[Suraya]

I don’t know if this will be the most coherent post as my thoughts are kind of just rambling around in my head after coming home from therapy today. Does anyone else ever ponder the idea that therapy might actually make you more feel worse? Make you feel more depressed? I’m starting to think that being in therapy has made me a more depressed person. I’ve suffered with depression most my life, but it’s come and gone in waves. Now it’s kind of settled into a deep wave of despair and it isn’t lifting. I’ve developed a deep need and attachment for T after four years of being with her. I have almost no desire to live – no motivation to do anything I used to enjoy – no hope or goals for a future. I think about therapy and T and why I feel horrible and what I need to do to heal….I think about this nearly 24/7. So how does therapy help if all I do is think about therapy and think about T?

I definitely got worse before I got better, or at least my symptoms were less hidden. Therapy brought up issues and emotions and symptoms that I had spent so long pushing down, so once I started opening up, yes, my symptoms became more intense. But it had to be done to get me where I am today. As things improved for me, my constant thinking about therapy and my issues started letting up, a bit at a time.

It did help to make very concerted effort to find activities to be involved in that were just about nurturing my soul: music, church, etc. in my case. When I started checking back into my life, that is when I made the greatest improvements. I had to find ways to get out of my head and see what was going on around me (outside my head) again. Finding that balance was difficult and actually rather frightening, but it did come and it did help.

[stopdog]

I think it has the ability to make things worse. If one is lucky and the therapist is not a screw-up, things may get better. Sometimes therapy simply does not help a person through no fault of the client.

[Ididitmyway]

Originally Posted by Suraya

I don’t know if this will be the most coherent post as my thoughts are kind of just rambling around in my head after coming home from therapy today. Does anyone else ever ponder the idea that therapy might actually make you more feel worse? Make you feel more depressed? I’m starting to think that being in therapy has made me a more depressed person. I’ve suffered with depression most my life, but it’s come and gone in waves. Now it’s kind of settled into a deep wave of despair and it isn’t lifting. I’ve developed a deep need and attachment for T after four years of being with her. I have almost no desire to live – no motivation to do anything I used to enjoy – no hope or goals for a future. I think about therapy and T and why I feel horrible and what I need to do to heal….I think about this nearly 24/7. So how does therapy help if all I do is think about therapy and think about T?

Unfortunately, your experience is not uncommon. Yes, in many cases therapy not only doesn't fulfill its purpose but makes things worse, and it's not just because some specific therapists are incompetent and/or unethical. This is not an issue of "bad apples". This is a systemic issue that needs to be addressed, but we are not close to that point yet. This is not to make a generalization and to say that therapy generally doesn't work. Individual therapy experiences are extremely diverse for making such a broad statement, especially when everyone has their own idea of what it means when therapy "works". But cases like yours are way too common to be dismissed as exceptional or as a problem of incompetency of lack of professionalism in certain individual therapists. There are some big systemic flaws in psychotherapy education and training and a widespread denial of it that does a great disservice to both consumers and providers. I hope I will live to the day when this issue is addressed, but this may not happen..

[Partless]

Originally Posted by Suraya

I don’t know if this will be the most coherent post as my thoughts are kind of just rambling around in my head after coming home from therapy today. Does anyone else ever ponder the idea that therapy might actually make you more feel worse?

Yes, therapy is not useful for some people. Even if you have a good personality match with a therapist who is competent and ethical, and the modality chosen is suitable for the problem you're experiencing, you can't judge the effectiveness of therapy by how much happier you feel every session.

However, given that you've been doing this for several years, it's worth evaluating your progress. Unless you're working on something like new memories of childhood abuse or other kind of trauma you had not dealt with before, and unless there are significant new challenges or problems in your life outside the office, some sort of positive progress should emerge with problems you been working on before.

I've been on and off in therapy since my teens, seen like ten therapists, had ups and downs, and this is kind of what I'm talking about (click for full size)



I did this in MsPaint just now. Sort of inspired by my own therapy. If you follow the black jagged line from left to right, that's how someone might progress with a therapist, and in early phase you may seem improvements but so many ups and downs it's hard to know where it's going, and in fact if you quit, you may quit at a point you're feeling worse than you began! But once this line stabilizes a bit (like after green vertical line), a more clear progress emerges (or should).

