No family support....

My parentals were the ones who sent me to the T i am going to....they are the ones who picked out my T....they are at fault for it all....
well i made a connection with this T....and now my parentals for 1. dont support me going to therapy anymore...and 2. think i need to changed T's and pick one with a better degree (my T is a cerified counselor...masters degree)....
everytime i go, i hear all abouttt how i should try someone new out....and "sarah do u reallllly think shes helping you? its alot of money and how can we be sure shes really doing anything for you? id call her and ask her, but she couldnt tell me anything unless u said it was okay, but i think u should try someone else out" it makes it a chore to go. so what should i do? change T's to make my parentals happy? or suffer thru this...

Well I'm not necessarily siding with your parents and obviously I don't know the first thing about your T. But I will say this I am convinced only T's with a phD and at least 20 years of experience are safe to go to. I don't like being a guinea pig to the less experienced.

if you have a connection, sarah, i'd stick with her. i got a lot of this when i first started seeing my pdoc - he had only graduated from pdoc school the previous year so was very, very new. a lot of my friends thought i should go to someone more experienced.

but hey, i'm still with him 4 years later, and i appreciate how much more willing he was to give me time and help me than some other more experienced, phd types. i can understand your parents want to make sure that this is a good 'investment', but them continually nagging at you isn't helping.

could you talk to your T about this, at all? see if she has any ideas on what to do? maybe you could have a session where your parents came in and she just debriefed them on the (very vague) areas you cover, and let them know you're making progress. they might back off afterwards?

I would ask my parents why they thought I needed a different T. That I felt satisfied with the current T and need to know why they think this isn't working out.

I don't think the degree held by the T is all that important. My T has a superior reputation in my area, she teaches people how to be a T, and presents at conferences. She has a master's degree. A PhD wouldn't improve her abilities.

I'm sorry your parents are changing their minds so suddenly.

Ok first of all, your T is YOUR T! Mom and Dad need to get over the credentials! If you have a bond with this T - don't feel like you need to go waltzing off to find a PhD. Talk to T about how they are being controlling and see what she suggests. If worst comes to worst, ask T about inviting them to a session to discuss this uncomfortable dynamic in her presence.

As an aside - a PhD and 20 years of experience does not equal better! A lot of things have changed in the past 20 years in the world of Psychology - they know more, training is different, there are new methods... it's not cool to generalize like that.

So what is going on with this now Sarah?

Sarah....

I'm not sure of this because I am not in your actual situation...but here is what could be going on....

Your parents thought you had problems, so they set you up with a T because they wanted the T to say "Yes, you have problems, you must change and be better....I agree with your parents, you are bad. We must change you."

Now that you're in T, you have developed a bond with T and she is respecting your right to privacy and not sharing your private matters with your parents. Thus...they are no longer in control of that therapeutic relationship, other than contributing financially to it. Now they are seeing that you are making progress, but they are worried because you are learning healthy ways and you are starting to see through them. This is not what they intended.

Sometimes parents send us to doctors to prove we are sick or bad, only to find out that you are okay and the issues are theirs. It sounds like now they may be feeling threatened by what you are learning and the fact that they have no control over it and no right to know what is being discussed so they want to sabotage your treatment and send you to another T who will support "their best interests" instead of "your best interests."

I hope that makes sense and offers you another angle to look at this from.

I think you need to share all of this with your T, if you haven't already!!!

Stay strong, stand up for yourself, and be your own best advocate!!!