Does 'tough love' ever work?

I've been progressively slipping into that dark hole....and I realize much of it is due to my inaction with fearing some very important issues that I'm faced with (unemployment running out soon - no full time work - possibility of losing my home, as a single mom - feeling so alone)....

...When I get to this place, I find myself incredibly silent and empty...

....I saw T today, and he decided to take a "tough love" approach with me. Telling me that he always thought of me as someone who didn't back down to challenges and that he would have to change his view of me....that my life is better than a lot of people, many people have it rougher than I do, so don't start feeling sorry for myself...that my life is a lot better than it was...etc.

...I felt awful before my session....and even worse after my session.

I asked him if he was minimizing what I'm dealing with. He said no, but then started reciting horrors of people who survived 40 days in the water surrounded by sharks, and how what I'm dealing with is "cake" compared to that.......which felt minimizing to me.

He told me it was "tough love"....Well, it's not working for me. Not at all.



T will be going on vacation in a couple weeks, and I have one more individual session before he leaves. I'm wondering if maybe it'd be worthwhile to give myself a few weeks of distance to try to "snap out of this funk" on my own. Now that I know how he sees me, I don't want to risk feeling any worse.

To me too. It's a different kind of pain, a different kind of fear, but who is to say that sharks are worse than unemployment?

And how does their pain reduce yours? It can't. It doesn't.

I agree. T1 did this to me when we had to terminate. He gave me examples of people who'd be worse off due to his mass-termination.

Uh, their pain doesn't have anything to do with mine. All his clients were hurting. Glad he was more worried about other people & figured I could go eff myself.

I'm still not happy about this one. Comparisons just do NOT work in therapy. I do enough minimizing on my own, thanks so very much.

I hate comparisons, though I do it with myself all the time.

But my therapist did it with me recently and it didn't suck so much. It actually did jolt me out of my self-pity and put things in perspective.

I would never use tough love on someone who was suicidal, though. The last thing you want to do is to push someone to off themselves, just to prove you wrong.

Nope, I'd go to my next appointment and tell T exactly how tough love DIDNT work for you. This is a chance to stop him in his tracks and prevent him from trying that trick again. I hate tough love, I like regular love and encouragement.

Tough love rarely works for me. It especially doesn't help to compare my pain to that of others who are worse off. That's something I do myself and my T often has to remind me that if someone has two broken legs, it doesn't mean that my one broken leg isn't worth treating and taking very seriously.

What you described sounds very minimizing to me as well. My jaw dropped when I read that he told you that your issues are "cake."

Maybe he needs that vacation more than he realizes.

MUE...your pain is your pain. I used to feel guilty going to T because I really didn't deal with any "trauma" per se.

T has reminded me over and over again that I shouldn't compare my pain with someone else's. Pain is pain. Everyone perceives thing differently.

IMO tough love helps in certain situations. This is definitely not one of them. Go and tell your T the truth!

t1 used tough love on me a few weeks ago; i hated it at the time, it hurt incredibly ... but somehow it did actually shift things and get me moving and out of the mind frame i'd been in so maybe sometimes it does work ... it can also make things worse though so very risky

i hate minimising like you described though; and don't think that what you are going through can in any way compare to what he said it's like comparing an apple and a nail

Yeah! This is your chance to turn the tables and use tough love on him.

See how he likes it.

Tough love is great for some people, not great for others. Me - it makes me violent. But some people its what they long for in their heart.. someone else to give them a verbal kick in the pants. I had to get rid of a few Ts because they worked the Tough Love thing. To me the tough love thing is basically telling the person to "get up off your azz and do something for once in your life" and that's why I don't like it. There is nothing worse than calling a depressed person lazy.

Thanks, everyone, for the support.

About 3 years ago, T used a similar approach on me - and to this day, I haven't forgotten the hurtful words he said. I did let him know the following session that it didn't work for me and how hurtful it was. We worked through it.

I do plan to let him know that his approach wasn't helpful....I don't react well to being kicked when I'm down....some people may need that in order to be jolted into taking action. It doesn't work for me....in fact, it creates more of the opposite affect for me, because I have a tendency to interpret it into so many other more harmful things....and it leaves me less likely to want to share what I'm really feeling with him....MY OWN THERAPIST....

Blech.....

I know what I need to do....I know what action I need to take....and I told him how incredibly fearful I am...and that fear paralyzes me....So, let's just add his disappointment in me to the mix. That's a wonderful freakin cocktail for me to swallow right now....

UGH.

I find tough love helpful, as in challenges rooted in compassion. I do NOT find comparisons like that to be helpful. I already minimize my own issues; it would feel awful if a T did it for me. What other people deal with doesn't and shouldn't affect how I feel about what I'm going through. My experience is all my own.

What your T said isn't what I think of as tough love. I used tough love when my teen son was acting out but what your T did was minimize your pain.

Isn't the very definition of depression emotional pain disproportionate to your life situation? Like you would feel depressed if a person close to you died or something. But when you are depressed and there isn't a visible cause for the emotional pain then you say you are depressed.

