T pushing something I do not want/don't think is a problem

I love my T and think she is great; however, lately she has really really been focusing on my drinking and on me taking meds.

The background is that T really thinks my T drinking is a problem and I do not. In session today we probably spent half the time arguing about my drinking today. She even went so far as to say that a big part of the reason my co-worker wants me to get hired permanently (I'm currently serving an AmeriCorps term) is because she can have a drinking buddy, which I KNOW is not true (my co-worker is very well respected in the community and in the job and would not recommend me unless she thought I was competent), and is also pretty offensive to me.

Also, T got me into this residency program at the university she teaches at, so I can see a p-doc without paying money. SO the guy I see prescribed some Zoloft for me, but I really don't want to take it. So far I've only taken half a pill last week and that was it.

So T really, really wants me to stop drinking and start taking the pills, whereas for me, I feel that she is trying to get me to do something I just do not want to do. And she pushes and pushes it every session with increasing force. I love my T but I feel that the only way I am going to change is if I want to change, and I do not see my drinking and not taking pills as a problem. I don't know what to do because I don't want to put up with T forcing this issue every session, which is what it has turned into. She told me she is going to keep pushing it and talking about it until I change, but I don't see a reason to change and would maybe even resent her for trying to push something on me that I don't want. Any advice would be appreciated.

Yeah, that sounds pretty unfair. I don't think I'd stick with her.

Hmmmm...

It is part of a T's job to challenge you over your drinking.
But she's also saying some strange things and pushing you in direction you don't want to go.

Your call, I guess.

How much do you drink?

Generally, cause you haven't said how much you drink, why she feels you need to take pills ect., I'd say a T should make you aware of what he/she thinks you could benefit from changing. This should lead to a discussion over why you think this is not a way for you, your T explaining why she/he thinks it is and then some sort of agreement is reached. Not talking about it could also fall under the agreement. Pushing clients to do/not do stg is NOT a T's job. Ultimately, it's our decission to make.
However, could well be that your drinking is so serious that it's actually hurting you or making the therapy impossible (or at least your T sees it that way). Then yes I'd say SOME pushing is expected before the T'd give up. Some Ts, mine included, have a rule about not doing therapy with heavily addicted ppl- when I asked about this he explain that it's not working and ppl at that stage need stg different (impatient/detox) than talking therapy and that talking therapy should come later.
Again can't really say without some more info. The remark about your work buddy is either really unfair or it could be true

I do not know how much you drink?But if you T thinks that it may affects the therapy, then it's something that you have to talk about with her. Therapy is working together to make it work properly you need to give and take. Your T can not force you to stop drinking, but you can still make arrangements. Maybe you could talk to her that you drink once a week?

If you dont want to take any medication you should explain to her why. She can not force you to take them. But she may ask you to drink less or not at all....

Bloem

well, sometimes objective observers can see things that we can't. Part of therapy, I think, is being open to all ideas, challenges etc... no matter how much of a threat or wrong we think they may be initially.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the observations aren't wrong, just that they merit consideration.

I think drinking is especially one of those observation. Most of the time, family, friends, and others see drinking as a problem a long time before we can. It's the nature of alcohol.

It might be time to at least take a look at your drinking habits and see how they are contributing to your life.

It's very easy, I think, to get into serious trouble with alcohol, and no one starts out thinking "I'm going to give my life over to this bottle", but it can and does happen.

If there is a problem, now is the time to correct it, but it may take a hard look at yourself and your habits.

Just my opinion.

Pushing doesn't work. It's hard to say if someone is in Denial or not over the Internet. But either way, pushing something onto a client isn't therapeutic.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I drink about 3 times a week, and I do binge drink. I realize that sometimes I do drink to manage my anxiety and a couple weeks ago I drank at work because I felt very anxious about something. So yeah, I know that some of these things aren't good; however, most of the time when I drink it is for social reasons, and like I said I really only do drink 3 times a week. I can see how my T thinks this as a problem and I know it is her job to point it out to me, but she goes WAY overboard, to the point where we are literally spending half of session arguing about it, and last session she told me she would keep pushing it until I stopped drinking.

