Why do you believe what the therapist says?

Why can't you dance by yourself?

It doesnt further the species? Idk. I am alone a lot, but i need my electricity!!! Gotta go, t time.

For me, I don't believe good things about myself naturally, even though I want to hope that maybe there are good things about me. So when my T says good things about me, it taps into that area of myself that has those feelings.

Oh, and everyone likes a good compliment.

Because humans are social species. Brain studies and sociology studies have proven this over and over. Humans can't and don't thrive in isolation, especially children.

I don't. He has to earn my trust. I can't help, it, its the way I have always functioned.

If someone wants to get better in therapy, trust is necessary. I took a leap of faith and I was terrified he was going to steer me in a bad direction. Things were definitely scary. Making changes in how I dealt with people was terrifying. I didn't know what to say next and for a while, was very dependent on him. And I always questioned him. I made him CONVINCE me he was right. Then I would move forward. And everything would work out in the end. I saw that he was right, over and over, and soon what I learned started to integrate in how I interact with everyone.

I am at a point where I have my communication skills down pretty solid. But I have no real sense of self and it leaves me empty and depressed. When it comes to changing myself internally, I just can't. I'm stuck there. I guess its more vulnerability than I can handle.

One thing I've learned is that the best person to listen to to determine the truth about something or what is right for me in a certain situation is myself. When I listen to other people because they're supposed to know better, I get in trouble, or things just don't work out.

So basically, that's part of why therapy doesn't work for me. Therapists don't know me better than I know myself. In fact, they don't know me at all.

Really, the only benefit I can see with therapy is the reassurance thing. Even if I know deep down that things probably won't get any better any time soon, I guess it's still nice to hear someone say it will get better. Frankly, I don't think the cost of therapy is justified on those grounds. There are free ways to have someone tell me it will be okay.

And yet one still can - it is physically and mentally possible to dance by oneself.
I do it all the time. It is quite fun and has nothing at all to do with being a social species.
Plus some are/need more socialiality than others. Dancing has nothing to do with isolation in my opinion.

And I am not all that keen on compliments from strangers and sometimes not even from people who are not strange. Not everyone is keen, some may be. I don't think anything is all ever.

After eight years and finally a proper diagnosis and more effective meds, I do trust my doctor implicitly. I have the best of both worlds: a pdoc who listens, talks and even responds to every single email.

And he's just so flippin' smart.

Stopdog, I like that question. I found the entire "externalized authority" thing only left me more childish. In retrospect, I found it damaging that the therapists fostered it.

So many eloquent responses here. My 2 cents is not nearly as eloquent but is simple and heartfelt. I didn't believe her at first, but once I began to trust her and really open up, I chose to believe her because what was just inside me was making me miserable and she gave me that thread of hope that let me see I was worth more than that - so I held onto what she said and eventually began to believe it myself.

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Because my T is the person who knows everything about me. All the horrible bits, all the dark bits, all the ugly bits and everything in between.

If she compliments me, if she can find it in her heart to say something nice and something reassuring, I will not stop her from saying or thinking it. To have someone know your ugliness and think/say you are a nice person regardless, its awesome

Also, I find the question (to me) is a bit like "why would you agree with a doctors diagnosis"..umm, because they are more trained then I am in the subject. While nobody can KNOW me better then me, my T can SEE me better than I can.

I believe him because he has proven himself trustworthy. He may not always be initially correct on an initial interpretation, but he is always and actively open in learning more about me, getting to know who I am, putting himself in my shoes, and learning what the world looks like and feels like to me.

I grew up in an abusive and neglectful home. I learned not to trust, to push people away, to stand on my own two feet no matter how much pain I was in. I learned that I was a bad person, someone in the way and not deserving of care. I learned to do without it.

That is not a healthy way for a person to be, living in emotional isolation because of fear, pain, and negative belief about myself and others. I was walled off, damaging my relationships, lonely and falling into depression. I decided to take the risk of learning to be more open, more vulnerable, more authentic.

A therapist has to earn my trust, and many have not. Once they do, I try my hardest to be open and vulnerable with them, because only in that way can I let them in, and hear what they say when they challenge the beliefs my parents gave me. Only when I hear those things, can I really change how I feel about myself on a deep level. And it does work.

My therapist is someone who cares for me when I cannot. He tells me when I am thinking in a way that is hurting me, he reassures me when I'm insecure and think he's going to leave me, he reminds me that my feelings are important in my relationships. He calls me out on my defensiveness, he calls me out when I am painting someone in a negative light out of fear, etc.

