Has therapy helped you make bigger changes in life?

I´ve now seen my new T for about six months and I feel our relationship has improved and I also feel therapy is a good place to discuss my problems and to get perspective on them.

I also feel psychodynamic therapy is the right kind of therapy for me and I´ve also come to like my T more.

So far, so good. But I still feel very stuck in life and some of my problems are of a kind that won´t be solved regardless of which T I meet. One such problem is that I´ve choosen the wrong education and I won´t get any more funding for studying. I can´t think of working within the field I studied and I can´t cope with having a job just to have an income.

By that I feel nothing is ever going to change within areas in life that are really important to me. I have worked and tried different jobs within the field I studied and that was one of the reasons I got depressed and got low self esteem and feeling more and more hopelessness.

Does someone in here felt therapy helped you moving forward in life, to make bigger changes, finding new ways and so on?

I think therapy is a process that can vary drastically in length & also in growth, its a very individual thing.
Personally at times I have felt change happening but I've also felt that stuckness that you describe. For me although the stuck part is at times painful and feels like you are going backwards I know that I need to experience it to be able to work on the deeper issues, you've kind of got to dig up all that stuff and work through it before real change is possible- well that's my belief anyway.
So I wouldn't say I have made huge changes over the last 2-3 years of therapy but I can see that I have changed & each little bit of change that has happened is a step closer to one day reaching the point where I feel I am happy in my life. So I do think therapy can bring about bigger change but its very individual. Sometimes what we think we should be working on in therapy is in fact not the real reason for us seeking help- therapy has a weird gift for bringing out or uncovering the needs that have laid dormant for so many years. So although at the moment you may feel as though nothing is going to change, but know it will- it might just look different to what you had envisaged.

Take care
Teddy

I think so yes , but a lot in my life has changed and there have been many losses too. I'm never going to be the same. . I just keep swimming.

I think the biggest changes in my life have come from having the gentle and pretty awesome T that I have now. She has helped me to realise that it was important for me to get my difficulties formally diagnosed. Now I am much kinder to myself having it on paper that I am autistic with PTSD.
T has noticed that I seem happier within myself and more able to practice self care now I know what makes me feel bad and why.

There are a lot of things that still suck, it will take time.

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16 years ago, therapy helped me make big changes in my life. I started college, got a part-time job, and got an apartment of my own. I was able to make acquaintances and had a lot of support.

A lot has changed since then. My T at the time transferred, had a bad T, lost my supports, locked myself in the house for 6 years, ex-T abandoned me, etc. My therapy is no longer about my past nor really about improving my life. Right now it's about learning to cope on my own, preparing to not have therapy. My goal in life used to be happiness. While I still hope for periods of happiness, my goal is to be content. As far as big changes like going back to school, getting a job, becoming a mom...those things will happen in their own time if they happen.

I found therapy useful in making life changes. I've been stuck, like you've said, and therapy has helped with that.

It helped me to cope better with some stuff (dealing with my dad and feeling guilty over leaving alcoholic ex)but also make some changes in specific areas. I really don't need therapy anymore ( I only see her few times a year now and mostly just talk about illness in the family), I'd say I worked in t on areas that needed improvement. It did help. But then I don't have MI or any really severe issues so I don't know

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Yes it has definitely helped but the changes are small. I'm not doing anything drastically different, it's now that I am approaching or interpreting the same challenges differently than before. For me, this has made a real difference in how satisfied I am with my life (e.g., not being constantly suicidal).

It took me about six months to really open up to my T and then another eight months to experience real improvements. But I'd been depressed and socially isolated for twenty years. I'm still working on everything.

Yes, it has helped me sort out my conflicts and priorities regarding how to go forward, as well as more confidence, so I am more able to seek out different possibilities and explore them when I find them.

ETA: I'm glad to hear things are going better with your new T, I know you were having some trouble adjusting to her at first so good for you for hanging in there until the relationship improved.

All 3 of mine would tell you I've changed dramatically. I still feel stuck though - but now I try new things and try to be less passive. There are things I'll never have in life that I very much want, but I'm trying to learn to accept that I won't have them and find new and satisfying things to strive for instead. Like (nobody laugh) training to swim the English Channel or learning ASL so I can volunteer with the deaf.

I'm glad that you found a T who you can open up to and feel comfortable with. That is a very important part of being able to address issues and make progress toward solving problems.

In terms of feeling stuck - I'm right there with you. I never even worked in the field that I studied for, and over the years, I've just meandered from job to job, eventually getting into the IT field. It happened through the progression of jobs, not because it was what I believed I ultimately wanted to be when I grew up. But, now, I'm in the later years of my career life, and I am totally unhappy with the type of work I'm qualified to do. I started feeling this way a few years ago, but when I sat back and tried to figure out what I'd rather be doing, I couldn't think of anything. I even went to a career coach for a few sessions (it was pricey). I wish very much that I didn't have to work at all - but, gotta pay the bills.