I was pretty proud of myself this past week because I was really trying hard to think positive about myself, and I have started repeating this mantra in my head: "I am beautiful, I am intelligent, I am good at my job," before I go to work. I told her it was really helping, but then when I told her I drank on Friday and Saturday (and Friday I drank to the point of throwing up), she told me I was undoing all the hard work I was doing by thinking positive because alcohol is a depressant and will make me depressed. For me, I had a good week, I really practiced positive thinking, and it paid off. Yeah, I drank a lot this weekend, but we literally spent so much time arguing about that when I felt that I had a really good week.

And the comment she made about my co-worker is really insulting both to me and to her. My co-worker has been doing her job for 11 years and the executive director of our organization call her "the face of my organization." She is also the community district leader for the neighborhood we work in, and has lived in the neighborhood for more than 20 years. She is the same nationality as most of the people we work with, and so I think she sees her job as more than a job. She sees it as she is helping her people and her community,and so she hold people to a higher standard of job performance, so it means a lot for me to have her endorsement for the job. For my T to say that she wants me to stay simply because she wants a drinking buddy is completely insulting both to me and to her her, and is also completely untrue. I know this woman would not want to hang out with me outside of work if I was bad at my job. I think it shows how far T is willing to go to get me to stop drinking, ie making things up and being insulting.

Also FYI, the p-doc I see does not think my drinking is a problem. If he did he would not agree to see me and would instead send me to an outpatient place.

I think there are probably some therapists who aren't willing to work with people unless they acknowledge and are actively working on a problem that threatens their mental health. My T and I had a discussion a few weeks ago about how he can't continue to work with couples where there is violence unless the violence stops.

I can appreciate your T's perspective from this point of view, and I personally agree with her. She can't let it go and personally, I think she's right. I do think your drinking is a problem and you just won't be able to see how much until you are off the booze and see how you feel then.

I think your choices are to either work on your drinking problem or find a new T. I don't see her backing down, she's told you she won't. So you can surround yourself with other people who don't see it as a problem and continue down this destructive path, or you can have the courage to honestly look at your behavior and want more for yourself.

I think the comment she made, whether it's insulting or not, deserves a conversation with her. In my experience, it is not uncommon for dysfunctional people to hire other dysfunctional people as drinking buddies, personal wailing walls, or any other number of inappropriate roles. Just because she is good at her job and you are good at your job doesn't negate the possibility that this is what is going on. She can "endorse" you both because you do a good job and because she likes drinking with you. So your interpretation about what your T's statement means is not entirely correct. But talking about it would be a good idea.

OK let me clarify something. This woman has wanted me to get hired for the past four months. We have only started having drinks after work in the past month, and even then we have really only drank together twice.

I think it's your T you need to have this conversation with. I'm not trying to tell you what the reality is. I don't doubt that you are good at your job, and she wouldn't want to hire you if you weren't. I have worked with various nonprofits and other do-gooders for around thirty years, including sitting on boards, and I've personally seen a lot of dysfunction in hiring, promoting, and firing practices that has a lot to do with social relationships and less to do with work per se. It's possible that the fact that you are willing to go drinking after work is a factor that encourages her endorsement of you. It doesn't take away from your competence. But if you think in some way that your drinking is positive for your working life (which could be what you are really saying in all this stuff), then understanding your beliefs about this is all good stuff to discuss with T. Her comment seems to challenge your belief that your drinking is not a problem in a different way, so it seems to me that it's all part of the same thing.

If you do get drunk 3 times per week I think you have (or shortly will have) a problem. Alcohol works as a AD for a short while but it is actually an depressant- so you're using it to 'medicate' yourself and instead ending up feeling worse. Zoloft influences the same centers in brain as alcohol but works longterm- so maybe that's why she wants you do take it? (BTW Zoloft and alcohol? not a good match. Surprised your Pdoc didn't tell you...)

However, your T shouldn't be spending sessions arguing with you about this- this is not therapy. It's your prerogative to drink as much as you want. You can't be pushed into not drinking (you can be into lying about it though). If she can't deal/work with you otherwise she should let you go.

