[stopdog]

If you credit therapy, do you know what/how it did specifically to help? Not the cbt sorts, but the psychodynamic sorts - do you know how talking to another made a difference to you? How did talking to the therapist mean that you became less depressed or anxious or jumpy at sounds etc. Do you understand how it works specifically?

[MobiusPsyche]

Creating a working, functional relationship with another human being--even within the bounds of therapy--gives me hope that I can someday create a functional relationship with someone who is not my therapist. For many years, I didn't think that was even remotely possible for me. I get to learn how to respond and how to interact with someone who is insightful and receptive and isn't in it to get their own relational needs met.

Originally Posted by stopdog

If you credit therapy, do you know what/how it did specifically to help? Not the cbt sorts, but the psychodynamic sorts - do you know how talking to another made a difference to you? How did talking to the therapist mean that you became less depressed or anxious or jumpy at sounds etc. Do you understand how it works specifically?

Why do you discount the cbt work? It was talking and analyzing and introspective and thoughtful.

[stopdog]

Because I am trying to find out if others understand how the non-B types work (dbt, cbt etc). I am curious about the more psychodynamic sorts work. But if one wishes to talk about the Bt types then okay.

For me, two things with practical implications stand out that I relate to psychodynamic therapy. One is a reduction in some of my obsessive tendencies as, I think, a result of infusing my therapy with them but not being reinforced by the therapist. It's a form of extinction training (this is the mechanism, I think, so it does have behavioral training elements but not achieved via the "B type" approaches) that was quite uncomfortable in the beginning but I don't experience the same kinds of strong urges and uneasiness now. I attribute this to how my current therapist handles it, the first actually made it worst by engaging in a very messy way. So this is not as simple as talking to the T since an important element is that he won't respond to me in certain situations.

Another one is experiencing with him what I regard as good professionalism. I draw from his way of dealing with things and apply in my own interactions with others, mostly related to work. I am more satisfied with my professional interactions and so feel that my anxiety related to work is reduced somewhat.

My two main original goals when entering therapy with him was working on my obsessive/addictive issues and anxiety, so I am quite happy about the result. It has not been linear though and still remains to be seen how stable.

[velcro003]

I'm still in the middle of therapy...but I have to credit her because she saw that I was really depressed, suggested medication...and a year later, I can see that I am doing better. In that sense only, I credit my T.

But in the sense of how does talking to a T help....that is a good question. 1--it is someone who is invested in every weird or dark thought I have, and I dont' share with anyone else.

2--She encouraged me to join a social sport, that has been extremely trying and i've almost quit the sport and the difficulties of making friends 1 million times, but she keeps telling me that it is good for me, and to keep trying. Also, a year later--and I do have much more of a social life. Less isolation generally equals a good thing for me.

3--She is there to listen to my anxieties and worries about stuff that I don't know what to do with. She helps me untangle some of it, make it so it isn't something that is only swirling around my head endlessly with no fruition.

4--Generally, I just like her as a human, and we "clicked" pretty easily. That doesn't mean I was like "YES i love therapy and will tell you all the things!" For me it meant that I let down my guard easier than with previous therapies. I feel free to just be more "me" and open and say thoughts that are going through my head without too much censoring. I know you believe that T's are acting at clients...and I see what you mean. What I see is that I probably see her best qualities as I don't see how she is when she is in a bad mood, or exhausted, or just had a fight with her H, or her kids are driving her insane...or her mother...whatever that makes humans less than "perfect."

Just like my toddlers in the classroom see the best of me, they are also seeing genuine me as well--just filtered because it would make no sense for them to see all the crazy bits of me. I think of therapy the same way. Also, my T is very open and talks about her life and shares bits and pieces of her life that relate to whatever I am going through. She sometimes rambles on a bit TOO long, but she has learned to reign it in.

Hope that helps

I think therapy has helped the people in my life more than it has helped me.

At this point in my life I use therapy to work out anxieties and fears that i don't want to burden my loved ones with.

