a way around it? Even if you start by bringing what you wrote to T.

[SpottedOwl]

(((Dani)))

As frustrating as it might be right now, I believe that everything that happens in your relationship with T has a meaning.

Lately I've been working on being able to have more emotionally intimate relationships. My relationship with T is probably *the* most emotionally intimate relationship I have in my life right now. I build the skills with T, and then it seems to flow into the rest of my life.

Reading your post made me think of intimacy...*if* your relationship with T is like mine, then maybe you're afraid of opening up more? It can be easier to just chat with friends, because it is often not as personal and intense of an interaction.

Let yourself be frustrated and try to figure out what being stuck 'feels' like, and what message it has for you. Even if you have to sit a whole hour without a word, just let yourself experience this 'stuckness' with T in the room.

Hang in there...be kind to yourself..and don't give up!

[velcro003]

Dani, I feel ya! I think I've been stuck for some time now in therapy, and I think my T has reached the end of her rope She told me this past session on tuesday that she was finding it hard to know how to be helpful. I can't stop thinking about that sentence, and how frustrating it all is. I don't know how to be anyone other than me! I feel like I should be doing therapy better, but I don't know how to do that, or what "better" even is.

Then I was thinking that what if after all this time (15 mos), it isn't some perfect "fit"? I compare her to my GP because my GP is ridiculously sweet, and young and so nice...like I just want to keep her in my pocket wherever I go. So then I think that if my GP was a therapist, would I open up more to her? And if I would, does that mean my therapy now is just crap? I don't want to start new, and if I hadn't read this board, I don't know how much I would be thinking about if we have to fit somehow. I would just be worried about the fact that I'm frustrating just because I am.

[FooZe]

Originally Posted by Dani

Lately my therapy sessions have been very unproductive and I feel like everything is just stuck right now. Over the past year I've made a lot of progress with my anxiety to where I am getting out of the house more, and the panic attacks are a lot less frequent. But I'm at the point where I feel like I've shut down, somehow disconnected from my T. I can't talk during therapy anymore...

Originally Posted by velcro003

I think I've been stuck for some time now in therapy, and I think my T has reached the end of her rope...

(Dani and velcro003, pardon me for coming so late to this thread. I got here by thread-hopping, seeing who'd replied to some thread I'd been following, and what else they'd posted, and who else had posted there, and where else they'd posted... and here I was.)

I haven't been in therapy myself in quite a while. When I was, it was through a public program, potluck, two residents (new MDs) for a year each. I never found out what my diagnosis was but my presenting complaint was anxiety. I remember being pretty reactive at the time, rarely trusting my therapists not to trigger me and send me home still triggered, so mostly thinking twice before bringing anything up in session, or bringing up the least "loaded" stuff first to see how they responded.

Both there and on later occasions when I had issues on my mind that I was having trouble getting a handle on, I found myself anticipating: "If I say that this (or this, or this) is where I'm coming from -- what will they make of it? What diagnostic box will they put me in, that I won't be able to climb back out of if it's not a good fit? What might they tell me I now have to do, "or else"?

I think the one situation I was trying to avoid at any cost was the one where I might present a T with something he didn't understand well or wasn't that good at dealing with; I'd suspect that he wasn't being a good T; he'd tell me that instead, I wasn't being a good client; and since he was the expert/boss, it would be his opinion that would stick. In fairness, I don't remember either of my Ts actually pulling this on me but (a.) I was working pretty hard to avoid it and (b.) other advisors who weren't Ts, later did.

What I missed most (though I didn't discover this until much later) was having some informed choices available: if I choose to go this way, here's more or less what I can expect; if I choose to go that way instead, here's what that's likely to look like; and if I start off in one direction and find I don't like the scenery, I can back up and try another without being faulted for indecision or something. And of course no BS such as, "You can either straighten up, fly right, and do it my way, or end up a burnt-out schizophrenic ten years from now."

Anyway, I was wondering (Dani and velcro003 especially): is there anything in particular you expect/imagine happening if you do bring up an issue that you're currently stuck on, but you start out in the wrong place, or on the wrong foot, or your T doesn't seem to get it -- so your T doesn't respond in a way that seems to work for you?

[sky dancer]

Sorry to hear you're feeling stuck. Usually when I feel stuck I'm ready for a breakthrough. It's not always pretty.

I'm finding that adjunct therapies---movement classes--art and poetry--meditation and a new medication are helping me enormously.

The changes in the last week alone have been profound.

Hang in there and don't give up.