The bolded statements are all common indicators of problem drinking. You can continue to rationalize, but your issue with your T seems like a distraction to me. The issue isn't your T's behavior, but yours.

As much as I agree that the OP has a problem with alcohol (at least from what she wrote she has) I don't think her T's reactions are OK. I'm gonna explained it on SI example if I may. I did SI a lot- not only scars but also other things¨life threatening in long term but they didn't leave scars. I don't want to say what cause I don't want to 'inspire' someone.
Anyway, my T had to made a choice there- he could have argued with me every damn session pushing me to stop (me not being ready for it cause at that time it served as a valid (though damaging) copying mechanism), terminated me or realized that I'm not ready for a change and while still bringing it up from time to time (talking about it if I feel like it and trying to come up with other solutions) letting me be/talking about other things I was prepare to change at that time, validating the even the smallest ones.
I know it must have been hard for him- I looked very ill, moved with difficulties, sometimes it was so bad I couldn't come/ended in a hospital several times (nobody knew why- I was a med student so I knew exactly what I was doing)- but thankfully for me my T was able to still offer me a therapy even under this circumstances so I was gradually able to change it.
I think same could be applied to MA- watching your client wasting away is no piece of cake but you can't force them to eat. Ts can decide whether or not they are able to work with clients like this- it 's their choice to make- but if they decide to stay they should still provide the therapy and be able to respect the client's decision.

I think there's a difference between recognising a behavior is harmful, but needing to continue the behavior to cope with a bigger problem; and being in denial about the harmfulness of a behavior.

It sounds to me as though the T isn't willing to back down on this as a way of confronting denial. I suspect if there was recognition of the behavior as a problem by the client, the T would be supportive about the degree/timing of change attempted.

What I don't know is how long a T is willing to confront before refusing to treat, if the denial continues.

I do not believe a therapist gets to pick what to change about a client. It is not the therapist who gets to decide what I want or will do. In my opinion, if it is not a problem for a client that the client wants to use the therapist to deal with, then it is not up to the therapist to insist.
It is not the therapist's life.

It sounds like the situation has become pretty polarized. For me, I would break that by trying T's way for a certain period of time to see what it was like. I'd decide to give it a 3-6 month trial and then see how I feel. You can always go back to drinking, wean off the medicine or try different ones, etc.

Other scenarios do not look as bright to me; T cannot stop telling you what she thinks would be more healthy for you, that would be unconscionable behavior on her part? All she can do is not be able to see you anymore because you are at a true impasse where the reason you have hired her, she cannot help you with because you have chosen not to work with her.

So where is the line between respecting a client's autonomy, and enabling harmful behavior? For me, the T isn't, at least at this time, abandonning the client, but is adhering to the ethics of the profession. I don't know if there is a timeline to this, or if it becomes an issue that the client has to ultimately decide to reach an agreement, or find a new T.

To me, the therapist is choosing not to work with the client. Not that the client is choosing not to work with the therapist. A client does not have to turn themselves over to the therapist and let the therapist insist on what the issues for the client are of let the therapist do whatever they want to the client/insist on how the client must be. It seems here that the therapist is not sticking to why the client hired her but is trying to take over the client.

To me, it's okay if the t chooses not to work with the client. We don't know why the client hired her. If the client says, "don't look here for a problem" and the t sees that that is exactly where the problem is - the client did give her a hint, after all! - at first, it is probably irresistible to the t. The client is practically begging for help in changing this aspect of themselves. But the client is not aware - they are just looking for someone to buy into their definition of reality. Which is what I call a relationship.

I agree a therapist does not have to choose to work with any person. Just that it is the therapist saying "If you don't fix what I think you need to fix, then I won't work with you" rather than blaming the client for not working with the therapist. That was my point.

The dynamic between you and your T clearly isn't working out. I think it's worth telling her that you want to stick with her, but that the way things are being approached isn't helpful to you, and the type of pushing she is doing isn't helpful. There's probably a way to talk about this that isn't so frustrating and unproductive, and I think that in and of itself is something to explore.