I've been in therapy with my current T for about a year and half, and we've only recently started talking about this type of thing. I have been suffering with depression (hopelessness as you mentioned in your post) for a long while. One of the directions we started going in was taking a look at my values and where I am job-wise comparatively. As it turns out, my current career doesn't align with my values, which in theory, is likely one of the possible causes for my feelings of dissatisfaction - hence depression.

My T and I haven't been working on this area long, so I don't have an ending to share. But, I feel like it's probably the direction I need to go in at this point. I am also seeing an Art Therapist now to help me unblock some of the creativity that I can't seem to get back in touch with on my own. My hope is that between my T, the Art Therapist, and myself, we can figure out what types of jobs might help me get closer to my values. My concern (probably the depression talking) is that I'll figure out that I want to do something I'm not trained or qualified for. I have no interest in going back to school at this point.

I feel like you're on the right track digging into what you may actually want to do job- wise - trying to figure out what might interest you. If you are interested in the values aspect, you can take a free survey on viacharacter dot org. (I wrote it out phonetically in case the link isn't allowed). I'm hoping to get unstuck soon (in therapy terms, that could be a couple of months), and if nothing else, I can find some level of satisfaction in activities/hobbies. I will say that it's difficult to work on trying to figure out what you want to do while you're depressed, but if that's part or all of where the depression is coming from, it's worth digging deep for the motivation.

Good luck to you, and hope you can "get your groove back" soon!

For me, therapy has helped me change how I treat myself and how I make decisions, which in turn has led to making larger changes. So I guess yes, indirectly therapy has helped me make big changes... but it wasn't just from going to therapy. It was a lot of work! It's tough but worth it!
If it's any comfort to you, my sister was in the same boat as you. She graduated with a degree she did not want to use, ended up getting an internship across the country, and managed to go back to school to get a degree she does want. It's been tough for her but I can tell she is so much happier doing what she wants to do.

first t- made everything lots worse
this t- i have made a LOT of big changes

yes.. in some areas. years ago i had no job and no good job history references. i was a hardcore drug addict. i was refusing meds all the time and couldnt care for myself (clean my living space, take showers, buy food). i was in a constant crisis mode. ive been seeing my current T for 6 years. now i have a job that ive held for 2.5 years and even got promoted in, my house and car is always clean, i can pay bills, i shower every day and take my meds every day. also, when i met my T i was very closed off and guarded. it took me a long time to let him in.

the areas which still need improvement are coping with eating disorder behaviors.. building up a social network (i isolate myself pretty mch all the time unless im at work). while i have really opened up to my T and am comfortable telling him my emotions and being vulnerable around him, i still need to carry that over into my peers/family.

No. But I did not want bigger changes in my life. It is not what I pay them for nor is it something I want.

I made a HUGE mistake seeing a T for help. He concocted the most unscrupulous moronic act to destroy me and he succeeded. He is a despicable human being and he will have to live with what he did to me for the rest of his miserable life....and I hope and pray that he suffers in misery every day for it!!!!!!

Thanks. That was a bit calming. For me the hard thing is not knowing IF I will be able to make bigger changes in life or not. If therapy will lead me to those things or not. Sometimes it feels more of discussing things that are non solvable, like unemployment.

I hope to find new ways and perhaps new issues that lead me forward, that new things evolve and give me ideas of what to do next. Or else therapy will just be like problematizing, not making change.

Thanks. That sounds positive. May I ask you which kind of therapy you´re in?

Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, the relationship has improved and I kind of waiting for the next step, that I get more insights and not feeling so lost in how to proceed.

Thanks for sharing. And thanks for the tip about viacharacter. One of my largest problems is that I already know that I can´t "be what I want" because I have no more funding to study. I wouldn´t cope studying and working for several years either to get the exam I like.

I feel trapped in how I live at the moment and I´m looking to find enough courage, self esteem and hope to find and follow a new way in life, to not feeling hopelessness, loneliness and so on. Those are the bigger changes I look for and I can´t really tell if I that will be possible.

Therapy did help me make positive, substantial changes. My MI was very unstable when I first started seeing him...he taught me grounding exercises I use daily. This has greatly improved my daily functioning.

He helped me by being very supportive during my very difficult, 4 year divorce.

He helped me learn that I was not my illness and taught me to get rid of shame and that there was no reason to feel shame, a terrible emotion.

It helped me look within and see how my emotions and behavior can affect others where before I was unaware of such things. Now I'll catch it before I do it or unfortunately like yesterday where I realized what I was saying as I was saying it. I guess I'm more aware of myself and how I affect others. I also can figure out why I behave the way I do. I'm still working on it though.

Yes, most definately! I feel more calm and settled after each session. I also go to psychodynamic and its near to my 8th month going on. I've been in and out of therapy for over 12 years and it never made much of a difference until this T!! He is the BEST! Because he is very competant , and compassionate. neutral person, I like that he's not my buddy and will tell me the hard stuff but in a great way that is not demeaning at all. he super challenges me and has given me alot of good tools, good analogies and new ways to catch distorted or unhealthy ways of thinking and behaving and switch them around . I'm really seeing big changes personally in many ways!!

Yes, it has. It has taken some time but the change is undeniable (and positive).

Certainly. In many ways. And I have more changes left to make.