[qwertykeyboard]

Does anybody else ever get frustrated or find it difficult to be vulnerable in therapy sessions because you feel like your T hasn't been through what you're feeling and can't understand? I often find it difficult to explain cutting and the feelings associated with it because I feel like no one can understand unless they've experienced it.

Sometimes I just want to shout in session "therapy is stupid!" Has anyone ever done that?

[atisketatasket]

Originally Posted by qwertykeyboard

Does anybody else ever get frustrated or find it difficult to be vulnerable in therapy sessions because you feel like your T hasn't been through what you're feeling and can't understand? I often find it difficult to explain cutting and the feelings associated with it because I feel like no one can understand unless they've experienced it.

Sometimes I just want to shout in session "therapy is stupid!" Has anyone ever done that?

I had the same fear, as I have a couple things that I thought my therapist wouldn't understand. But she either did have personal experience of it, or she'd treated someone with the issue in question. Any therapist who's been in practice for a bit has seen almost everything, so why not ask?

As for your question...I haven't shouted it, but I've said it, several times in our first few sessions. She took it well.

[Cinnamon_Stick]

Yes! I have a hard time talking sometimes (it has gotten much better) about topics I know my T has not been through. I feel like people only understand if they have been through it. I have accepted that my T has not gone through it and she does her best to help me. Oddly enough my T is only person I have ever known in my life who completely understands me and what I have been through and shows so much empathy.

[qwertykeyboard]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon_Stick

Yes! I have a hard time talking sometimes (it has gotten much better) about topics I know my T has not been through. I feel like people only understand if they have been through it. I have accepted that my T has not gone through it and she does her best to help me. Oddly enough my T is only person I have ever known in my life who completely understands me and what I have been through and shows so much empathy.

How do you know if your T has gone through it though? Are you allowed to ask?

I think there's a certain amount of finding out together in therapy.
I was am addicted. T want. I tell her about the feelings connected with that. We discuss it together. That's the working in therapy.

[Chummy]

Some things I'm afraid to bring up again. My T seems to understand a lot of what I tell her. But I don't think she has been through the same. I can't know for sure, but she's very young and she doesn't look like she has experienced this.
I had tried my best to explain my feelings to her and she was understanding, but I could tell from how she reacted she doesn't know how it really feels for me. And also not asking me about it in sessions after I told her certain things, I don't feel she seems to really understand.

[Leah123]

Originally Posted by qwertykeyboard

Does anybody else ever get frustrated or find it difficult to be vulnerable in therapy sessions because you feel like your T hasn't been through what you're feeling and can't understand?

Yes, I've felt that way, but found I was wrong, that when I had a good therapist, I could tell her anything and whether or not she'd been through it, she could help me and come to understand really well.

I have stomped my feet in therapy before and pronounced "this is stupid!" at t. she took it in stride each time. I'm feeling the need to do that again here recently.

i love your screen name, btw, qwerty!

[Cinnamon_Stick]

Originally Posted by qwertykeyboard

How do you know if your T has gone through it though? Are you allowed to ask?

I am not sure if you are allowed to ask but I have a deep connection with my T. I have been seeing her for years. When I am talking about something I have done or been through and she is not giving good advise I ask her if she has ever done it or been through it.

[Leah123]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon_Stick

I am not sure if you are allowed to ask but I have a deep connection with my T. I have been seeing her for years. When I am talking about something I have done or been through and she is not giving good advise I ask her if she has ever done it or been through it.

I've asked my T that as well and she's shared a number of things with me. I don't believe you should consider any question off limits in therapy that you feel would help you to have answered, it is the therapist's job to answer or not as they choose and explain why their choice benefits your therapy.

[fadedstar]

I've found it extremely difficult to talk about difficult subjects even though my T is much older and doesn't seem fazed by anything. I started writing things down and bringing them to sessions when I can't talk. She's seen how incredibly difficult it is for me and even remarked last time how she knows I can't make eye contact when I speak about this stuff. It took years and multiple therapist before I even found one I was willing to go into the dark stuff with (and even then it took a year)

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Originally Posted by qwertykeyboard

How do you know if your T has gone through it though? Are you allowed to ask?

You should be allowed to ask anything in therapy. Your therapist may or may not choose to answer, but no question should be off-limits, I think. The therapist might want to know why you ask, though, and that discussion can be very valuable in itself.

When it comes to shared experiences, my take on it is a little different. I am convinced that if two people have been through the same events or had the same thing happen to them, their subjective experiences will be different. And so it doesn't make any difference if the therapist has experienced the same thing - they still won't know how you felt until you explain it to them. Their job is not to intuitively know how you feel about something based on their own subjective experience, it is to understand you based on what you tell them. (Including non-verbal communication. Telling is not only about words.)

A shared experience can in fact be very alienating if the other person presumes that they know your feelings before you have had a chance to talk about them. I have experienced that more than once - on these boards as well as in real life. It is much better to have a trained listener who hears what you say without having a filter of their own experiences that stops them from understanding your feelings.

[fadedstar]

I think in general another problem is that most Ts see a client at a first session and the client can't say or isn't able yet to do into the underlying stuff so they'll say they feel depressed or anxious and there's really something much deeper there like trauma or SI or an eating disorder so the T approaches things as the standard anxiety/depression case but has no idea that the client needs more or a different approach. One of the things my T does is schema therapy so at the beginning she made me fill out a large pile of questionnaires asking about past traumas, feelings about myself, etc. We went over it at the beginning but not in detail and I declared certain topics off limits, at that time "permanently". She didn't press me on the off limits stuff but when it resurfaced she started to coax me into dealing with it. I think we had an entire session where she explained why we had to deal with it and how we could do it slowly and ensure my safety/sanity while doing so

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[Leah123]

Originally Posted by fadedstar

I think in general another problem is that most Ts see a client at a first session and the client can't say or isn't able yet to do into the underlying stuff so they'll say they feel depressed or anxious and there's really something much deeper there like trauma or SI or an eating disorder so the T approaches things as the standard anxiety/depression case but has no idea that the client needs more or a different approach. One of the things my T does is schema therapy so at the beginning she made me fill out a large pile of questionnaires asking about past traumas, feelings about myself, etc. We went over it at the beginning but not in detail and I declared certain topics off limits, at that time "permanently". She didn't press me on the off limits stuff but when it resurfaced she started to coax me into dealing with it. I think we had an entire session where she explained why we had to deal with it and how we could do it slowly and ensure my safety/sanity while doing so

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Actually, in my experience, therapists have been through enough training and practice that they know the presenting issue is very often not the heart of the problem.