Do you *like* therapy?

I feel as if I hold my breath all week until I am in therapy. When I am in therapy, I feel I can breath.

I was lucky enough to find two genuine, empathic, helpful therapists.
One is a female Ph.D. I had to leave that therapist due to a move. But we stay in touch.
I am now seeing a female Psy.D. who is wonderful for me.

Do I like therapy? I am not sure. But I find therapy very valuable.

I don't like the idea of therapy but it keeps me from focusing on the prize. By focusing on myself I take a rational approach rather than a self destructive one. I figure I will hate therapy before I learn to love it but I do appreciate it.

I love therapy. I'm a very emotional person, and it is really one of the few places where I feel I can show this side of myself 100 percent. I like the kind of pain that comes with healing and understanding. I'm a very masochistic person, so I don't mind having the truth dragged out of me, really this is preferable to the person who wait politely for me to give some version of what is on my mind.

But therapy is a vulnerable space, and I have no respect or appreciation for therapists who abandon or abuse their clients, or do anything to betray the therapy relationship. When that has happened to me in therapy I have not liked it, but to me that is not therapy.

Reading this thread has been an eyeopener I guess I never realized how difficult and unpleasant therapy can be for other people. I suppose I really am an odd ball.

It's like going to the gym. I don't really want to go, and sometimes I feel worse for a couple of days, but then I feel much much better.

I love the challenge of therapy and the breakthroughs. No, having a bad day/difficult session is having a bad day/difficult session so no fun. But as much as I don't like getting soaked in the rain, I understand it makes the flowers grow I still remember when I realized that having an stirred up session meant there would be "interesting" nightmares and dreams that could help me understand things better and I'd be anxious to go to sleep that night, see what the "story" would be. Do you watch "horror" movies? Why? A nightmare is much better than a horror movie because I'm the one "writing"/filming it, it's about "Me" and my psyche and it may be the key to surging ahead in some area/understanding.

Hi Petra5ed... how did you find your current T, if you don't mind me asking?

I've seen many Ts, and just don't click at all. I'm feeling a bit hopeless... I think that it may have to do with my family (i.e. my parents were very disengaged/neglectful, so I learned to always be "ok" and that I'm not allowed to share negative things, I think, still working on it!) I'm thinking tonight about whether that's part of why I feel like therapy is just *torturous* no matter who I'm seeing. I so want to improve my life and brain, but omg... just getting in there is hard... and I've only done a couple sessions with the new guy...

Oh Perna... I DON'T watch horror movies, actually! And if something awful happens in a movie... um... sometimes I cover my eyes so I don't have to watch! I think I'm super avoidant

Are you really able to hold that view (i.e. about rain makes the flowers grow) when you're in a bad place? Because I can see it when I'm in an ok place... but the bad emotions can be a bit overwhelming at times... and then I lose any nice thoughts like that!

He was a referral a doctor made, but I gathered a list of 8-10 potentials and I vetted all of them online, comparing their webpages etc. Specifically I wanted someone with >20 years of experience, and that I would feel comfortable with. I'm lucky that where I am you can find pictures of most on their website. The picture of my T didn't look like anyone I'd ever known, but my gut feeling was he was of the same energy as me. When I first showed up to his office, this will sound weird, but it smelled familiar to me. I just kind of had a feeling from the beginning like "ahh, thank God it's finally a therapist I can relate to that's not too weird."

The tendency not to share negative things will take time, you'll have to build up trust and rapport with whoever you pick. This issue you're having is very common for those of us from shite homes. I still have paranoia here and there that I'll show up and my T will tell me never to come back or something. Anyways, if you go and after a few months don't really give a crap about your T then try another one. All is not lost. Therapy is worth it, it's hard but there is a payoff. You'll want to not do it of course, because you've been stuffing that pain for a long time I'm sure. It's scary, and it needs to come out, but very slowly. You'll just practice letting out little bits, grieving and then allowing yourself to re-forget or disassociate or whatever your flavor is.

I love therapy! I love my therapist, I love most sessions, I just love what it has done for my life. I'm just lucky I found the right T for me. I just have to figure out how to let go!

one of the things i love about therapy with current t is that she always, always knows how to ask the right questions. the hard questions, the valuable questions.... and she knows when to push me to answer now, and when NOT to pressure me at all and leave me alone to work with them between sessions. Which I always do, of course. She has such huge patience with me I sometimes can't believe how one person can be so patient. I finally answered a question last WEEK that she asked me probably 4 MONTHS ago. Have I said lately how amazingly good at her job my t is???????!

Thanks... you (and everyone else who has found their "soul-T" ) are so lucky. I'm starting to think that my crazy-family-stuff has made me such a bad connector, that I wouldn't know a good-match if he/she landed on my doorstep, with a big red ribbon. *sigh!* That's really interesting that you felt that your T had the same energy as you, that's something that worries me - my (new) T feels soooo very different. I am hoping it's going to work out, he's different from any other T I've seen... much more direct and sort of unafraid to confront me, which I think *could* be helpful (I think I've managed to tie Ts in knots previously), but we'll see.

Thanks for the confirmation that all this is normal, and the encouragement. Reading so many positive responses really surprised me. I sort of expected everyone would find therapy as awful as I do

Thanks!

I like my T. I do not like therapy. It is the most difficult hour of my week and I dread it for the 6 days leading up to it. But, I believe that it will help me.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Therapy is HARD. But rewarding.

No...I really don't. I like my Ts. But I see that as entirely different than actually liking therapy, although I do appreciate it.