But if you have discovered some major issue in therapy, do expect some unpredictable ups and downs again. Or if some terrible things happened with your work or family or love life or whatever. But if not, and no real progress is being made and you actually feel worse, this is kind of a warning sign to consider, as sign that your therapist is not a good match or not capable or that the sort of therapy done is not a good fit. Or in fact you may consider taking a break from therapy.

Look into it, and don't give up, there are solutions and there is hope.

Originally Posted by Suraya

Now it’s kind of settled into a deep wave of despair and it isn’t lifting. I’ve developed a deep need and attachment for T after four years of being with her. I have almost no desire to live – no motivation to do anything I used to enjoy – no hope or goals for a future. I think about therapy and T and why I feel horrible and what I need to do to heal….I think about this nearly 24/7. So how does therapy help if all I do is think about therapy and think about T?

I'm really sorry things are so horrible for you.

If you were feeling this way for 4 years, i'd say consider trying something different (new therapist perhaps). But since you've only recently developed the attachment, needs are now surfacing that you may have been repressing before. In that case, it might be uphill from here. But it takes a LONG time.

I'd consider antidepressants. Is that something that you have done, or have considered lately?

Partless, I love the graph!!

I'm so sorry that things haven't shown any improvement for you and you're feeling worse than when you began. That is a terrible place to find yourself after working with someone for four years. Have you talked with your therapist about how things are feeling for you? Is she aware of the fact that your moods continue to plunge downward?

I know how hard it would be to leave someone you've been working with for four years and I don't suggest that, but would you and your therapist consider the possibility of seeking out another therapist for consultation? Sometimes seeing another therapist together is the thing that can stimulate change for both client and therapist. If your therapist works in a peer consultation group or has a supervisor, someone from within this group might be a good person to consult together. I strongly urge you to talk about what's going on with you with your therapist. If you trust her and feel connected to her but can't find your way out of this downward plunge, the two of you really need to find a way to address it. Take care.

Same here, I have been in therapy for 2 years and I don't feel any better. Things get worse for reasons other than therapy though, and I also don't go to therapy just to feel better, but to understand myself and my past.

[missbella]

Therapy definitely made things worse for me. And it certainly failed to address the issues that led me there in the first place. And though at one time I had a team of harsh "tough love" types --who were judged perfectly fine by their peers when I filed a complaint-- my other therapists were empathetic.

The damage came from the process itself. Therapy encouraged me to see myself as a pathetic victim, defective because of my family and what life failed to deliver me. The therapy process made me very self-absorbed, habituating a poor failure personality. It also encouraged me to see myself as weak, incompetent child hopelessly inferior to the magnificent wisdom of the therapists. It stoked my wounds, defects and my perception of life's unfairness to me. And when I did analysis I was so self-obsessed I went into what I can only describe as a meditation psychosis. I was acting crazy and lost valuable friends.

By treating me like such a special snowflake, therapy insulated me from realizing who everyone else in the world walks around with his own set of wounds, self-doubts and disappointments. Remade me as the OPPOSITE of a tough, confident person who could stand up and manage the career my abilities had forged for myself. Rather than make me bully-proof, it aggravated my sense of feebleness and ineptitude.

Nor did the "nurturing" of therapy give me any sense of competence. That was something I needed to EARN over the years, through my own accomplishments and meeting challenges.

Worse, therapy for me was a treadmill of feeling hopelessly inferior to my therapists, who always presented an affect of clairvoyance and wisdom, of holding the answers. It wasn't until years later did I realize what a deception it was in my case. None of them had the slightest understanding of my world and my relationship to it. None of them were particularly perceptive or wise in life. (I now know a therapist in my regular life who has this same brand of vainglory.)

I now believe "understanding myself" doesn't come from excavating the worst of my past, which is impossible to review accurately. It is from how I create a present life, how I continue to challenge myself and overcome the difficulties I couldn't face yesterday. It's how I handle conflicts and bounce back from setbacks. I can't change the past.