It's very hard to offer further perspective -- what I say now isn't meant to be critical or nitpicky, but more a description of my experience trying to parse what you're writing. What you're describing is on the border between a T being pushy about something that might not be a major issue, and a client denying a pretty serious problem. For me, a lot of my feeling stuck on it comes from not knowing what you mean by "drinking". I know you mean consuming alcoholic beverages. But saying you "drink" three times a week means very different things to very different people, and to "stop drinking" also means different things to different people. Whether you or your T is being reasonable about it depends on what you really mean.

If when you say you "drink" three times a week, you mean pick up a 6 pack on the way home on Monday and over the course of a couple weeks, have a beer with dinner every few days, then I "drink" more often than you do -- my husband and I enjoy wine with dinner a few days a week. But for me, if I say I'm going out "drinking", I mean I'm focused on getting a buzz, which is a very different situation, and something I'd say is problematic if it's happening three times a week.

I know that people sometimes hate it when their previous posts are brought up again, but if you don't want me to remember it, don't say it! Anyway, that caveat in mind, I remember your having some serious job/financial issues recently, and while I'm glad to hear that the job stuff seems to be progressing, I doubt you've suddenly come into lots of disposable income. And, aside from being just exhausting and probably causing me to make my body hate me, another reason I don't "go drinking" three times a week is that it's expensive! Even the casual alcohol consumption I do now is something that is only recent, with an improvement in my financial situation -- whenever money has been tight, alcohol is absolutely one of the first things that I cut down on. What I'm saying is, this tells me that drinking is not just something you don't want to "give up" (I'm getting to why I'm putting that in quotes later) and seem a little defensive about, but also something you value. What is it about it that you value? Again, I don't know whether you mean you "drink" as in you spend $10 on a six pack that lasts you 2 weeks, or you mean go out with friends. Either way, though, it's a pretty significant expense, especially if you're going out.

And besides "drinking", I'm not sure what you mean when you say your T wants you to stop drinking. Does she want you stop consuming alcohol completely? Or does she just want you to restrict recreational drinking to maybe once a week? And if she wants you to stop completely, I wonder if that's because you seem resistant to the idea of even reducing the amount of drinking you do (although I don't know that that's true, since you didn't address it directly). For some people, that medium is just really hard to find, and it's either all or nothing. There's nothing wrong with that, but I can't tell if you and your T have tried to figure out whether it's all or nothing for you, or you can curb your drinking. If she is focused on your quitting cold turkey without exploring an intermediate possibility, I could see that being very frustrating.

You don't have to take meds if you don't want to take meds, of course, and some Ts are not very good about respecting this. Is it in any way tied to the drinking, though? I just wonder because antidepressants can definitely lower alcohol tolerance. Don't remember whether Zoloft is one that does this.

I'm sorry you feel that you and your T are stuck. It's hard, though, to know what's really going on, which is probably why so many responses are asking you about your drinking habits. Also, because I don't know exactly what she said about your coworker, I can't say how much of it was her making an observation and how much she was really insisting that it was the ONLY reason or a HUGE reason why she endorsed you. But, regardless of whether she's taking a hard line on a dangerous situation, or being pushy about something that is pretty subjective, her current technique is not helping you. I don't think the answer is for her to drop the subject entirely, because like many others, I see lots of little red flags all over the place and you might not need to resolve that with me, but you do need to resolve them with T. I do think it'd be worthwhile to try to meet her in the middle somewhere, and explore exactly what would happen if you drank less.

Hi everyone. Just wanted to say thanks for your input; I will respond later but I'm at work now and typing on my phone. I will say that I started seeing my T for an ED and for a pill problem I had, which has been resolved. I continue to see her bc I feel that she helps me, and her and I have a really strong bond. I agree with stopdog when she says that it feels like T is trying to change who I am; I never came to her about my drinking. I have made improvements in my life thanks to her, but it does feel like she is pushing me to change omething about myself to fit her image of who I should be.

I emailed T this morning bc I was really angry about what she had said about my work colleague and I. She emailed me back and apologized and sai it wasn't helpful and she was sorry she had said that. She said it is up to me to decide what I put in my body and that her saying that was not helpful and that it was stupid of her to have said that.

I am glad she apologized. I think it was good to be direct and tell her.