[SarahSweden]

I´ve thought about my therapy sessions and almost every time I come in and I verbalise different kinds of self-attacking thoughts like "I´m a failure", "I´m not good enough" and so on. I verbalise this through telling about what happened to me during the week and so on.

After nine months in therapy I still do this even if we also talk about other stuff and I don´t feel my T is helping me towards another direction. She sometimes make a compliment, she exemplifies events from her own life when she perhaps wasn´t as successful to, I guess, show me how to be more kind against oneself.

But telling me such things doesn´t stop me from judging myself and I now wonder if therapy is consolidating my negative self image?

If I every time tell her about things that I find negative about myself and she doesn´t steer my thoughts in another direction, then I will just stay the way I am.

Should I expect her to use therapy techniques to help me build a better self image?

[therapyishelping777]

That sounds frustrating and discouraging. Sorry Sarah... I had an experience similiar to this.. and I stopped going to her.. she wasn't helping at all! Now the one I have does give me tools and really helps refocus my thoughts and general beliefs about myself. I have made a ton of progress. He is mostly psychodynmaic but I believe also uses CBT in it with some of those tools... I hope you get the help you are really looking for.. it can make a HUGE difference!

[ruh roh]

Originally Posted by SarahSweden

If I every time tell her about things that I find negative about myself and she doesn´t steer my thoughts in another direction, then I will just stay the way I am.

Having this awareness is the result of her not trying to steer your thinking, so I would see this as a good (but painful) result of therapy. The next hard part is figuring out how to steer yourself in another direction--because if she had tried to do that, it's likely that you would have argued or reasoned or rebelled against it. It's good topic for discussion, I think.

[SarahSweden]

Interesting. But then I wonder why I couldn´t as well just talk to myself? I don´t have the tools to steer myself in another direction, then I hadn´t been in therapy in the first place.

I don´t mean my T should argument with me but what´s the use of therapy is she doesn´t have the techniques to work on the goals we have set? I now mean issues like "better self image", "less self critique" and so on. If she doesn´t actively uses tools or techniques, then I´ll just sit there by my own and reason with myself and she puts in some comments from time to time?

I´m not striving for homework and that kind of tools, I mean reaching inner change.

Originally Posted by ruh roh

Having this awareness is the result of her not trying to steer your thinking, so I would see this as a good (but painful) result of therapy. The next hard part is figuring out how to steer yourself in another direction--because if she had tried to do that, it's likely that you would have argued or reasoned or rebelled against it. It's good topic for discussion, I think.

[unaluna]

I sat with my t yesterday and asked him, "why didnt my family see i was acting just like my mother when they didnt like how i was acting?" Like when i was being mean or cruel. Instead they took it as something i initiated on my own, and kept telling me i was not a kind person.

A few years ago, it would have devastated me to admit even this much. At least now i know what my intentions are, even if they dont always come across to the other person.

I feel like maybe you are in the same space? Started your working years in the wrong place, with a false self. How do you find your good true self? Its a big job. Sometimes i feel like i am 4 years old, not 64, in terms of development. In terms of knowing what i want in life. Like even what i like to eat. Let alone, how to get along with people. How much progress can i make before i die? Age 15?

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. I think it´s good getting to know oneself, having insights and I have for a long time knew about having a negative self image. But I expected my T to do something more actively about it, now when I´ve been in therapy for nine months.

I see a T to speed the process up, to feel I accomplish my goals. Especially when my T was very careful about us writing down goals in therapy. Now, when I feel she just lets me keep talking negatively about myself, what´s her role as a T then?

Originally Posted by unaluna

I sat with my t yesterday and asked him, "why didnt my family see i was acting just like my mother when they didnt like how i was acting?" Like when i was being mean or cruel. Instead they took it as something i initiated on my own, and kept telling me i was not a kind person.

A few years ago, it would have devastated me to admit even this much. At least now i know what my intentions are, even if they dont always come across to the other person.

