Which workbook is best for therapy?

The DBT book its obvious the benefits.

The other is a book of little art assignments designed for self discovery.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bos7wsrcybe90jc/books.JPG

Which should I work on?

i'm a practical person. i'd go with the dbt. the creative one would make me want to burn something down.

lol Nowhere, point taken :-D

I have done the second workbook. I really liked it. T gave it to me a couple of years ago and asked if I was willing to do it and let her know what I thought. She was trying to figure out if it was a good program...she now recommends it to quite a few clients

did you also use the companion diary? for tracking your mood and use of coping skills daily?

i tend to start stuff but not finish it, so I think the companion book will be good to remind me to use the skills instead of reading about them and forgetting they exist. i started it on monday. hoping to go thru the full 6 months/48 sessions left with my t.

When my ptsd was terribly bad my T told me not to read any self help books.

I was in a real bad place in my life and had tremendous guilt and desire to punish myself for what I had done. I think she was wanting me to realize the other person's role in my ptsd rather than all the focus on my own thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

i do dbt as group + ind. therapy. how does this work? i'm assuming no group component?

an online T suggested I do the courage to heal workbook with my t, but when I brought the books to session, my T suggested I do the DBT book first. by myself.

i've heard good things about that dbt book here. why does your T want you to do it alone? if there is a group or your T would do it with you that seems like it would be more effective to me.

When I brought it to session with me expecting us to work on it together she very literally LAUGHED at me, snorted and said it wasnt practical to work on it in session, what were we going to do, read a chapter together?

i think that pretty well explains why you and your T have long passed the expiration date on your therapeutic relationship. your T is no longer in the right frame of mind to help you at all. i think a lot of us have good intentions about doing workbooks, etc. but without the proper support it can be quite difficult to keep up. i used to listen to these psychologists on the radio and they'd say "play the movie" meaning play out in your mind based on past experience how things are going to pan out. how do you honestly see the next 6 months with this T? do you really think anything is going to be any different than what you are experiencing now? if so, why? if not, then what would be a more pro-active choice to make?

i think if i stop fighting her things MIGHT be very different. at least i have the opportunity now to find out.

That was the only book that I used. I believe ( I have actually used a couple of workbooks and read a couple of books for t) I used cards and such to remind me to do it. Every evening before going to bed a did a section.

okay. what is your plan to stop fighting her? specifically what are you going to do differently? you don't have to respond here or now. i'm just trying to get you to "play the movie" to see how this is going to play out. i think you'll have to have a plan and a way to stick to the plan to not fight her. maybe that is something to think about. good intentions are great but i know from experience it's easy to not follow through on them.

IRL I see that you are making big efforts to do things differently but your T is not.
I'd hate to see you dump the idea of therapy forever just because of one T who is way off kilter.

do the energy exercises and mindfulness and tapping that she wants once a week without fuss and do what i want once a week. compromise. and do the workbooks and learn the skills and stop landing in the hospital so much.

do you think it's likely your T will agree to doing what you want once a week? i sure would hope so. how will you stay motivated to do the workbook & learn the skills if you do it on your own? i think that is a key part because it is so easy for some of us to start projects but not finish them. this is where i think having support is a great help. it is so much easier to stay on task if you have a T helping you or a group doing it with you. if you look at your goals realistically and make a plan for how you deal with the obstacles that will come up i think you'll have a much better chance of actually seeing some real change. of course this does all depend on whether or not your T decides to change if she sees changes in you. i wonder if she will.

LOL! My therapist gave me modelling clay to take home and I practically had a nervous breakdown trying to figure out what to do with it. We spend a couple sessions discussing the problem!

Pinterest has lots of interesting stuff (whatever Pinterest is :-) Can you tell I'm a bit behind? Therapy Worksheets and Handouts on Pinterest

What I want once a week is to TALK (or try to) without her suggesting a stupid exercise bc I hate them and feel theyre a waste of time. MY compromise is giving her one day a week to subject me to mindfulness and energy bs. Maybe it will help, but I still think I can do it elsewhere for a lot cheaper than $120 per 45 minutes. Hopefully after a few weeks she will stop pressing me to do them for the entire session (but alternative even though I know I CAN do them elsewhere cheaper, it is unlikely that I actually WILL bc she never asks me about it or tells me to do it, so ::shrug:. Maybe in session is the nest way to ensure it gets done, however distasteful I find it.

and I know about the lack of motivation. I have zero follow through, I always end up not doing things. For instance she told me to buy a heartmath sensor and I did, I used it diligently 3 times a day for abnout two weeks then forgot about it. I mentioned to her that she never asked about it after telling me to buy it so I stopped using it, and she interpreted that to mean I was saying that bc she didnt ask about it, it means she doesnt care. that is NOT what I said, and not anywhere near what I was TRYING to say. i ****ing HATE when she puts her words in my mouth, and those words are always negative or malicious things I havent actually said.

I sent her this email today:
I am doing the DBT Diary and the workbook, and the diary lets you keep track daily/weekly so I can see clearly if I'm improving. I thought maybe we could use Monday sessions for talking (I'll work on it), and Wednesday sessions for the exercises you think might be beneficial? And I'll do them without complaining. I've spent two years fighting you and I'm not better, so maybe it's time I start following your lead. But I do need you to ask about the DBT book and what I learned from it, and what skills I used-consistently-so it remains in the front of my mind and I keep doing them daily, because otherwise I will stop after a week or two and forget about it. Me needing you to talk to me about it (or the heartmath) has nothing to do with whether or not you care about me, and everything to do with my lack of motivation and needing to "have my homework checked."

I wish very much that you would not take things personally, or hear things I haven't said. Ex: you not asking about the heartmath means you don't care- I NEVER said that, and I never meant that, and by mentioning the device, I was only trying to tell you that I have trouble following through with things and I need your help to succeed, even if it's only to remind me, to EXPECT me to have done it, so that in the end I wind up doing it. I won't if no one is watching. Too easy to forget, too easy to be distracted, too easy to just fall out of existence. I only show up at work bc my boss EXPECTS me to be there, so I am, to the best of my ability. Please don't get mad that I need you to do something that you may think is trivial or meaningless, because it means something to me, and will help me to learn what you've been trying to teach me since the beginning.

Hopefully Monday will mark the beginning of a new chapter in our therapy.

irl, that was an AWESOME email! you communicate very well. i sure hope she can meet you halfway. i think you have gone beyond meeting her halfway with what you are proposing.

That is a good email. I use my CBT T to keep me accountable to my tasks and goals. It is perfectly reasonable to ask your therapist to do this.

Thanks. I communicate GREAT via e-mail/writing. But when it comes to in session talking, you'd think I was born mute. I say very little. But I'm working on it...

My T's response to my e-mail:

I'm glad to hear that you are becoming more willing to work on exercises in session as well as at home. I am positive that you will begin to notice a difference even if it's only little by little. Your idea of doing more talking on Mondays and exercises on Wednesdays sounds good to me. You will find the greatest relief the quickest by doing DBT and energy exercises every day to counteract the deep grooves in your nervous system that have developed over years and years of negative beliefs And negative thinking.

Just a note about when you are in a panic, the quiet mindfulness exercise we've done in session is probably too quiet. When you are in a panic it is better to do something active like marching in place or going for a walk or run. Big energy requires big movement to get it to move. the quieter exercises work in session because my calm energy pours into you.

Take care and be brave, Adrienne

glad to hear you got a good response from your T. even if at best the energy exercises sound like bunk to me.

What is an energy exercise anyways???