Yes, he has power in my life. I have given it to him for a specific reason, and it is a big risk. I choose whom I trust with that risk very carefully.

I started to feel better, move more freely in the world after I knew the most important opinion was my own. Getting the answers from someone I considered an expert, particularly regarding my own life, or a parent figure, paradoxically was more enfeebling. And I particularly don't want to feel "accountable" to anyone else. I enjoy adult privilege too much.

I don't always believe what the therapist says. I ask a lot of questions and try to consider their point of view. If I don't believe them, or think they are on the wrong track, I let them know.
I used to trust doctors fairly blindly.
When we are small we believe, for a time, that our parents know everything. Then we see that when parents don't know what to do, they ask the doctor. We learn through our parents that doctors, therapist, etc. know more than they do.

As youths and adults, we need to unlearn this. We normally discover this thinking is flawed. People are flawed. We need to learn to set the bar higher and find excellence and genuineness in others on our own.

If I went to mds- I would not agree with their diagnosis without more reason to do so than just their opinion.

Well yes, if I went to the doctor complaining of a headache and he said I had to have my leg amputated, I wouldn't just go along with it because its his opinion.

I don't believe everything my therapist says. To the extent that she's demonstrated her expertise and has long experience observing certain things, I often find her credible. However she makes errors and is prone to certain types of fallacies, but none that justify terminating. I also find her to be an unusually sincere person, so while she may be wrong, she is nearly always earnest and has the best of intentions.

I don't believe the reassurance in those instances, at least in my case, has anything to do with logical belief in the therapist. I simply find it soothing to hear reassurances on a childish level.

Yes, I can and do continually reassure myself, but as an emotionally self-reliant, isolated person in highly stressful situations during a period of many years, I found it tiring. It's a primal thing to be soothed.

My therapist does not do reassurance. And I certainly do not tell myself reassuring things.

Why would I disbelieve him? What would be his reason for lying? He's no saint or guru or infallible person, but he is an intelligent guy whose comments and questions are usually to the point. The two previous therapists I've seen did not make particularly relevant comments or ask questions that made sense, and so I did not take much notice of them. But I don't believe that they were dishonest or stupid either.

From my point of view, I don't give my therapist power by believing what he says to me, or by thinking that his comments are relevant. I have the power to do whatever I wish with what he says. In fact, I see my therapist as relatively powerless. I am free to leave at any time, but he has to stay. I can say anything I like, while he has to think extremely carefully before speaking. Etc.

He has 5-6 years of training and 30+ years of experience and further education in psychiatry and psychotherapy. That's why I see him, because of his expertise in those fields. I don't think he is more right than I am when it comes to my field of expertise.

Well, none of this is applicable - he never gives me compliments except very very rarely when he makes a positive comment about something I have said or done in therapy. I obviously believe him then, because that kind of statement has no inherent truth value, it is only true because he says it, and because he says it, it is per definition true. And I have never experienced modelling behaviour from a therapist, so I don't know what that would be like.

That being said, I would probably like it if T told me that I was an okay person. Again, that kind of statement is not objectively true or false, and it would be completely counterproductive for a T to say that kind of thing unless they really believed it. I guess the bottom line is that most people I know take pride in their work, so I have no reason to assume that my therapist doesn't.

Like with anyone else; I listen and form my own opinion; I even argue with him!

I only believe doctors when there is concrete evidence of what they're telling me. I've gone to doctors complaining of dizzy spells, and they said things to me like, "Oh, it's probably just anxiety" or "Sounds like you're dehydrated. Drink more water!" (I drink water all day long, so unless there's something wrong with me that causes me to not absorb water or whatever, I'm not dehydrated).

If they don't run tests and just brush me off with, "Meh. Probably anxiety," then I think they're full of it and find another doctor lol.

I don't doubt that the questions are not applicable to everyone.

I don't get the connection between a therapist saying you are an okay person and them taking pride in their work.

Perhaps I misunderstood the threads about the best thing the therapist ever said to you and others of that ilk. As I read them, most responses were about encouragement, reassurance, compliments, advice or promises to never leave that they had received from the therapist

This is something noted by a lot of therapists. That when they ask their clients about their most helpful, memorable, moment, it's not their clever interventions we appreciate. It's the relationship. A shared laugh. Little things.

I would say I have never seen a clever intervention from a therapist. I have told her if she ever has one I will let her know.

Of course, also, I do not laugh with the woman or consider the arrangement a relationship other than in the most business like of meanings either