Do you ever wonder if therapy is a bunch of crock?

I have been seeing her twice a month since last March. There were a couple of months that I only went once. Those were the times when I thought I was "okay" and didn't need to be in therapy at all. I learned really quick that once a month was not enough! And realized that I DID need to be in therapy and accept the help that I was receiving.

Unfortunately, it took me a LONG time to finally open up. I just had my first breakthough on Dec. 7th! Since then, our sessions have been totally different. I guess that is because I finally took control and told her what I needed from her. I expressed to her what worked for me, and what didn't.

She kept telling me that I needed to take more control in our sessions, but for so long I didn't know how. I didn't know how therapy worked, and I was still telling myself that I was NOT going to let my guard down and take a risk of getting hurt. Many times she would tell me "Therapy is about doing things different. You need to be willing to take a risk with your emotions."

I do now. I can get very emotional when I meet with her. This last time I told her that I didn't want her to think that I was "crying on cue" because it seems that everytime I go in there, the tears just start coming before we have even started talking about anything!

She says that is because I FINALLY feel safe enough to let my guard down with her. My mind/body has been holding back for so long that when I get to a safe place, I automatically release those tears that have been stored up for so long. I think she is right. I feel 'stupid' crying the minute I walk in her office, but I am getting used to it.

I am glad for you that you can feel safe to cry......I don't think it's stupid at all that your tears can come so freely; I think it's wonderful and healing!
I actually sort of envy you in that......I feel like if I could let go and feel safe to cry, it would feel so healing to me, too. It feels like there's such a huge flood of them in there that it really hurts.....the need is so huge, but they won't come yet....

One of the things that my therapist and I did that really shook things up a little bit was to come up with 5 words to describe the other.

It spurred a lot of discussion and really revealed a lot about some perceptions we had about the other that weren't necessarily true at all.

Some therapists do not like to self-disclose and it really can hurt to face plant against the therapeutic boundary.

If you decide to query your therapist, I would be ready to understand and respect if she doesn't answer all of your questions.

Did you hear other people saying that therapy was stupid?

Squiggle, therapy breakthroughs are what we all look for and its awesome you had one that opened the door to a whole different, deeper kind of therapy. I'm sure your T is very thankful for this too, she can finally start to help you to heal.

The thing about crying is that usually once we start, we can't stop. After my big breakup from my boyfriend of almost 6 years in Nov. I couldn't stop crying. And this is after being with my T for about 10 months. For some reason, I couldn't even cry when I was talking about my dad's death..it was like I was numb. My breakup is what really opened up the flood gates to EVERYTHING I needed to talk about. Now I cry all the time because we are finally talking about things that I've needed to talk about for so long. The only problem I have is that my T doesn't really do anyhting to acknowledge my tears, he just stares at me and waits for me to continue....which is very "shrinky" but sometimes I wish he would say something or hand me a tissue or something! If your T is fine with you crying then keep crying...you obviously need to get it out and she seems like she handles it well.

Sometimes I feel like therapy can be a bunch of crock, idolizing someone who is just a normal human being...but when I start to feel like that I think that they are trained to help me and if depending on him helps me then that is what I'm going to do.

yes, this....the depending and the trust are integral to the healing!