The purpose of questions from t

I actually was told by two different CBT people (I have been to many different types of therapists this year - I just kept going back to the one I disliked least and she was more psychodynamic) that it would not help me/be the right approach for my situation. Thanks Soup.

Thanks. I am going to stop ruminating with PC and T now. I realize it is an exercise in futility. I do not think of therapists as authority figures - just screwed up people who chose to do this for a living so they could figure themselves out. They do (I hope) have more knowledge about psychology than I do and I just wanted their knowledge, not their alliance or caring. The one person who has been unable to help me out appears to be me. I can usually understand ideas and structures, and my inability to do so with therapy is one of the many reasons I am so frustrated with this third therapy failure.

I have to disagree with your reason why therapists become therapists. No, they aren't perfect people but I believe their desire to help others, as well as a deep interest in the field of psychology, are the reason(s) why they become therapists.

I don't know why type of therapy you are in, but since this therapy has been most helpful for me, I often (maybe too often) recommend psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Maybe it is just the ones I know. i agree there is usually some notion of wanting to help, I just think, and the ones I know personally thisnis true for, their initial motivation is figuring out their own screwed up lives or families or whatever. My recent one said she was psychodynamic and eclectic and I lasted about a year. I tried a psychoanalytic one about 15 years ago for six months and it was even worse for me. One of the things I check out now when interviewing them is to make sure they are nothing like that one. I am sure it is good for some people, just not me.

Some therapists were damaged (my T's mother died when he was 6), helped by others, and chose to pay it forward. Knowledge is found in books. Healing is attained from a relationship with a doctor. YOU KNOW very well I was referring to a person in your past who failed you, NOT YOU YOURSELF - interesting that you STILL refuse to acknowledge that person's influence or even existence, but prefer to claim sole responsibility.

If I may channel MCL's Cold Creepy T, you DO have a belly button, don't you? You don't have to BLAME anyone, you just talk about it.

And the fallacy in your thinking that you just want the T's knowledge, is that the T doesn't know YOU. And that's not my original thought, that's what a T had to tell me when I presented the same argument as you. If you're going to fail at therapy, you should at least fail where no one has ever gone before. Show some pride! And then lead the way further.

I am wondering why you decided to see a T?

Because it felt like I was going mad. Outside I was tense and anxious and jumpy for absolutely no reason and inside it felt like total chaos. I was not acting weird other than appearing very stressed and not sleeping, but I did my job fine, paid my bills etc. only those very close could see anything going on, I was not putting anyone or anything in jeopardy or anything like that, but internally it felt like I was in great peril and was going to be annahilated. And the knowledge it was all unreal was only serving to intensify the feeling being out of control.

Hey Stopdog,

I've been reading your posts for a while with interest. You seem to be very logical and like to argue your points rationally and like to be right. Nothing wrong with these traits. I too have a very rational and businesslike and ordered part of me as well. If I didn't have a business plan for things or a way of communicating and doing things efficiently, I couldn't communicate with certain people in my life. When attacked or in fear, I can be coldly logical and efficient with the very best of them.

The problem is that most people do not communicate or relate this way. Life is about connection. Connection to all sorts of people. I have had to learn how to "feel" people and put others needs above my own and how to occasionally let others lead. I'm not a plumber and don't give a rat's ***** how to make the faucet work. I'm not DNA specialist, a physicist, a singer, a refigerator repair person, or a cabinet maker. It's called division of labour. I do what I do well and run my business well and know some things about art and mechanical things and science, but nobody can tell me how to run my company better than I do. I know all of its weakenesses and strengths perfectly well. I make my money there so I can pay the expert cabinet maker and the plumber to fix my spigot, make my cabine, and I pay my T to do his job too.

That does not mean I cannot question or desire us to work as a "team". But ultimately, HE went to college for 6 years for a reason and hopefully has done his job for many years and has a reason for the myriad things he does. Part art, part science, part reason, part emotion, part experience...But ultimately, therapy is about fallible humans and each is unique and complicated and intricate and fragile and our T's are approaching us to ask hundreds of questions to gently probe and find out who and what we are about. Some will be dead ends and some will lead to further pointed questions to help the T know where there are areas that can be worked on and some are just to facilitate "connection".

You are not an expert. You are logical and full of reason but are haunted by emotional reactions and miscues and pent up feelings that you do not even RECOGNIZE. Yet you continually and forcefully try to apply logic and some ill-founded sense that you know better than the experts that you are paying to help you. You will not let them help you and just answer the questions honestly without trying to psychoanalyze each and every question. You are not a therapist.

Do you re-measure ever measurement that your cabinet maker makes. Do you re-drill every hole that your handyman makes? Do you re-analyze every blood test that you have done? Do you re-examine ever sodder the plumber makes? Check every connection your car mechanic makes at the shop?