Many years ago I also used therapy as a check in for addiction recovery. It helped by keeping my family out of a babysitting/policing role.

I was in crisis when I self referred, and have a psychodynamic therapist. I am a carer and was struggling with SI. My T has given me the opportunity to offload thoughts/ feelings that were unbearable; a considerable number of insights from past events; a better understanding of some of my behaviours; the support to leave a job and develop my career in a different way and a good rapport that makes it easier for me to discuss a range of issues. I have no family, few close friends and no partner, so the relationship is an important and useful one for me.

[atisketatasket]

I think it's helped. But honestly I have no idea how.

[Pennster]

One of the most helpful things for me was the idea that my therapist was willing to serve as a kind of safety net. I can always ring him if I am feeling overwhelmed, and he helps me to figure out what I can do to feel better. In the past I felt like I had no safety net, and when I starting slipping into depression I didn't know how to stop it. Now I have faith both that someone is there and willing to help me, and there are many ways I can help myself.

Another thing that has been really helpful was introducing me to meditation - this has helped me understand how my brain sometimes acts in ways that are very unhelpful to me, and I can now "observe" my brain doing these things without getting swept up in them.

Plus, I have tended to be so self-critical in the past. Having another human being who is so consistently accepting and compassionate has really helped me to see myself in a much kinder light.

[stopdog]

Were you going to the therapist in order to see yourself in a kinder light?

[Pennster]

Originally Posted by stopdog

Were you going to the therapist in order to see yourself in a kinder light?

I actually don't remember how much I thought about it. I think I was just so unhappy and grief-stricken and knew I wanted help. I had read my therapist's book before I started seeing him, though, and his style of working very much appealed to me. He was very explicit in the book about how being more compassionate toward yourself helps to alleviate a lot of anxiety and depression, so I was very much up for this kind of thing.

[Luce]

I do credit therapy for helping me, but I am not really sure how to explain how it helped. We began therapy as a broken collection of dissociated self states that functioned well enough to not need to be hospitalized, but was unable to function beyond the necessities of sustaining oneself with shelter, clothing and food. There was overwhelming self hate / disgust / shame and we had no support, no continuity of self, no capacity for relationships and an abusive family that was still a danger to us.

So I guess in therapy we had this one person, the therapist, who was continuously there (in the context of the therapeutic hour). She accepted whatever we brought to her and held it there. She reflected it back to us. She helped us hold it all together in that one place, the therapy room. She was compassionate, accepting, non-judgemental, and present. She was just 'in there with us.'
I guess that is the easiest way to describe my / our particular process with our therapist. She helped us to put the pieces together to find our self. She helped us see it could be done.

Therapy with her was years ago now, and we left before we had finished. Between then and now things have been immensely more stable, but still not... 'finished'.

What I find now is that I am ready to find and hold those pieces of me myself. I have learned from her how to do that, and now I am ready to finish the job. So I guess the therapy helped me to be compassionate and caring with my selves, accepting and non-judgemental, forgiving, loving... all those things she was for us, that we had never experienced in life before. She taught me how to be that for us. It wasn't a direct teaching. I don't believe she ever set out to 'teach Luce how to be compassionate' or whatever. I don't believe that was ever a 'goal' of therapy. We didn't have goals as far as I know. We just had us - fractured pieces of a broken human being - and her, one who had had a few breaks of her own but was healing up okay. She taught me by doing it, by being it.

And I believe that is about as 'specific' as I can get.

[TrailRunner14]

With me, it's been a journey of understanding myself with guidance from my counselor, and much soul searching and prayer. I'm so very thankful that it has happened this way.

[Tr2mpl5d]

Therapy destroyed me. My T broadcast my sessions on loud speakers - unbeknownst to me. When I found out T ended, friendships ended, relationships ended. All because some T wanted to feel important.

