[Skully]

For some reason...I do not like female doctors or therapists...I am female myself!
I have no idea why I feel this way. I currently have a female therapist and she drives me crazy. It's like we have to talk about what she wants to work on and not what I want to. Very stubborn. She is more concerned with how I feel about myself when I look in the mirror then the fact that I was picked up by the neck and thrown through the window as a child?
I have issues I would like to discuss and she has her own adgenda. How do you get them to listen to you? I think it is more improtant to work on issues I am having right now rather than what I can do in the future.....know what I mean?

I have nothing against women (being one myself) I just seem to think as doctors/therapists they are more stubborn and at times more judgemental. I don't know why I feel this way. Maybe something happened as a child that I do not rememeber? Who knows...anyway...any suggestions on how to get past this hurddle?

[pegasus]

Change to a male one.

[Skully]

I thought about that right away...but...the center does not have a male therapist at this time...so I am stuck with only females...sorry I guess I should have said that...

[pegasus]

It seems clear to me from what you have written that you could do with a male therapist. Could you go elsewhere for your therapy so that you can see a male therapist? Not all female therapists are judgemental or stubborn etc but you as a client should have a choice in who you see.

[Skully]

Originally Posted by pegasus

It seems clear to me from what you have written that you could do with a male therapist. Could you go elsewhere for your therapy so that you can see a male therapist? Not all female therapists are judgemental or stubborn etc but you as a client should have a choice in who you see.

Yes, I believe I should have the choice. I am trying to get in to see a private pdoc who has a male therapist. The issue is my insurance, I have medicad and not a lot of doctors take it. So I have to go to the county mental health facility. They know you are stuck there and they don't seem to care. I like my pdoc but the therapy issue is just too much. I used to work there so I know how they think because of the comments that would be made in the offices. It's horrible.

[WePow]

I could not work with a female T at this point in my life, but that is due to my own issues I am working on - with my male T. He told me that when he started his therapy, he couldn't work with a female T due to his issues. But then he found the right one and she was able to help him heal.

If you can't get a male T, you may just need a different female T. It may not have anytyhing to do with the gender (or it may). Different people make different Ts. It has to be a solid fit in order for it to work most of the time. If that is not a choice, you will need to be VERY upfront with her (in a respectful way) and say what you said in the first post. "I would like to focus on XYZ in MY session time. It appears to me that you are trying to focus on CD and E instead. This is not working for me. How can we get on the same page?"

[Omers]

well, I don't think it is right for her to set treatment goals when you are obviously asking for appropriate things.
I read something a while ago... It used technical terms and I'm not going to but... It said that there are two categories that most peoople fall into. One group is the warm fuzzys that want to make everyone feel good and the other is more task driven, goal oriented. So it sounds like your T falls into the warm fuzzy group and from reading several of your posts that does not strike me as the kind of T that would be a good fit for you. I can't work with warm fuzzies, they drive me nuts!
My T is female but she is very direct and goal oriented. I set the goals but if they are not "theraputic" in her mind she shoots them down right away. She is very firm, blunt and honest. I think that even if a T is female but more like mine you may be more able to work with them. Male T's tend to be more goal driven types too.
I tried to work out of a county based group that took my insurance too and it didn't work out. Any T that was there long term was still there because they couldn't get a job elsewhere or get enough clients to go private practice. I am not saying that this is always the case as a friend of mine in another state had a good county T. Anyway... the rest of the T's were just out of school and trying to get experience.
With as much as you seem to know about therapy and the system it may also help to find someone who has experience working with other T's. In one session with my county T we were discussing how to navigate the system as I was "doing it all wrong". I replied with... When I do it this way I get my needs met (I get my meds) and therefore rewarded for my behavior. If I do it your way my needs go unmet... It is basic B.F. Skinner... They asked who this Skinner guy was. I then rattled off other major names in psychology to discover he knew very few of them... I was outta there!!!!

[Skully]

Originally Posted by Omers

well, I don't think it is right for her to set treatment goals when you are obviously asking for appropriate things.
I read something a while ago... It used technical terms and I'm not going to but... It said that there are two categories that most peoople fall into. One group is the warm fuzzys that want to make everyone feel good and the other is more task driven, goal oriented. So it sounds like your T falls into the warm fuzzy group and from reading several of your posts that does not strike me as the kind of T that would be a good fit for you. I can't work with warm fuzzies, they drive me nuts!
My T is female but she is very direct and goal oriented. I set the goals but if they are not "theraputic" in her mind she shoots them down right away. She is very firm, blunt and honest. I think that even if a T is female but more like mine you may be more able to work with them. Male T's tend to be more goal driven types too.
I tried to work out of a county based group that took my insurance too and it didn't work out. Any T that was there long term was still there because they couldn't get a job elsewhere or get enough clients to go private practice. I am not saying that this is always the case as a friend of mine in another state had a good county T. Anyway... the rest of the T's were just out of school and trying to get experience.
With as much as you seem to know about therapy and the system it may also help to find someone who has experience working with other T's. In one session with my county T we were discussing how to navigate the system as I was "doing it all wrong". I replied with... When I do it this way I get my needs met (I get my meds) and therefore rewarded for my behavior. If I do it your way my needs go unmet... It is basic B.F. Skinner... They asked who this Skinner guy was. I then rattled off other major names in psychology to discover he knew very few of them... I was outta there!!!!

