[Cinnamon_Stick]

What are some things you wish someone had told you about therapy before you started? I know some of these might be a given but I feel I got way to close to my therapist.

Mine are:
Don't get emotionally involved
At some point the therapist will leave in some way (move, change jobs, retire) so always be ready for it and don't get to close
Get your needs met by other people in your life
Advocate for yourself
Keep the boundaries firm and remember its a paid, professional relationship

[nottrustin]

Some days I would come out of therapy feeling worse than when I went in.
I would eventually trust her even though at times I tried to resist.
It could take a LONG time to make real progress.

mainly that I'd still be IN it going on 5 years later!!
and that maternal transference sucks but serves a purpose. (although I am not entirely convinced of this in the thick of it again.)

I wish I had known I would end up being hurt worse.

I wish I had known there are thousands of better, cheaper, not painful ways of healing my extremely painful childhood.

I wish I had known how therapy itself is usually really dysfunctional.

Mine are:
You will go into therapy with one problem and realize you actually have twelve.
Therapy will take a lot longer than you think and it will be very hard.
You will spend a lot of time deciphering your feelings towards your therapist and much of the work is realizing those feelings (and any feelings) are okay.
There will be times when you will feel very alone in the process and only a sliver of hope and faith will keep you going.
There is a lesson and resiliency to be gained in even bad therapy.

Also, what Falling said.

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[Waterbear]

All said above for me, exactly how I think.

[PinkFlamingo99]

That therapy can hurt you worse. Trust your intuition, if something feels unhealthy it probably is. Protect yourself. 100% trust is not necessary.

[Out There]

That it can be damaging ( and has been ) , with an incompetent or whatever T , but also how beneficial it can be with good T's.

[bounceback]

Wow what I wish I would have know:

The therapist is paid to listen to you. They are not your friend. They will listen to you until your hour is up.
Sometimes you are going to leave worse than when you came in.
Therapy is one of the most painful yet bravest things you can ever do for yourself.
You will never look at your life the same way again.
Being attached is painful but also worth it at the same time. (My first thought was to say is don't get attached but then I realize I am glad I had the relationship I did with my therapists. I would get attached all over again even so doing so caused me pain.) that is why I edited this from don't get attached.
Feeling alone takes on a whole new meaning especially when you leave the appointment barely hanging on.

I am sure I could think of some more but not at this moment.

[MobiusPsyche]

That you need to balance being emotionally present and vulnerable in the therapy hour with being able to function the rest of the week.

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[stopdog]

That they really don't know what they are doing - they are just making **** up as they go along.

[rainbow8]

Originally Posted by Cinnamon_Stick

What are some things you wish someone had told you about therapy before you started? I know some of these might be a given but I feel I got way to close to my therapist.

Mine are:
Don't get emotionally involved
At some point the therapist will leave in some way (move, change jobs, retire) so always be ready for it and don't get to close
Get your needs met by other people in your life
Advocate for yourself
Keep the boundaries firm and remember its a paid, professional relationship

I understand why you wish you hadn't gotten so close to your T but I disagree that it is something to avoid. Closeness to others inevitably involves loss. Parents die, partners separate or die, pets die, close friends may die or move away. Parents may even lose a child. Not becoming emotionally close to someone is not the answer. I'm glad I am so close to my T even though there's a risk of loss.

I wish I had known that I would get attached to my T in that way, though, and not be so surprised.

I wish I had known more about therapy instead of thinking you go in and ask questions, and the T answers them.

[bounceback]

I thought of a few more:
You are going to have a whole new vocabulary example: boundaries, dysfunctional, mindfulness, containment, coping skills ect.
You really start to notice how sick other people are but they think you are the sick one even though you are the one getting healthy. (talking about family members who haven't been in therapy)
That having a person listen to you can feel so good yet this same person can cause you so much grief.

Great post by the way. Really made me think.

I keep thinking about this question and I can't think of anything, in retrospect, that I wish I had known about therapy before I started. I went into therapy knowing absolutely zero about it. I had no preconceived notions, no prior knowledge . . . I barely knew it was a thing. In fact, I didn't know I was going into therapy until literally about 10 minutes before my first appointment. I learned as I went I guess. I never really explored therapy information in any kind of academic sense (right here on PC is probably about as academic as I ever got about therapy and I didn't arrive here until almost at the end of therapy). I knew diddly about different modalities. The therapy terminology that we banter about here on PC was foreign to me during my therapy because my therapist never spoke to me in therapy jargon. In a way, I'm kind of glad that I just learned as I experienced it. I'm glad I didn't know how hard it was going to be ahead of time or I might have just avoided it. I'm glad I didn't go into it wary of therapy or therapists, but rather, just hopeful and trusting that they would help me find my way . . . and they did.

My sister was a radiation therapist by profession -- a profession she chose because of her childhood battle with cancer and the positive interactions she had had with very skilled and caring medical professionals who treated her as a child. I can remember my sister saying her medical knowledge about cancer treatments was at times a real problem for her as she was a cancer patient herself multiple times again in her adulthood. She said she was almost too knowledgeable and that made it very difficult to let go and allow the treating professionals to do their job; it made her level of hope decline at times -- her level of doubt and fear increase because she knew too much in a way.

I think, for me, going into therapy very green and trusting was what helped me just kind of let go and have faith that therapy would provide me the support and direction I needed to survive. I had wonderful therapists who were never anything but professional and skilled and caring, so I was fortunate that my "innocence" of the process didn't lead to problems, but I'm glad to say I've been able to retain that faith in therapy as effective for me personally.

[Cinnamon_Stick]

Originally Posted by rainbow8

I understand why you wish you hadn't gotten so close to your T but I disagree that it is something to avoid. Closeness to others inevitably involves loss. Parents die, partners separate or die, pets die, close friends may die or move away. Parents may even lose a child. Not becoming emotionally close to someone is not the answer. I'm glad I am so close to my T even though there's a risk of loss.

I wish I had known that I would get attached to my T in that way, though, and not be so surprised.

I wish I had known more about therapy instead of thinking you go in and ask questions, and the T answers them.

There are degrees of closeness to a T. I don't regret becoming close to her but the level of closeness. Every T will leave in some way and when you get to close it hurts more than one can imagine. Some people can't handle loss.

[eclogite]

It gets worse before it gets better.

[annielovesbacon]

That maternal transference hurts, but it's okay, you're not a weirdo for feeling that.
That therapists leave/move/end all the time, so be prepared for that.
That it's hard to tell the truth to the therapist on the first day when you don't even know her, but it's even harder to tell her the truth when you've been lying about something for a long time.
Therapy is a two-way relationship, even though it doesn't seem like it.
You will come into therapy expecting to talk about one or two things, but you will learn that another problem you have is actually much more important or that you have problems you didn't even know about.

[Petra5ed]

I'm glad things went down like they did with me coming in blind and being shocked by my own attachment and feelings of neediness. I'm not sure I would have believed it had I not experienced it. For me therapy has been about feeeeeling things, and processing emotions that were too scary for me to process as a child.

What I wish I knew... that it would all work out. I spent several years worried that I could never be happy again, what a waste.