[ThisWayOut]

for a long time, I wasn't sure it was helping at all. It was nice to know someone else knew and understood what I was going through, but that was about it. Lately, it's a matter of being able to reveal things I have not been able to talk about before, and having a non-judgemental, supportive person in the room. It helps to not feel so alone in it all, and the accoutnability of having to show up to session (having showered/cleaned up) helps keep me on track. It's kinda a reality check at times, which helps give a different perspective. Mostly for me though, it's not feeling so utterly alone.

[yagr]

Originally Posted by stopdog

If you credit therapy, do you know what/how it did specifically to help? Not the cbt sorts, but the psychodynamic sorts - do you know how talking to another made a difference to you? How did talking to the therapist mean that you became less depressed or anxious or jumpy at sounds etc. Do you understand how it works specifically?

For me, and I'll admit that I'm a bit embarrassed at copping to this, it was validation. After fifty plus years I finally came clean to a therapist and psychiatrist regarding my reality/mental health issues that I had been keeping to myself for a half century. It took them both all of about twenty seconds to dismiss my reality - and nearly all of the twenty seconds was while I was still talking.

It would take supreme confidence, bordering on arrogance, to dismiss them as easily. While they didn't have doubts about their conclusions, they caused me to question my own interpretation of my experience. I fired them and got a new T.

I wasted no time sharing my experience with the new therapist - there really seemed nothing to lose, I had already been told that I was delusional. And then the words I didn't know that I needed to hear: "I believe you." And everything changed.

I analyze everything - everything. Hyper-vigilant on all fronts except this one issue which I've glossed over and more or less tried to ignore, trivialize and re-frame into something more palatable. Now I get to look at it directly, discuss it with someone safe and find better ways to deal with it than ignoring it.

[Salmon77]

- Talking through problems with another person helps me to pursue the train of thought (not go in circles) and understand my own thinking better
- T asks good questions that push me to think outside my usual box
- T connects current issues to past events in ways I wouldn't
- T models better relational behavior and tries to help me understand other people better, which helps me socially
- Nice to have a person to talk to who is not involved in normal life, is disinterested but wants to help

[ruh roh]

I don't understand a lot of why it works, but unlike the acronym types of therapy, there is something about an organic process that allows things to come up that have never come up before and there's been a lot more clarity about what's going on with me as a result. It's a lot slower going than, say, actively working on skills and any kind of formula for therapy. And now that it's more clear what's going on, therapy has taken a different direction and it's incredibly effective. It's also obvious now why the other types were not only not helpful, but were harmful.

[stopdog]

For me, I don't think it has. I think the woman wants credit for things I do not think therapy had anything to do with - and some things the woman wants credit for - I did not want at all and think of as being unfortunate side effects (if they really are because of therapy)

[snarkydaddy]

Credit Therapy?
I see therapy as a redirect, habilitation, and a series of principles that can be applied to various situations. I also see it as a way for the behavior of others to be explained to me. So that I can find a tangent point of empathy, if possible.

I credit it as a resource for becoming unstuck, and to fill in the gaps of what I am missing or missed.

we formed a strong relationship. she loves me unconditionally. she showed me its ok to think i am a person who deserves to be alive and take up space in the world.

[skeksi]

Developing a trusting relationship with T has helped me to trust myself; trusting his non-judgement of me has helped me to stop judging and criticizing myself.

I have seen a decrease in my trauma symptoms, which happens when you process a trauma. I still have pretty severe reactions but they don't have as much of an impact on me because he's helped me learn how to roll with them.

[AllHeart]

Not exactly the question posed but... What has helped me in therapy is the same thing that hinders me in therapy. The relationship with my t.

[snarkydaddy]

Originally Posted by AllHeart

Not exactly the question posed but... What has helped me in therapy is the same thing that hinders me in therapy. The relationship with my t.

Ah in my case the help & hinderance is associated not with the relationship itself, but the knowledge & experience of the therapist. I think out of the 5 therapist I have had I actually only liked one of them. One was not a match for me, one had an agenda and the other 3 were very helpful.