Looking for Long Term Therapy/Therapy Success Stories, please

Hi all,

I've been working through this issue of worrying about losing my therapist for several months. It's getting a bit better, but isn't easy. I have PTSD and one of my issues is excessive self-reliance/fear of abandonment. I got triggered Monday and I thought to myself today- it's no wonder I worry about losing her, given my history with support people and my broken family when I was a child and teenager.

So, I wanted to ask the rest of you if you'd mind sharing if you've had long-term therapy with one therapist, successful therapy, etc. I don't actually have any experience with long-term therapy that works, I was hoping knowing that others do would be reassuring.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. For me, long-term would be perhaps more than a couple years.

My partner has seen her therapist for 20 years. I have not known my partner all that time, but I do know that she believes the therapist has helped her in countless ways. My partner has ptsd and a horrific past with extremely abusive parents.

I have been in therapy for 9 years, and while I have never left a session feeling like that particular session was extremely helpful, I have progressed SO MUCH over the past years, and if I look back over any several month period I can see how much my therapist has helped me. I'm far from perfect and I have a long way to go but I have made huge progress and it's largely do to therapy and my therapist, so I would say I count as a success story.

This month marks 9 years with my current therapist, and it has been the most difficult, yet most rewarding, 9 years of my life.

I would say the first 5 years were just working through old stuff and getting to the point that I could sort of put that away for the most part; in other words, it was the working towards real healing part.

The last 4 years have been more about current issues with family, work, etc., coming to terms with my diagnosis, developing the skills to cope with emergencies in relation to my diagnosis.

My current life has been particularly difficult in these last 4 years, so that is one of the reasons for the shift. Both of my sisters went through breast cancer, one went through a bone marrow transplant and passed away, one of my sons had to be hospitalized, my husband has had ongoing problems with him own mental health and a very complicated physical health problem, and last summer we almost lost him to lithium toxicity that shut down his kidneys and required dialysis.

So what I am saying is that in long-term therapy, you will find that what you work on will shift perhaps very drastically depending on getting through underlying issues and depending on what issues come up day to day in your life. For me, it's all been very important. The constant support and assistance getting through all of this still alive and kicking has been remarkable, and the level of healing from old wounds has changed my perspective on life.

I've been in some form of therapy or another for 4 years. I started with 18 sessions of CBT which i have to say has been very useful for the negative self-talk, but obv was limited and didn't get into the deeper trauma stuff. I've started with an Art therapist now and i've had 16 sessions so far and i think i'm going to be with her for the long haul. I hope she will be my final therapist.

At the beginning of my therapy journey, i hated myself so much, my inner voice was terribly abusive, and now i've learnt to tone that downs quite a bit and challenge them.
I used to be very reactive to others, i'd see everything as a personal slight on me whereas now i don't take things as personally as i used to, i see all the shades of grey and that most people's reactions are more to do with them than me. So i'm calmer now, i don't let things get to me so much and i calm down quicker. I'm nicer to myself, i give myself more of a break than i used to. Because i can be nicer to myself, i also can be more forgiving of others. So i guess i'm less rigid.

I still have a loooong way to go unfortunately. But there are changes in me, it's a slow process and sometimes i fall backwards for a while. It's hard to see if therapy is helping at times because it is so gradual but then something in life happens and you react in a really healthy way and you cope and then you realise how far you've come.

I'm maybe not a success story yet but i truly believe i will be.

I had one T for 4 years. Before I met her I was homeless, jobless, no school, no friends, and no family. During the 4 years, I got my own housing, a part-time job, went to college part-time, made friends and acquaintances, and even re-formed family relationships. I was able to stop SI, work on saying no, expressing anger, and many many other issues. That T literally saved my life. I wasn't able to "fix" all my issues, but I can say I was independent and functional.

I've been with my T for 3yrs. I've made a lot of progress and sorted out some really big issues in my life during that time.
Now, I'm trying to deal with the dependency thing as I feel therapy is coming to a natural end.
How long have you been with your T?
My experience was positive, hope yours will be too.

I've been in therapy for about 17 years now. I started pretty young and I can honestly say I've made a lot of progress since then. I had a lot of unhealthy, self-destructive coping skills back then and it took a REALLY long time to work through my personal issues, but I've become a much stronger person because of it.

I'm on my third long-term therapist right now. The first one I had while I was a teenager until I was too old to see her and my previous therapist I had until I moved to another state. There were times when I didn't want to go, times where I fell apart, long periods of time where I was depressed. I struggled, but as years went on, the lows weren't as low as they were before.

My experience has been positive overall. It will be difficult at times, but know that's part of the healing process as well! Wishing you a great experience

Thanks everyone! I had the *most* amazing counselor in high school. Life changer, catalyst, angel. But... I only got to see her a few months before the school year ended, then she changed jobs. I was 14. I continued in therapy but the next three therapists didn't work out. One I saw briefly because had to switch jobs shortly after I started. The next I saw a few months: an intern and not good with boundaries, who broke confidentiality, that was a terrible terrible mess. Finally, I did see one for about two years, but it wasn't productive, she was not a good fit for me at all. Detached, distracted, Freudian, not my style, but I was too young to figure it all out then. So, I stopped therapy at 18. The thing is, it made a huge difference in my life, that and the support groups. I do feel it positioned me to be successful and open in ways I would not have been otherwise.

I was hesitant to get back into therapy, but I was having trouble parenting as well as I wanted, so I did, and have been rewarded for doing so, lots of progress and I really love my therapist. We've been together 10 months now, very intensely. Today, after I posted this, she just actually sent me the most affirming, caring, reassuring email that she would always be there for me, therapist for life, just some amazing stuff, consistent with how she's been the last months too, but in a way that was hard for me to trust and hold onto. I'm so glad to have her, but before that email I was just thinking about how used I am to losing the good people in my life, like teachers and counselors, about how they've always been short term at best.

I just like to think, well... maybe I could rely on her more than a few months. It's been 10 now, which is good. I just can't imagine really having her around for a long time, like even a couple years or more, so... I really appreciate y'all proving to me it has happened, lol.

I hope you'll keep them coming, I really like seeing these success stories since so often we focus on ruptures and negatives.

I've been with this current therapist 3 yrs. I will be moving in 10 months and I wish I could take her with me.

How she has helped me:
* helped me realize that I still have an eating disorder
* recognize and say when I'm depressed
* deal with staying on meds
* earned my trust
* Kept me out of the hospital
* get me comfortable with asking for help
* after horrible experiences in the mental health system she restored my faith
* She help give me a voice for the things that I couldn't say out loud

I saw my T for @ 11 years, beginning in grad school, and finished 16 years ago. We uncovered so many things, but all under the umbrella of very confused and manipulative parenting. He "fathered" me and continues to be a Father presence in my life post therapy. How I know therapy worked is that the almost constant depression ended, the pain of trauma faded, I've grown increasingly more comfortable in my life. Although I've had a lot of life changes since then, I've adapted successfully. There was a time I was nearly agoraphobic, and now I've been living in a foreign culture for about 15 years.

A couple of years ago I found myself in a pretty traumatic situation; although I experienced some powerful emotions from the past, they didn't engulf me. I was able to cope with the situation under tremendous stress, and found myself to be very resilient. So, yeah, therapy worked.

I've been with my current T and pDoc for almost 5 years. I feel like both understand me very well ~ they both also agree that I always will be coming to therapy. Maybe I won't always need medications to work against my issues....we'll see...