Either accept that they have reasons for asking what they are asking and doing what they are doing that you have no need to understand or explain to you, or therapy will indeed never work for you. It is all about connection and you are not letting them connect. You have admitted that it is scary and uncomofortable to you. That's the whole point. Being vulnerable and letting someone help you. Being connected. Feeling and not thinking so dang much. If your problem is with FEELINGS...why are you so surprised by this?? Back off and let them do their jobs and get honest in your heartfelt answers and get the help you need. Quit arguing with them about the "validity" of their questions.

Of course this is just one more person's opinion and you know that everyone has one just like everything else.

I wish you only well in your journey to healing and self-realization..

Wysteria Blue

You could stop doing that. Relax and enjoy talking to them like in a normal relationship sometimes. It is hard to do that though. Everyone has a hard time doing it because it is scary when you know sometimes the therapist is analyzing you. Just try to do it as best you can.

I think wanting to understand it better, efficiency, and concern about whether it is working is equal to needing to figure it out ahead of time
and be in control. She is right about that.

The mistrust slows down the therapy and keeps it from working as quickly. I think the idea is to slowly get comfortable and trust so you can let the therapist get to know you and understand how to help you.

This sounds like a very painful way to go through life. You are using very extreme words to describe your internal life, such as "going mad", "total chaos", "great peril" "going to be annihilated", "all unreal", "out of control", etc. And yet your responses to dealing with what sounds like a very serious problem do not match up. You insist that the approach you are taking to your therapy is the right one, despite having multiple failures to prove you wrong, and absolutely no evidence that your approach has helped you at all. And then when quite a few people gently suggest that perhaps it is you who needs to change both your outlook and your behavior in therapy, not your therapist or therapy itself, you announce that you are leaving PC and therapy. You remind me of some of the dissenting opinions I've read over the years-- there is a prototype of them-- where a dissenting judge gets at least one of the facts wrong and then pursues a line of reasoning that may make internal sense in his own argument, yet is so obviously misguided when you are aware of the actual facts of the case.

It is not terribly rational and not particularly logical to insist that your approach to therapy is the best one when it hasn't worked, time and time again. It also doesn't make sense to me that you are obviously in great pain, and that you have the potential to have a really great life, yet you stubbornly refuse to even try to make real changes in your life. And when you reach out for help here, you stubbornly refuse to even consider the advice of other people who have been able to do what you have not.

IME, smart people know that they can learn from other people, particularly when they have been successful at something that we have not been. Smart people are able to try something else when one attempt fails. People who are smart are able to analyze their failures and learn from them. Smart people are able to ask for help, and accept it, from others who are trained and experienced to help them.

It seems to me that you're no different than any other smart person. Of course you have these capabilities, but you need to harness whatever motivation you're using to avoid your issues and approach them again.

Anne

I apologize for the extreme language and would go back and use more moderate terms but the edit button has disappeared. I admit I have failed at it. I admit I am the problem. I completely agree I am no different from anyone else, and am possibly not even all that smart, certainly not where therapy is involved. I appreciate all the comments and attempts to help that others have given me. It has helped me clarify that therapy is not for me. I do not insist my way is the right way for anyone but me and I actually did approach this attempt at it differently than before - I have failed differently all three times. I was only saying that about leaving PC because I agreed that ruminating more was a waste of time and I thought I was bothering people on this board, which was not my intention.
I always enjoy the dissenting opinions the most (perhaps mostly because in the area I mostly practiced, the dissents were the only place you could find anything to help your position).

I think the comparison to other professions is a bit off - I at least know when a plumber or mechanic has done their job - the water turns on or the car goes or whatever. With therapy I cannot tell any difference at all nor can they tell me how I will know if it is working or not.
And if one of the people doing those jobs does a bad job at it - all that happens is I have flooding or a wreck or, in the case of a medical professional gone awry - die (I do not consider death to be the worst thing that can happen).

I agree therapy will never work for me because I simply do not trust them or the process and if that is what it takes to make this work, then I do not want it. I believe I did answer their questions as honestly as I was able at any given moment and to the extent I was able to understand what the question meant.

Thank you for the well wishes.

I hear what you say you want, and why. That brings us (finally?) to:

1. CAN a therapist earn your trust?
2. HOW can a therapist earn your trust?
3. IF a therapist can earn your trust, your anxiety will ease, because this inability to trust IS your dis-ease, because it is keeping you from what you want, which is a) for therapy to work or b) relief from awful feelings c) us to quit buggin' ya! d) all of the above? e) something else f) This is really more about me than you, and that is absolutely right. It is really reinforcing for me how I could not trust my family, and I should look into more, how I cannot trust myself to look after my own best interests. Do I eat right? Do I exercise? Save money? All kindsa junk. I DO go to T, but do I make the best use of that time? Thank you for all this. You made a lot of people think of a lot of things, I'm sure.
I'm SO effin articulate, ain't I?

You have not failed at therapy. You are, contrary to your belief, very active in your therapy.

You will see it work when you begin to trust.

No, I am not saying it will work when you trust. I'm saying you will become aware that it is already working when you begin to trust.

Therapy is happening in your life with or without your consent... the only thing your mistrust is doing is preventing you from reaping the benefits.