If I can --at least-- attempt to pre-empt the "well, ya hafta wanna change" scold, I DID change over the years, lost a great deal of anxiety, but not to credit of anything I learned or did in therapy. The same submission and compliance that made therapists think me a dedicated client was utterly undermining in coping with the outside world.

[Partless]

Originally Posted by mian síoraí

Partless, I love the graph!!

Oh that's kind of you Mian. I think it's interesting to make one, kind of puts things in perspective, even if made roughly.

Therapy made things much worse for me. I kept hearing people say it would get worse before it got better, but it never got better for me even after seven years of therapy. I am not saying that isn't true for others, but it was very harmful for me. I did have a good psychologist for seven months, but he left and I really don't know how things would have turned out with him. I probably would have repulsed and disgusted him like I did my other therapist and he would have given up on me too.

I actually did a lot better in the real world after the seven year therapy ended. I wasn't so selfishly focused on my problems and my woes and my issues and the weird relationship i had with him. I think a lot of people get caught up in having someone pity them and they want or need the "warm fuzzies" of therapy and they lose sight of the here and now. I don't know. It just seems like a lot of people end up way too attached and enmeshed and hurt. I don't see many therapy success stories here or anywhere.

[Suraya]

You’ve all given me a lot to think about. I definitely see how my symptoms were shoved down before therapy and only after all this time working with her have they started to surface because I’ve started to trust her. It’s only been during this past year that I’ve started to really trust her and open up and let my feeling out and share my truth. I think that’s why the attachment has just started, too.
I do take antidepressants and in the past they’ve worked much better than they have this past six months – but I also have a whole lot of crap going on in life that is crushing down on me – which may be a huge part of my problem too. T tells me I have a much harder life than most people she sees – though I often wonder if she just says this to me to try and get me to stop minimizing my problems. I try to stay very active with exercise and going out with friends and at church, etc., but it seems that if I don’t have an external event to keep me busy, my mind gets the best of me and I automatically slip into depression and start thinking about all, of this therapy crap and how awful I feel and wanting to end my life (but I’m not going to).
Maybe some of you are right and it does get worse before it gets better. It’s only been the last year that I’ve really been opening up and only the last several months that I’ve developed this neediness for T and therapy. I’ve only felt this incredibly awful since October. Maybe it’s just the beginning of me feeling worse before it gets better.

Hi sura ya,
I can see how this is very painful for you right now. I can also imagine just how painful and hopeless life seems at the moment. I am nor going to say things get better because for me seeing the wrong therapist three times used to evoke al of these painful hurt feelings too. I am not saying your t isn't working anymore but perhaps her approach isn't.
Do you know your attachment type? People with an insecure attachment and past trauma will get helpless quicker when in distress, triggering depression, anxiety( even complicated grief) because they are are not used to having or being supported. Do you ever discuss attachment or inner child work? I think this would of great benefit to you to get back some empowerment and power over your life .

[Suraya]

I do have fearful, insecure attachment. We don't discuss attachment much or do inner child work. What is others' experience with it and what does it look/feel like?

[archipelago]

Therapy does make things worse. I don't think there is much doubt about that really in the sense that if you have never looked at your insides before and then start looking you are going to start seeing and feeling things that perhaps you had ways of keeping out of awareness. This unfortunately is the truth of other types of experiences that lead to a better way of handling things, such as getting sober or becoming mindful. And sometimes it hurts like the flames of hell. That is my experience. But my experience also includes hope, increased capacity to feel, better living, more freedom, becoming more real and authentic, and so on.

If you are in so much pain that you are despairing all the time, see no hope, are essentially collapsing, then something needs to happen that is different so that you can be able to at least feel that you can suffer less and can do a few things to move in that direction. Can you bring this very issue up within therapy? are there other things you can do in a more self-help way? are there people in your life who might be worth getting in touch with? activities that are pleasant or meaningful?

[Jada1648]

Well said Miss Bella! I tried therapy as well and had those same thoughts. Good to know it isn't always the answer and if it doesn't work it is through no fault of your own. I accepted the facts that I was very anxious about it and uncomfortable.

