[songofthesea]

I've been seeing my therapist for nearly half a year now, and I don't feel a particular improvement beyond a calming of the initial grief that drove me into it in the first place. However, we have established in this time that I am extremely avoidant and I employ several methods, most commonly intellectualisation, to elude any real connection to my own issues.

So that's still there, but I brought up last session that I've been thinking that I don't think therapy's very helpful. This could be partially because I haven't been fully cooperating with it, but also there are studies that show that it can make 10 percent of clients or so deteriorate, and then there's the asymmetricity of the relationship which can also be unhealthy, and there are even studies that show that light exposure can be as effective as CBT for dealing with SAD, so while, obviously, I have only been making amateur forays into therapy outcomes, I have seen a lot of downsides to therapy during them (also my therapist incorporates elements of mindfullness into his approach which I find to be an odd combination of repackaged common sense / vaguely cultish, but that's a different matter).

When I broached a possible impending departure, he said that alongside my other "homework", he wanted me to create lists of how I thought therapy was and wasn't helping me and how I would like it to.

Is this just delaying what I will have to do at some point anyway? Six months feels like a long time to have been in therapy. Or is it better to stick around and deal with the avoidance?

[atisketatasket]

I'm an intellectualizing avoidant person myself. I don't find therapy super-helpful, but I do think it has been good for me on occasion - there are issues I have spent years avoiding dealing with and this is how I get myself to do it.

I guess the question is do you find your avoidancy negatively impacting your life outside of therapy? It was impacting mine, which is one reason I started therapy in the first place. If it's not hurting you, then I would probably leave or take a break to see if that makes any difference in how you feel about therapy.

And I totally agree on mindfulness. If you stay, can you ask him to stop it?

[Argonautomobile]

I guess it sort of depends on what your alternatives are. If the types of issues you have would benefit from doing something else--cleaning up your nutrition to try and get a handle on anxiety, starting an exercise regimen to help with depression, or volunteering to combat a general sense of meaninglessness, for example--then I don't see anything wrong with quitting therapy, or at least taking a break for a while while you try other things. But if you're suffering and can't figure out what else to do, then I would think it's worth sticking around. Do you find anything at all helpful about going to see your therapist?

[songofthesea]

Originally Posted by atisketatasket

I'm an intellectualizing avoidant person myself. I don't find therapy super-helpful, but I do think it has been good for me on occasion - there are issues I have spent years avoiding dealing with and this is how I get myself to do it.

I guess the question is do you find your avoidancy negatively impacting your life outside of therapy? It was impacting mine, which is one reason I started therapy in the first place. If it's not hurting you, then I would probably leave or take a break to see if that makes any difference in how you feel about therapy.

And I totally agree on mindfulness. If you stay, can you ask him to stop it?

Well, I didn't think it did until it contributed to issues in my last relationship. We broke up - I want to be able to not be avoidant for the sake of any future relationships, I suppose. But a break could be good because "it might never happen".
I may ask him to stop it, but apart from that he's the most competent one I've found so far, so, you know, I don't want to drive a wedge ... you win, you lose ...

[songofthesea]

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

I guess it sort of depends on what your alternatives are. If the types of issues you have would benefit from doing something else--cleaning up your nutrition to try and get a handle on anxiety, starting an exercise regimen to help with depression, or volunteering to combat a general sense of meaninglessness, for example--then I don't see anything wrong with quitting therapy, or at least taking a break for a while while you try other things. But if you're suffering and can't figure out what else to do, then I would think it's worth sticking around. Do you find anything at all helpful about going to see your therapist?

Oh yeah, I'm ttying to stop drinking but that's something I have to do myself - even though helping me keep an eye on it was part of my initial self-referral...mostly I just like hearing him impart snippets of wisdom, and I appreciate him as a human. I suspect we agree on a lot.

[Argonautomobile]

Originally Posted by songofthesea

Oh yeah, I'm trying to stop drinking but that's something I have to do myself - even though helping me keep an eye on it was part of my initial self-referral...mostly I just like hearing him impart snippets of wisdom, and I appreciate him as a human. I suspect we agree on a lot.

I'm glad you appreciate him as a human. That seems, to me, like a good enough reason to keep going, if you want to. I think when we have magazine articles and TV commercials screaming at us all day long that we can transform ourselves in six weeks or less, six months can seem like an eternity. So, for what it's worth, I don't think six months really is that long a time, in the grand scheme of things. Internalizing healthier habits and changing fundamental relational schemas happens slowly, over time. At least in my experience.

I think it's not a bad idea to make those lists. Consider the downsides and upsides of staying in therapy.

In my experience therapy is hit or miss and the process and outcome vary wildly by therapist/client match.

If you feel ambivalent about therapy, it might be a good idea to look around for other therapists. I work well with therapists that bring strong feelings out of me.