[Grey Matter]

I am currently trying to leave my horrid therapist. She shrugs off medication dosages that were suggested by my hospital psychiatrist (zoloft) and when I asked for a PTSD screening, she may as well have verbally mocked me as thought I am just playing pretend. She is no help to me. Which has made me more confused.

I have been DXed with
- Major Depressive Disorder (depressive episodes, etc)
- Anxiety/panic disorder
- severe OCD + intrusive thinking
- Self injury

I have NO clue what kind of therapies there are. I am studying to be a nurse and I feel completely daft about this. Maybe because it involves me. What kind of therapies work for these issues? What kind of therapies do you think I can benefit from, from you own experiences?

[MoxieDoxie]

I am going to swear by the combination of EMDR and Internal Family System. Talk therapy, free association, CBT, exposure therapy did not work for me and many times I felt worse.

[wotchermuggle]

I think for your OCD/anxiety/self harm, that CBT/DBT might be beneficial for you for finding strategies to deal with symptoms.

Is trauma (any type) part of your history? I'd say that a psychodynamic or relational psychoanalysis (modern, not your 5-day a week old style) type of therapy would be helpful to understand your experiences so that you can move forward with your life in a positive way.

CBT/DBT will likely not focus on why you do certain things, but instead give you coping mechanisms to deal with things. If you want talk about your history/experiences, you'd do better in a psychodynamic/psychoanalysis route.

In some ways, CBT/DBT deals with the surface stuff. The dynamic/analysis route goes deeper so it can seem like you sometimes struggle more as you come to understand yourself and your experiences. It's difficult to do this work if you're already in a deep pit of despair.

Hope something of that makes sense!

BTW, I'd be wary of any therapist who goes against what your Pdoc is suggesting. They should be a team working together for you, not making it more difficult for you.

[Perna]

Can you ask your hospital psychiatrist for a referral? He'd know your diagnoses and people who he works with (so they're more likely to "agree" with his diagnoses and work with you on it).

I like to read the Mayo Clinic's treatment pages for various illnesses:

There are several types of psychotherapy that are effective for depression. Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most commonly used therapies.

From: Depression (major depression): Treatments and drugs - MayoClinic.com

[Grey Matter]

Originally Posted by wotchermuggle

I think for your OCD/anxiety/self harm, that CBT/DBT might be beneficial for you for finding strategies to deal with symptoms.

Is trauma (any type) part of your history? I'd say that a psychodynamic or relational psychoanalysis (modern, not your 5-day a week old style) type of therapy would be helpful to understand your experiences so that you can
.........
BTW, I'd be wary of any therapist who goes against what your Pdoc is suggesting. They should be a team working together for you, not making it more difficult for you.

Trauma is, yes. I was sexually assaulted in high school. And then when my brother died, I found him with my mom at 7am.

I know, oh my god. She is terrible. She just does not listen, she caused me to end up in the hospital for a major depressive episode because she had me on the STARTING DOSE (50mgs) of Zoloft from August 13th till Feb 20th 2013 because she refused to bump me. The hospital staff was disgusted and shocked. She believes working out/eating right etc will fix me. It's hard to do such things when you're depressive but also more likely than not suffering from an autoimmune disease.

I wish I could reply to you all properly, but thank you SO MUCH. This is the most information I have gotten, information my therapist would not share with me. I am going to ask my hospital pdoc for referrals and talk more about the types of therapy. Thank you all so much. You're all brilliant