I am sorry, i have no idea what you mean? Are you saying life itself is therapy? And I did quit so I don't think I am active in it any more. Sorry to be so obtuse.

When I wrote that I didn't realize you had quit both therapists.

I wonder how connected those things are to your need to know the questions / answers with your T?

I am wondering whether your need to know is actually a symptom of what lies within yet to be discovered, but something that will act as a key to unlock the secret code and alleviate that internal chaos?

You know stopdog, the thing is that I think I know exactly what you mean when you express your concerns, that is me week after week with T - I know the feeling of impending annihilation, of having to keep everything under control, within sight, to lose sight or control, would be to lose my grip, the prospect of which is terrifying - it has taken me 18 months with T to realise this - I understand it more now on a theoretical level, but somehow I have to let those deeper parts of me know, to experience it and to have faith in the process - for when I lose faith, then I have lost the battle.

I wish you well, for me this is an interesting but terrifying journey, but I believe that something really good is at the end. Soup

I hope you haven't left! I keep thinking of another poster, Granite, when I read your posts. Your situations are completely different--but I would say her fear of therapy and therapists is probably just as great as yours...but she continues to go, and IS making progress despite the terrified feelings it costs. Look up some of her threads, maybe it will inspire you? I know that Granite has also tried a bunch of therapists too. I just hate to see you give up when you clearly need this.

maybe it would be useful for you to ask your therapist (i suppose your future therapist) how they conceptualize your case and what they see as the path to helping you.

i've only read the first page of this thread thus far, but it seems that this is the issue you're really getting at. you know where you are and you have an idea of where you want to go and you're just wanting to be sure that the person driving you (so to speak) has a roadmap. i don't think that's too much to ask.

Hello, stopdog. My thought is you were desperate for some relief. Reluctantly, you decided to try therapy, despite having zero confidence in the process. You confirmed your bias by insisting on an untenable structure for the therapy. Why you want others to agree with your methods is a mystery to me.

I hope you find relief and I wish you well.

I was not trying to get others to agree with my methods. I was hoping to find something that made sense to me. I do appreciate everyone's input. It has helped me solidify that I do not understand therapy well enough for it to help me and i should stop wasting time and money on i at this point or find someone who is willing to explain things enough for me to be able to go
along. And actually the second t I saw this past year was quite good about explaining many parts
of it. With her the problem was me still not knowing how to measure progress. I do not agree my structure is untenable, but convincing anyone else anyone else to use my structure was never my goal here.

I am coming to believe therapy is like a belief in religion is the sense that a certain amount of faith and suspension is required. I obviously do not have that faith and have been unable to figure out how to get it. Perhaps if i keep wrestling around and reading about how others do it, I can fit that into my structure or adjust my methods in a fashion I find bearable so I can find some relief.

Stopdog, it appears that you want to do therapy with your intellect only. Therapy is mostly for your emotions. Yes, you do need to find beliefs and thoughts sometimes in your rational mind but mostly it is about your emotions. It seems like you are trying to protect yourself by doing therapy with your rational mind.

See ^, your rational mind is working just fine, it is your emotions that need to be worked on.

I do not think wanting to understand the process better, efficiency and the ability know if it is working is equal to needing to figure it out ahead of time. But perhaps after reflection I will agree it is. And I do have mistrust on almost all levels.[/quote]

Okay, I'm going to try to hijack this thread. Apologies in advance. But what, exactly, is efficiency when applied to therapy? Stopdog, you keep talking about efficiency.....

Efficiency, by Webster's definition, is "productive of desired results." What results do you seek?

Are you trying to get it over with as soon as possible and why? Are you afraid of becoming attached to a T? If so, this is in itself a problem that you may want to explore. Just my two cents, cause I have the same set of problems, I suspect...and they're not solved by being efficient but being aware.

I do want to get it over with as quickly as possible. Cut the irrational feelings out and go on with my life.

I do want to get it over with as quickly as possible. Cut the irrational feelings out and go on with my life.[/quote]

boy can I relate! I will say that my pain and rage (triggered by my cold, distant T, whom I posted a LOT about on the PC forum to the point where I'm sure others grew weary) were my irrational feelings...that were really getting in the way of me going on with my life. So in that respect, therapy did help. But I had to hang in there through those feelings. It sounds similar for you? I was constantly annoyed that my T seemed to revel in the confusion that he was (partly) creating through the process. It really jerked my chain. I felt like I was wandering around in confusion and pain and he was WATCHING. Frankly, it felt sort of voyueristic (spelled wrong, I'm sure....) Kind of YICK! I had to face the fact that this had been a life pattern for me, and I often found myself in the company of cold, distant, shaming males while I was in emotional pain, and it took me a long time to "cut my losses" and go. That alone was the lesson for me (something like the Wizard of Oz, who really is just a pathetic little guy behind a curtain!). I'm not happy that this is how my therapy played out, but it is true! Now I am in search of a more active, supportive female therapist. That's what I learned, at great expense, and as corny as it sounds, perhaps you just have not found the right T. Always a possibility. Sometimes the wrong T is just the wrong T.