[Partless]

Originally Posted by archipelago

Therapy does make things worse. I don't think there is much doubt about that really in the sense that if you have never looked at your insides before and then start looking you are going to start seeing and feeling things that perhaps you had ways of keeping out of awareness. This unfortunately is the truth of other types of experiences that lead to a better way of handling things, such as getting sober or becoming mindful. And sometimes it hurts like the flames of hell. That is my experience. But my experience also includes hope, increased capacity to feel, better living, more freedom, becoming more real and authentic, and so on.

Well Said archipelago, and I think that's in particular true of more deep kind of therapies and for bigger problems. Other times it is much less likely to make things worse even intially. One example is short term CBT. But a person who was abused in the past and has spent so much of life building up defense against memories and sensations, and has now gone for psychodynamic therapy, that person has to face tremendous pain and likely will get quite worse at the time.

I could not be the therapist to such a person. Don't know how caring therapists can do it. Can't imagine watching people who come to me in pain, be faced with much greater pain. I know the intention is to help them get better, but still, I can't watch the person go through that.

[archipelago]

I just read something actually in a Buddhist book, but by Jung, that made me pay attention.

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious."

So many of us have this idea that there is a rescue of some figure from outside or that therapy itself is that figure of salvation. But it is facing the darkness that brings illumination. It may feel terribly difficult and is, but the outcome is worth it and when it really comes down to it we all have the strength and courage to do it even if we don't feel like it. Another person there helps enormously.

[Suraya]

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making darkness conscious."

love it.

[dancinglady]

Yes it makes you worse. I have spent 34 years in therapy and I am far worse off now than I ever was before therapy.

I'm sorry you're feeling so bad right now.

I definitely felt worse before feeling better. I agree with lolagrace that it had to be that way, to work through the crap I had to unbury it, I had to be in it, and t was in it with me, to get me to the point where I am today. In fact I just ran across one of my therapy journals that somehow wasn't in the box with the rest of them, from 2 years ago, and reading through it, I did notice a period of time where I even wrote it in there - "I think about therapy and t 24/7 it and she are always, always, always in my head." something like that. It was like an obsession. But it did lessen!! And I flipped through my other journals since then and can actually see the progression of my thoughts and feeling better. And now I'm working through terminating with t. I am happier than I've ever been in my life, right now, but... 2 years ago, I was a mess..... a worse mess than I was before starting therapy 3.5 years ago. I am glad I kept my journals, it's good to review them from time to time and watch my growth.

[musinglizzy]

I SO understand this post. Think I could have written it myself. If it helps, you're not alone. Not at all. When it was posted, my therapy dynamic/my therapist's boundaries, had not changed. Soon after they did, however, and I've been worse since. I was pretty bad before. If I was to go over the edge, this probably would have been the time. I am continuing with therapy and trying to regain a connection I felt has been lost with my T (I still feel her connection to me, but I don't feel the same connection with her I did before...but I'm trying!)

But I'm proud of myself that I was able to tell her I feel like I'm getting worse instead of better, to which she replied it is normal to get worse before you get better...she believes this is it, and will go uphill from here on out. Do I believe her? Nope. But I have enough uncertainty to give it a try. I've only been in therapy for 10 months (twice weekly sessions though)...and I hate to throw all of that away. I will NOT go through the therapy process again, so I want to get past this with my T, who I really do adore, and stay as long as it takes.

[Gavinandnikki]

Therapy made me OR in therapy I became:

self-absorbed
needy
dependent
Felt constantly unsatified
Brief episodes of dissociation
Occasionally, feared I was becoming psychotic
Quite lustful towards my same sex therapist- I am happily heterosexually married for 28 years

Completely obsessed about my therapist

Overwhelmingly obsessed about my therapist

I self-terminated (how appropriate) after 5+ years

Couldn't take it anymore

Developed tremendous insight to why I was this way

I am better now

if your therapy is making things worse, it isn't the right therapy for you. i wouldn't expect or tolerate something i pay 50 quid a session making me feel worse. therapy makes me feel better.