Psychobabble in therapy

All,

My search for a good enough T continues. My standards keep lowering, then raising, then lowering again. It's all very confusing. I'm going to give another try next week but the last "prospect" I saw seemed kind of intriguing except....

Lots of psychobabble.

Things that got raised:
*I need to have good boundaries
* I need to stay grounded
*Life is a balance
*Things take time
*Put things in context
*Denial never serves us
*We need to trust our highest ?? (I forget because I turned off)

Okay, so not all of this is psychobabble, but you know what I mean...or do you? Have you felt that you were in remedial class, or that your therapist was putting your real-life problems through some kind of mill or machine where one size fit all? I mean, maybe this is AUT0-PILOT from the other side of the "couch"?

Did you find this canned babble infuriating? I think it's okay if it doesn't dominate the entire hour.... Or did it make you feel.....centered and grounded? That little cynical face is how I feel right now, but this process is expensive! And I want an approach that makes me think in new terms ...don't I?

Hi Mcl, maybe you need to personalize the session and it will feel different?

Thanks for your input......I did! I said, well, I have some very specific issues that I would like to deal with ....and would like our time together to deal very directly with my feelings and experiences....
I was pretty clear (she even said that!).
I think ....ONWARD!

as far as being cynical i can give anyone a good run for the money.it is a hard thing to overcome.i know my cynicism comes from mistrust and past history.my T will say something and the whole time my mind is screaming .yup sure like i haven't herd this before ,Whatever,didn't work before,good luck,you don't understand.believe me i understand the cynic and the reasons behind it.
have you given these things a chance in the past.one of the hardest things for me to grasp in T is the all fav comment trust the process.i know for me it has had to be a conscious decision to stick with it no matter how much i don't trust it and all my cynicism gets in the way.that as much as i hear these theory's it is up to me to embrace them and live them when i am ready until then they are still just canned phrases.i hope you stick with it

Yes, some of it definitely gets in my way. On the other hand, if the whole thing is just CANNED, I'm thinking, well, you know what? Maybe just watch Dr. Phil. I think I do best when the T also approaches things with a bit of HEALTHY cynicism as well and has some humor about that, which can be so healing. I have been in three successful T relationships, so I do really have the ability to deal with my own cynical crap, and will have to continue to do so!

I think I would be tempted to respond with "Can you say more?" or "how does that make you feel?" if they said those platitudes to me.

My T doesn't use a lot of canned stuff, but sometimes she comes up with the most bloodless expressions that they make me laugh out loud. Like the time she told me that Weinar (however you spell it) had some serious interpersonal control issues, or something like that. How true, but - LOL

now that you mention it though, I do have to watch what I say a bit, because some words have a specific definition for a T not the same as for a regular person (watch it SAWE, you almost said "a normal person" ). Like... hmmm... once I used the word "depersonalizing" and I meant it as demeaning or rejecting or something, and I realized that to her, it is something very specific indeed.

You raise a lot of really high level questions here, I think. Really good questions.

I agree with you that not everything you heard in the list above is psychobabble. I would agree that "boundaries" are a therapy-like word, but the concept of having good boundaries is a really important one, especially if you are involved in a family or relationship situation that's problematic (like I think you might have posted about not too long ago). So I would see mentioning this as a positive sign that this T is picking up on something that MAY be important in your life. Same with "grounded", a therapy like word but with really important implications for daily living. The quality of my day deeply depends on my ability to stay present (my version/word for grounded), for me this is terribly important. I also think that putting things in context is a terribly important thing to do, as you can't understand squat unless you do. The other stuff in the list is pretty much b.s., but I don't know I would label it as psychobabble.

I do think I know what you mean about psychobabble, though. My T is actually pretty open about his psychobabble-- he'll say things like "I always tell people X." Like with trauma, he told me 3 or 4 times that he always tells survivors, "congratulations, you survived." This wasn't really super annoying until he said it to me after I disclosed something traumatic. I wanted to knock his teeth down his throat.

Some psychobabble that I think you're talking about, or could be talking about, is putting a theoretical/analytical framework on your experience. I actually think this is kind of helpful. Sometimes it's just a normalizing experience, and it could be as simple as something like "child abuse victims often feel shame because they think they did something to cause the abuse." Today my T observed something that I thought was really smart, which was that I had experienced something growing up that was about my parents expressing completely opposite messages, and he had recalled that something I brought to therapy was my feelings about my own son being given different messages by my H and myself. He said that people with traumatic pasts are often sensitive to (and distressed by) something that happens with their kids (non-traumatic) that reminds them of a family dynamic from their traumatic past. I think that if T's had no therapeutic framework, then they wouldn't be able to sort through the crap we spew in therapy and pick out the stuff that is important to focus on.

Anne

i like your question mcl. It's too hard for me to have an opinion just based on what you wrote. Maybe try her at least once more and see if she comes across a psychobabbling again? I could definitely interpret the things you listed either way, depending on how well she connects them to your life and your understanding of things at the time she says them

i work in addictions and i find that the platitudes are always coming at me! i dont know if i psychobabble...no one has brought it up before and im always up for explaining myself. but i totally get what youre saying...sometimes its like, "use real words dammit! that doesnt mean anything to me!" LOL

My T would tell me to be interested in my reaction to the psycho babble. I know what you mean though, my T has talked about zoning out and being disconnected and I didn't like being categorised. I think for me it is about being seen as 'me.'

I'd look for someone who does CBT or DBT. Psychobabble names for therapies, but they will teach you useful skills instead of confusing you.