Why is psychotherapy so mysterious?

To me it feels like this whole thing is so mysterious, full of hidden agendas, dark alleys and brick walls

There have been polls on how long people have been going to see their T, but what I would really like to know is how long it takes to go through the process.

I acknowledge we are all different, different problems, different starting points working with different T's (hmm wonder whether any of us on here share the same T?) - but is there not some kind of measure - is there a start, a middle and an end and if so how do you know where you are?

I have tried doing an internet search for a definition of what long term therapy is - but there are few results and none that answer my question. Is there really no answer, or at least guidance, i.e. 1-2 years, 2-3, 3-4 etc..?

Because it is not a real science and a lot of the time they really do not know what they are doing.

You know the answer to your question should be "zen". It is what it is and it takes what it takes for as long as it takes. When your ok with that answer then you are "free"

That is, probably in one sense then, the answer to everything and so why bother with any of it.

I really think therapists get given way too much leeway on this sort of thing because it is not a real science and they get all "it is an art" and it is the client's decision and fault and so forth. There is an entry on the blog Jung at Heart - (that I read just to hate the blogger) (I do that with the Ryan Howe guy too)- who got all upset with the NYTImes article on the guy who has 28 day therapy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/op...F3LpPLJKtdYkyw

StoPdog, be free :-)

Or learn to love the chains, which admittedly I do not.

Back to OP. there is also the factoring in of all the different schools of thought on therapy.

that has to be a top answer!

Hmmm - so seems I have a way to go then.

Because it is your feeling (mysterious, full of hidden agendas, dark alleys and brick walls), and no one can guess when you will feel differently? Some people have a specific problem and go at it with CBT or DBT and solve their problem in ten sessions or less; it's like "name that tune"? Some are good at it and some are not because it's a new way of life to learn instead of just a correction of path. I only took about 30 years, or, technically, about 9. Next lifetime I'm going to make sure I don't have a mother who dies when I'm a toddler and no evil stepmother to take her place? Snow White (or Sleeping Beauty) R Us; I literally got much better at it after I met my husband. . . when I was 35 (What, you were thinking I'd identify with Cinderella? I do have a stepsister but. . . :-)

Enjoy the journey

Bit harsh, innit?

Thank-you Perna - this has helped snapped me out of wherever I was heading - it makes total sense. Wow, yes feelings (both mine and other peoples) are all of those things to me.

Don't bite. Some like to elicit reactions.

I don't think so. Even they admit it is not a science.
The jung at heart woman goes on about how it is A journey or whatever that lasts as long the client is willing to pay for.
actually I am not. I tried to give some other info to back up my statement. Reading theough the comments on the link I gave will give an example of the wide range of debate on this.

My T considers long term therapy to be therapy that lasts longer than 3 years.

In some types of therapy, such as IPT, it is decided at the beginning how many sessions you will have, usually 12-16, and at the beginning of each session, the T reminds you how many you have left. The T uses different interventions in the beginning, middle, and end. You always know where you are. Do you wish for this much certainty, SoupDragon? I can see that it could provide an anchor of sorts and not lead clients to get that "lost at sea" feeling.

I have been going to therapy for 4 years, and I think I will know when I am done when I no longer have anything to work on. So far we haven't run out of things, and new things keep coming up to deal with. I like that we no longer seem to be working on "old material" and are up to date, so we can just work on current stuff. That feels great! So one question to gauge where you are in therapy might be, are you still working on material from the past? Of course, in some therapies, they don't even work on stuff from the past...

Another way to tell where you are in therapy would be to ask your T. Your T has seen so many clients and might have a good idea, or might put his idea together with your thoughts to come to an answer. Or the two of you could explore your feeling that therapy is "mysterious, full of hidden agendas, dark alleys and brick walls." Could be a fruitful discussion! FWIW, I have felt that at times I did not understand what was happening in therapy, but I never felt there were hidden agendas, dark alleys, brick walls... I did have walls and alleys, but they were in my mind, rather than part of the therapy process. Therapy has helped me navigate them, uncover them, etc.

Oh, I think that's impossible to say how long therapy will take.