Omers I think you hit the nail on the head: find a T that has worked with other T's. Having been in that position I think I am being more judgemental. She is new so I never worked with her (that is why they assigned her to me, the rest I worked with professinally). But I think I need to get away from thet "center" altogether. I am working on it. I will miss my pdoc, he's great. But sometimes he won't take me serously either so it is time to move on. Thanks omers for the advice, it really helped.
And yes, you are right....warm and fuzzy makes me want to projectile vommit! And she is one of those people....ugh.

Thank all of you for your advice, each of you helped me in your own way

[ladyjrnlist]

You have to feel comforatble with the T in order for therapy to work. That said, if you really can't get a male T, talk with the current T about how you feel about femal T's. Maybe you can find a way to get more comfortable with her.
I understand your feelings. I avoid all female docs and T's at all costs. Of couse, I've never really liked most women. I do have a few close female friends, but find men easier to get along with.

[Perna]

I understand it can be easier/harder for an individual to work with one sex or another but don't know that it is the sex of the therapist that matters; it sounds like it is some issue of your own that makes you not care for working with female therapists. You could choose to focus on that and learn what is there and how to make it work or you could try shifting to a male therapist but I hear a lot of jockeying around what isn't right about the therapist rather than any trying to make therapy work with what you have while you have it?

When I got into arguments with my female therapist I would generally decide to go her way since my way hadn't been working and since I was seeing her and she didn't know "my" way? I came to learn after two or three decades with and without the therapy and therapist that just about anything can be used to help me move forward toward the sort of person I want to be.

My therapist early pointed out how stubborn I was and it sounds like you know what you'd like. What happens when you ignore what she says or reframe it so it so it can be answered as you like? Being thrown through a window when you were a child is certainly life changing and traumatic but is back then, when you were a child and hashing over what has been doesn't ultimately help us much now? I'm guessing it was your mother who threw you or allowed you to be thrown through the window because of your non-fondness of female helpers?

Your therapist sees something in you and your responses that she is trying to get at and thinks will help you with her own questions and insistence on discussing things the way she suggests. I would seriously try it her way for awhile, as an experiment and deliberately as if it were my way, no holding back and wishing for something else, and see what happens? It could work, you never know.

I identify with a lot of what you posted, but it reminds me of how much I "resist" and work to position myself carefully in relationship to others. My stepmother was a "hit you so hard it will make your head spin" sort of person and I spent 30 years or more deliberately not doing what she wanted, whether it cut off my nose to spite my face or not. I would experiment with yourself and your relationship with the T you have, see how it feels to work with her rather than against and see if you can learn anything useful. Give yourself a time period, 5-10 sessions? and then re-evaluate. It is always your therapy but, like everything in life, it isn't meant to or possible to match what you want exactly. You have to get creative to get the best fit.

[Omers]

There are words in here that may trigger.

I read so many posts throughout PC about people struggling in their relationships with their T's. Over the span of 15 years I worked with 8 or so different T's. Each time knowing what it was I needed to heal. Each time being told I was resistant to therapy because I didn't do things exactly their way. I was told that the healing I was wanting was not out there, that I was a difficult client, that it was too much. I felt the pain and anguish so many here express. I went through flashbacks and body memories, weeks when I just could not stop crying and none of it did me any good. I read over 300 books on healing from trauma and some helped a lot but didn't heal. There were 2 sessions of CBT that were very helpful in managing flashbacks and body memories but they are only symptoms.
Just recently I found the "right" T in an unexpected place. Each session she greats me without expectations or an agenda. She creates a safe environment, helps me to be comfortable and waits patiently. When I need to vent we vent. When I was raped by an a "friend" she sat there with me and allowed her emotions to be out there too, just as vulnerable and just as raw as mine were, she cried with me and we had mutuality. When I ask for what I need she says "yes, that sounds easy enough". Recently we did "trauma work" around an experience I had because that was what came up that day. It was not anything I had brought up with previous T's. It was gentle and freeing. I was relaxed and comfortable the whole time. She sat there, fully present with me through the memory then softly asked "what do you need from me". I said a blanket and she got one from the closet. I reached for it and she shook her head. She wraped me in the blanket and gave me the warmth I needed. There were tears but they were tears of relief.
It doesn't have to be this hard. So many of us know what we need. We are told to ask for our needs to be met just to be told no. I read the "if you could have one thing from your T" thread. SO many of those requests are so simple, so reasonable. The ones that are not are often followed by an understanding of why that can't happen but then there is something else in there that could.
Yes there are limits, yes there need to be boundaries. There also needs to be trust and that trust must be mutual. It is just as important that our T's trust us to know what we need to heal (as opposed to wants) as it is for us to trust our T's to provide that in the healthiest way possible.
I have had a T that I would have loved to have a physical relationship with. It wasn't transference, it wasn't an unmet need... T was HOT and I was in lust. I knew the difference. I knew that being intimate with T was a want not a need and that in the end it would be harmful. Most of us CAN be trusted to know the difference. We have lived with ourselves, we know our complete history like no other person can.
It creates such pain in my heart to see so many here struggle so hard to make things work. That fight every day with all they have left of themselves in an attempt to heal. People struggling until they have nothing left. When it can be so gentle... But that would not be in the best interest of therapists or the pharmisutical companies so on we trudge.



Hmmm.... Is there a way to make the book the default pic on everything I write? dear lord I am long winded! LOL

[Gently1]

(((Omers)))

I so agree having the right therapist at the right time is so very powerful.
G1