Distinguish between correct therapy awfulness/incorrect kind (triggers si/term)

I wish I could get it to stop from happening with this second one. I sort of miss the first one too, not the awful way I felt, but sort of her.

I think that some people just regress emotionally or become quickly emotionally overwhelmed when they are faced with therapy. They often find themsleves overwhelmed by anything that threatens to "open them up to their emotional world." Often these individuals are very controlled and/or resistent to self-exploration. I'm not saying that is your issue, but I just wanted to say that therapy is not always for everyone. Some find it very destabilizing and intensely uncomfortable. Therapy can lead to nightmares, intense anxiety, social isolation, withdrawal and intense expressions of anger.

In spite of what many people believe in this forum, therapy isn't for anyone. Many therapist will cease doing exploratative therapy with some individuals. Some people do better with non-traditional therapies: accupuncture, massage therapy, mindfulness, yoga, tai chi etc. Talk therapy and the investigation of the unconscious is NOT for everyone!

I am very controlled and apparently (although i thought I was trying to fix it) resistant.
I experience everything on your list but social isolation.

I shake and fear therapy. I have a sensiormotor T and that really helps me. We do body stuff. My T says it is trapped memories that manifest in body sensations. You may be going to fast in T. I am learning to pace myself so the dreams and fear and shaking are not overwhelming.

I feel bad for you that therapy gets you so wound up and upset -- must be awful to endure, no wonder you're questioning the merits of continuing.

I know from previous posts that you have seen/interviewed a lot of Ts, but is it possible you've just not found the right one for you? I'm fine with my T, but when I went for an assessment with a different T (on the NHS) I had a panic attack right there in her office -- even though she seemed like a perfectly nice person, and there was no 'reason', it was just beyond my control. Maybe it's not the same as your situation but I thought I'd share, just in cases

Take care.

Thanks everyone. I trynto balance the idea that you are supposed to get worse with the idea of really is this the worse that is meant by that. I don't know. I think it is coming up both because I kind of miss the first one and I really want to stave it off from happening with the second one. The second one is more respectful of my reaction so perhaps I can endure or navigate it better with her.

Wow that is an interesting approach to say if it gets too much to question whether therapy is the right thing for you - I thought that was the whole point of therapy to work through the stuff that leads us to want to SI

I wonder if not all therapists are comfortable with working with SI - actually I remember why I choose my T and that is because they were the only one I found who specified that they work with SI.

I think it would make me feel unsafe thinking that my T was uncomfortable with SI - how on earth could you ever open up with someone like that - I would always feel that I needed to hide it and I think the guilt and shame would get worse. So for me it would completely explain the crippling dread and fear.

And your T mocking you? My T inadvertently did that to me - it took me 6 months to raise it with T, it completely floored me.

Although I am having a really hard time right now and want to chuck the T thing out the window, there is still a bit of me that knows it is the right thing to keep doing.

Takecare Stopdog - Soup

I would think that this would be where to start then? How did this evolve? What are the fears of letting go? What purposes does it serve?

I think figuring out how to do therapy without nightmares, throwing up and great urges to si come before this. Talking about control or other issues w the t never stopped the si or nightmares for over a year, in fact they just kept getting more and more horrible. The side effects of therapy kept getting worse and the other stuff stayed the same. Neither got better.

But isn't the fear of losing control what is causing the nightmares, SI and stomach upset? You have been talking about control but did you actually make any progress on it?

I don't think so. I think insane fear of therapist causes it. And talking about either that (very little as t would go to something else) or even control, did nothing to help. What kind of progress? If all there is of therapy is talk, and I did talk and t talked and I just kept getting worse over dealing with t with no relief in sight, how is that not a bad plan? Perhaps my initial question on this thread should have been more general. I am relieved at sleeping without nightmares for the first time in almost a year and no urges to si to fend off. It was sort of interesting to me at how quickly those side effects subsided. But as fear of the second one is starting, i worry the other stuff might start again too. Second t is less impatient, so maybe that will help.

To make progress I think that therapy needs to be a lot more then just talking. I identified a problem, gathered all my info by being aware of myself around this problem including letting out any feelings, analyzed problem, and then chose solutions and then checked out if they worked or I needed different solutions (going back to gathering info or expressing feelings if needed).

Is insane fear of therapist because she can peer into you? Is it a competition in therapy for you? Professors seem to be pretty competitive. You would have to be to rise to that level since there aren't that many positions.

So the cure was worse then the disease?

Everytime I asked what was supposed to happen or what I was supposed to do, t said this is it,
we just talk.

I do not fully know about the insane fear. It is insane because it is not real, she is not an actual threat to me in any way I could not fend off. I don't think they can peer in
to someone, but in some crazy way it was like she would kill me. And I would have provided her the means and opportunity to do, and paid for it.

I find the cure to be much worse than the disease. And if it were only for a short period of time, that is one thing, but a year seems like a long time for nothing positive to have happened to offset how awful I find the cure.

I came up with my own approach while in therapy. I'm more of a doer. Maybe you don't feel empowered in therapy? This is important I think to feel empowered and I think it is an important goal.

Does the therapist know that you fear that she can "kill you"?

When we are children our lives are in the hands of our parents. Our survival depends on them. Did you fear for your survival when you were young? If so maybe this is transference being triggered up?

Good work, Sannah. Stopdog, do not discount this feeling. It comes from somewhere. It is not crazy. It makes perfect sense. It explains the puking, for sure. You feared for your life. It explains why you are so well defended, which explains why you are still alive and so successful! (Just not at therapy!) It explains the horrible feeling that drove you to therapy in the first place. NOW we can begin!

"It was like she would kill me".

I read all that info and was trying to do it correctly. I don't feel unempowered, just confused. It probably was and is transference, but sadly labelling it does not alleviate the reaction. She called it resistance. That label did not help either. I did tell her about both the killing and how I knew it was not real. Major frustration.
But surely somewhere there is info on what is appropriate to endure to make this help, and what to not endure as simple idiocy to keep on at.

Intellectuallization. It IS real. Your FEELINGS are REAL. Your T should have caught this, should have stopped you here. This is similar to my frustrations in therapy. It's like because I didn't say it correctly, with enough FEELING or something, they didn't think I "got it". Maybe I didn't, but SFB, I am yelling at my current T plenty, saying I said this 20 years ago, why didn't she understand it? Dam T's! This is why I expect my T to be dam grateful to ME, I have been doing this l0nger than he has and putting up with a lot more crap, and paying for it. Yes, he has something to teach me. But it's like pulling teeth. And my chances of finding it elsewhere? I have been around this block many many times! Anyway, back to you. Don't let their eff-ups prevent you from getting what you need or want. So we're smarter than they are, so what. That's why I had to read a million books before I found ONE - and then the same guy's next book made ME want to puke!

Labelling it as transference is only the beginning. To solve it you would need to explore where this transference is coming from and then you could work through this earlier issue. This is how you unravel your demons.

T never said anything about transference nor any indication on how to unravel. Plus I might not even manage to live through it. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it is dangerous to me. Hence the list of the correct badness versus incorrect badness