There are way too many factors involved in accurately gauging a time course.

It's a bit like predicting the course and strength of a hurricane (which is a science BTW). All we can do there is plug in all the variables that we currently know could affect the system, and hit the "enter" button on the supercomputer. Even then, the models do not always agree. It's at best a wild estimate at the beginning and an educated guess toward the end.

Does not address the question. There are more mysteries that science is looking into than whatever your "it" is that is not "real".

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/1281811

I was trying to temper my real response about them not really knowing what is going on - it "is an art" or they spend most of their time just guessing at or poking around at stuff.

But perhaps:
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Shakespeare.

what would be the wonder is if psychotherapy weren't mysterious!
it's mysterious because it deals with the human mind and the human heart (emotions), which for all of science's explorations/explanations, remains a mysterious sort of realm .... always more to explore, discover, learn, wonder about, within us and around us, in our internal relationship with ourselves and our external relationships.
mysterious-ness need not be a bad thing either - it can be an intriguing, challenging, stimulating thing.
forgive me, I am in a metaphysical sort of mood today ... semi-Zen, if you will. (one of those days where I am thinking about perception vs reality ... perception is reality, or reality is perception .... if the perception of psychotherapy is that it is mysterious, then it is, because it is your perception. nope, I'm stopping before I tangle myself up.)

This thread is really interesting to me. I've never thought of therapy as mysterious. It has always seemed pretty straight forward to me. Maybe because of the T's I've had, or because my husband is a T.

I think it depends on why you're in therapy in the first place. What are you trying to fix? What are you trying to change?

When that is fixed/changed, then maybe you're done.

Or maybe you uncover other things during the process that you want to fix, or improve. So then you work on that. So it could be an endless process. Or maybe you get to the point where you think that you're "good enough" and you can handle anything else yourself.

I think the real mysteries are in the patient's head.

My T has no more than half-a-dozen tricks. What Ts "know" is really no more than three or four pages. (Which is why I'm skeptical of Stopdog's view of T as a "knowledge resource.")

What T knows about me, she learned from me.

It took me four years to get rid of my anger and another four years to dump my depression.

Since then, it have been mostly fun and productive.

I guess it depends on the therapist/type of therapy. I have been to the type who do the "blank slate" stuff, and act all high and mighty of "I know exactly what to do/how to do it/when to do it" when they are really just putting on an act.

I'm not one for the "woovy groovy, lets pretend to be the know-it-all therapist and not let you in on what I'm doing" type. I tend to be down to Earth and transparent about the process. There are many times I tell my clients "I don't know" or "This is just a guess" or "I need to ask because I'm clueless right now".

Through 20 years experience I would say that the mystery lies in the methods that the T uses to coax information out of you. They aren't allowed to talk about it to you (I tried talking about it many times, I think its like they are giving the game plan away if they tell you - thats the impression I got). They say just the appropriate thing at the appropriate time and it leads you to give them the sort of emotional reaction they are looking for, so they can get the information they need. EG. if they want to know how you feel about a certain situation and you wont tell them, they say certain things to get you to break down into an emotional mess and they get aaaallll the info they need from that! They don't do it just for kicks - its what they are trained to do and that is how the therapy works. They then use that information to help you deal with whatever it is you are dealing with.

If you read psychotherapy casebooks (I had somewhat of an addiction to these in university, lol, not sure why) they are FULL to the brim with these "mysterious" methods. They explain them in detail and they do make a lot of sense. But the idea I get out of it is if the client knows in advance, they lose their effectiveness. You can't give the game plan away or else the client can put a defense up and then the gameplan is useless.

I used to love reading the casebooks from the 1930s and 40s - WOW they had a lot of nutty ideas back then. The ones from the 90s onwards were a bit more down to the planet earth (thank god) lol

Yes this is what it feels like - that T is using techniques that I am not aware of, or knows more about me that I do and it feels like an endless maze. Or that T knows I should be going for at least the next 3 years, but if I get wind of that I may chuck it in so it is not shared with me.

I know my head is stuck here right now, and if I can manage to unstick it a bit I am sure I will view it differently, for example I might manage to be interested in why this is such a big deal for me right now.