I don't understand what your T wants to accomplish. There will always be someone worse off, someone better off, but your pain is yours.

Mixedup_emotions: I am sending you I big hug!I know what it is like with unemployment issuses. Not only the financial part but the whole emotional strain that takes it´s told on even the strongest of people! I have always thought about this situation when someone also have to support a child. In my world- I see no difference of being in a lake sorrounded by sharks and raising a kid on a low income, fearing loosing all your income, apartment and probably being threwed into pieces bit by bit EMOTIONALLY during that process. There is no difference ( well apart from the psychical part of being in cold water and so on) when faced with a tramatizing scary situation where we as people fear for our safety on all levels we all sort of fight, flight or freeze as a coping mechanism. It´s basic and there it no need to minimalize that fact! No need for though love on this one...well unless you have tons of job offers in hand and don´t want to work. ( It does not seem to be the case). Sometimes we run into a screwed social situation or in a lake with sharks without knowing it or how to get out. It´s sounds to be like your T want you to fight on this one given though love. ..hmm well you seem to freeze on this, so is though( cold) love a good approach? I think validation, love, support and encouragement is a better approach on this one Then you may have some emotional resovouir ( spelling) in order to take up the fight. T´s are not supposed to minimalize our problems, they can give examples of people in other situations who have made it through and coped, ( as in given hope). To minimalize and not validating our feelings in just a emotional disaster waiting to happen. I hope you will tell him how you felt after the session and I can totally understand how you feel at this point.

I'm with Yoda; that does not sound like tough love to me; besides which, tough love is used with teens or others running from awareness of addictions? Since when is T your parent; I'd tell him to save it for his own kids and help me think of ways to find a job. Tough love is about cause and effect and learning something. What were you supposed to learn from the fact that people surrounded by sharks for 40 days (and 40 nights? Was he talking about Noah? :-) survived had it worse than you do? You don't want their situation, either!

Actually, I don't know that I would mind his little speech that much; it just wouldn't do much for me one way or the other. It wasn't particularly motivational (to quit worrying about my own future) or helpful (giving me ideas, inspiration, or hope). I think I'd get rather sarcastic, "I'm sorry if I burdened you with my concerns, what would you do in my situation that I have not already tried?"

plus I think what gets people out of the shark situation is to quit moving and play dead - it's the motion that attracts sharks. That's not going to work for you, I know cos that's what I did. I had FOO pulling me down at the same time. NOW I see what options I could have taken - like moving to another city for work while I still had current skills - but I couldn't see them at the time, unfortunately.

exactly. thanks Yoda.

(((MUE))) It's good to hear from you, I was thinking about you earlier this week.

What your T did wouldn't work for me either. My T often tries to "normalize" things for me, and it feels like he is "minimizing" them. I hate it. I already minimize everything myself. He did it yesterday, and I've been in a tailspin ever since.

Tough love would not work for me, your pain is not compared to anything and should never be minimized. My old pdoc told me to forget my past there are worse things in life. I kept seeing her and made no progress. Hun tell yojur t how you feel maybe take this post with you and hopefully he will be more supportive (((((Hugs))))))))

I really appreciate the feedback. It's been incredibly helpful for me, leaving me feeling less isolated.

I emailed T last night and shared what I was feeling....Not sure what the result of that will be, but at least I got it out. Holding it in would have eaten me alive.

With all your responses, I am now seeing how a "tough love" approach could be more effective if it was done with encouragement, helping to instill some confidence that I'm lacking...it didn't need to be by minimizing to elicit guilt and shame.

I hope my T responds in a helpful way, as I'm fearful that what I take away from this experience will do more harm than good with our relationship.

Wikid - Thanks so much for thinking of me! I have been stopping by to read occasionally, but I have been so zapped of any energy - being in this dark place - that I haven't been very responsive. I feel badly about that and am hoping that this downturn will let up soon....(( HUGS ))

Add me to the list of people who thinks this is NOT an example of tough love.

Tough love has the word "love" in it, which means that while being tough, there is still empathy and the desire for understanding. Tough love is when you tell someone something they don't want to hear, but that you know they need to hear. He got the "don't want to hear" part right. But you didn't really need to hear that. Nobody does, really, except for people who actually seem to not be aware that others are worse off than they are. That's really not the situation here. Here, an example of tough love might be, "I know you're suffering MUE, and I know that this is a bad cycle of feeling bad, not taking action as a result, then feeling bad about not taking action, and then not taking action as a result of that... you need to find a way to break the cycle, though, and you need to do it fast."

Tough love works for me sometimes, not others. But the approach you described pretty much never works, in my experience. That's like the #1 thing not to say to somebody suffering from depression. What I hear from him isn't tough love, but rather, "I am burning out and frustrated with my own inability to help you, so I'm going to take the cheapest shot in the book, which any idiot on the street could give you for free."

So sorry MUE. I hope your e-mail is helpful and sets things back on track