I first wonna say plz do not read this post if you are in therapy and it is doing good for you, and if you choose to anyway plz know I am not in anyway downing them, just loosing hope is all.



I've been wondering about this question since I began therapy 4 years ago, and that is do Therapists/Pdocs truly care/understand/ and most of all like there job? I am extremely wise in a way I see through problems and ppl like x-ray vision, sadly I never can fix the problems and am too scared to try to fix the ppl, so in a way I'm a therapist who's in therapy. I've been too 5 therapists, going on 6 and 2 Pdocs, all in which have left me, downed me, and most of all lost my respect. I want to be a psycologist someday so these questions are in need of answering but I find none can be honestly answered. I believe my self a therapist MUST dedacate themselves to the patient, just as a athelete dedicates themselves to their sport, team, and winning.

Its really hard for me to see them has dedicated (the ones I've seen), you'll know if you've read my posts that I had a horrible visit last week in which I tore the presscrition and ran from my Pdoc, i dont know what she thinks of me now, but before she was irriated and made me cry, my mother got hte prescription. This post is apparently full of rants, but I assure you im just so sad I'm looking cluelessly for answers....

visit www.guidetopsychology.com

they spend a huge amount of time and money on education and would not go into the field if they were not extremely dedicated.

as laypersons we may not see all the intricacies of how they work; we may lose patience and give up before benefitting from the therapy; we may be so resistant we can't allow them to help us.

[sunrise]

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Do Therapists, and Pdocs really know the answer?

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I remember one thing my therapist told me near the beginning of our therapy was that each person contains the knowledge of what they need to heal. This was very empowering to me and after he said it, it somehow seemed obvious. For how would he know? He is not me. I liked that he did not pretend to have the answer. Therapists are not all knowing, like gods. I have never felt like my therapist was trying to fix me, but he has been there to give support and accompany me on my journey.

I'm sorry you are having such a hard time right now, Moonkin. Before we have chosen our careers, we often try out many ideas and gather information to help us decide. It could be that you will decide not to be a psychologist. Or maybe you will. Keep exploring and looking. Hang in there.

[WinterRose]

Do they really know the answer? No - but you do, and it's their job to help you find it in yourself. I see them as stabile, supportive guides who assist us in rebuilding ourselves; but we do the work. It is a very sensitive field and there has to be a fit for optimal results between the practitioner and the person seeing them. Not that it can't work out if you aren't a perfect match, but sometimes the road is rocky. In fact, it often is rocky. So you need someone professional enough to hold a positive space for you where it is ok to be who you are and experience what you are experiencing and complete your journey without having to do it alone.

Unfortunately, I hear that many do get burned out in this field. Even so, I am also working towards changing careers to become a T and someday maybe I'll look at being a psychologist.

Best of luck to you.

[(JD)]

Moonkin, please do remember that depression is guiding your thinking. If you've been depressed for that many years, and gone through that many doctors, I can surely understand your doubts and frustration! I hope you can keep trying to work with this T, take the med, and hang on for better days.

There is a lot that doctors do know. They don't know what you don't tell them about yourself and your experiences and how you think about them personally. They aren't mind readers.

[Rapunzel]

Hi Moonkin,

I am sorry that you are struggling so much right now. A lot of us have been there too, and know that it is a miserable place to be. Nobody knows exactly what it is like for you, though. Only you know that.

It is good to hear that you have a goal (to become a psychologist)! You have something to work for, and to hang onto in case you forget why you are still fighting the battle in the hard times. That has been the goal that I hung onto also. It's a long road, so please make sure that you have other goals along the way, like finishing high school, and other road-marks. I hope that you also have personal and relationship goals. Don't be a workaholic, or so focused on developing your career that you forget to live your life. Just another trap that I get stuck in sometimes.

I've also been in therapy a lot of times, and for quite a few years. The earlier times I felt never really helped me at all, and I thought that the therapists were so clueless. Maybe they were missing the picture, but the biggest thing that they missed was that I needed to learn what my responsibility was in my own therapy. I guess I thought that they were supposed to fix me, or that just by talking about things, it would get better.

But the thing is, the only way to recover from mental illness is to heal yourself. Doctors can give you medicine that might make you feel better or control some of your symptoms, but you don't get better until you change your thinking. Therapists help you to discover what it is that you need to change, and they serve as a guide. That's really all that they can do - the idea is to help you to become you. As much as it would be nice if someone could do the work for you, nobody can. Your mom can't, your therapist can't, your best friend can't. It all comes down to you making the decision that you want your life to be different, you deciding how you would like to be, and you buckling down and doing the work. Just like nobody can learn algebra for you - they can show you how, but you are the one who has to learn it.

I am in graduate school now, and one of my professors taught that "when the therapist is working harder than the client, it's time to fire the client." That's because clients are not going to get better until they are ready to do the work. If they ever get to that point, they will come back. I've been terminated as a client several times, and at the time I thought that the therapist didn't care. They didn't tell me that I wasn't doing the work though - they said that I was better. I knew that I wasn't, but I didn't say that. My current therapist has also threatened to terminate me several times, but she has stuck with me. When she said it, I knew that it was because I wasn't doing the work. I think I'm finally doing it now. It took a long time for me to get it, and I don't know if it would have made a difference if someone had told me earlier on what I needed to do. I'd like to think that it would have. I'm glad that you have the chance to start now. If you work hard now, you can have a normal life and achieve your goals, and not lose so many years to going through the motions or being miserable. I hope that you will do it.

Rap

Thank you all for your replies, and your insight on how T's think, and just what therapy is about. I think this proves to me that therapy won't help me because its TO professional, regardless I'm going to keep trying.

[Perna]

Therapy is only as personal as you make it. It is entirely about what you are doing and what you want, not what the therapist is doing or wants or "seems" to be like, etc.

No matter what a therapist does, one can block anything coming towards themselves from their therapist (or anyone else) and put one's own ideas and "spin" on it and "decide" it is or isn't helping. I was in therapy 18 years with the same therapist so know how slow and difficult or unsatsifactory it can seem/be. It took me that long to learn to hear and respond to another person.

I don't believe Life has questions and answers, just itself and the living of it. Questions and answers are too "neat and tidy" and organized and Life isn't like that. We can't control much, except ourselves. We can't make other people change, can't even help them unless they let us. We cannot "give" unless there is a receiver.

Moonkin, if I were in your shoes, I think I would try staying with a single therapist, good or bad, try listening to what they said and trying it out even if it didn't seem to "fit" what I saw or wanted. When I'm unhappy and having a hard time I try to listen better to other people's advice, even the "idiots" saying, "You don't smile enough" and use it in some way to understand my world. When I hear "You don't smile enough" I hear that there might be something bothering me and that it shows. Comments from "outside" me help me look inside better and see what everyone else (but Myself!) may see. The last time I heard the "You don't smile enough" I thought about it and ended up knowing I needed to enter therapy again; if someone outside me had not commented, I'd probably still be stewing in my own juices :-)

[Lemon]

Rapunzel - That was a great post.