I feel like maybe you are in the same space? Started your working years in the wrong place, with a false self. How do you find your good true self? Its a big job. Sometimes i feel like i am 4 years old, not 64, in terms of development. In terms of knowing what i want in life. Like even what i like to eat. Let alone, how to get along with people. How much progress can i make before i die? Age 15?

[itisnt]

From reading some of your other posts, I gather that you're in psychodynamic psychotherapy. There isn't a lot of therapist direction or teaching of "techniques" from many therapists who are trained in psychodynamic psychotherapy. It's more about helping you see yourself clearly by allowing you the space to talk about yourself and how you view your world. It allows you to begin to recognize and change how you interact with yourself and the world around you through the free flow of thoughts and ideas. It isn't about lecturing or telling you what you appear to be doing internally or externally, although over time, as you work together and you gain ego strength, the T will confront more and use interpretation to challenge you about your thoughts and behaviors.

It's more of a conversation and self-examination of yourself with the assistance and support of your T. If you're looking for ways or "techniques" to change how you think about yourself or how someone else, the T in this case, sees or views your style of interacting with others (in other words, very behaviorally focused), you might want to give CBT a whirl . . . . although from your posts, I gather that you aren't interested in that more structured/technique orientated form of therapy.

[atisketatasket]

I think ruh roh and itisnt are right on. It seems to me that you are "stuck" at having recognized your issues but they aren't improving. Now is the time to do, not think. It doesn't matter if x during the week illustrates your negative self-image; it matters what you do about it.

It's like medical treatment. Say you have a heart attack. Your doctors save you, and then they give you a bunch of advice - lose weight, exercise more, whatever applies. It is up to you to do those things. The doctor just checks up on you occasionally. The doctor can't make you do the things that are good for you. Likewise your therapist can't make your negative self-image go away. That's your baby. She acts as a kind of anchor, a base to check in with. Some people say a mirror or a cheerleader.

Are you sure psychodynamic therapy is right for you? You seem sometimes to think that the therapist is an authority figure who should be training you. That's really not how psychodynamic therapy works (in my understanding). There are other types of therapy that will provide you with that model.

[LucyG]

Therapist need clients, and if you start doing well enough to not need to see her on a regular basis, there goes some of her income. It's in her best interest to keep you as dependent on her as possible. It's dollars and cents as much as anything--you're the customer and every business needs repeat customers. Think about it....

[Luce]

So, you've noticed that going to therapy and talking badly about yourself while your therapist sits there and listens to you week after week doesn't help you achieve the change you want.
What will help you move past this phase now is going to therapy and talking about what you've noticed here, thus beginning a new conversation.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. Yes, the thing though is that I don´t know what to do or how to do things, like changing my negative thoughts about myself. I also think such issues are so complex that noone can find a straight answer about them but I though expect my T to try to change things about me that aren´t good for me.

CBT as in just telling me what to to from time to time hadn´t worked on me and I also feel for me it had been just like solving issues on the surface but not from the inside. But I though worry about the therapy I´m in, if it´ll all end up just stating faults and facts and not being able to do something about the issues.

Originally Posted by atisketatasket

I think ruh roh and itisnt are right on. It seems to me that you are "stuck" at having recognized your issues but they aren't improving. Now is the time to do, not think. It doesn't matter if x during the week illustrates your negative self-image; it matters what you do about it.

It's like medical treatment. Say you have a heart attack. Your doctors save you, and then they give you a bunch of advice - lose weight, exercise more, whatever applies. It is up to you to do those things. The doctor just checks up on you occasionally. The doctor can't make you do the things that are good for you. Likewise your therapist can't make your negative self-image go away. That's your baby. She acts as a kind of anchor, a base to check in with. Some people say a mirror or a cheerleader.

Are you sure psychodynamic therapy is right for you? You seem sometimes to think that the therapist is an authority figure who should be training you. That's really not how psychodynamic therapy works (in my understanding). There are other types of therapy that will provide you with that model.

[unaluna]

Its the relationship with t over time that changes us. I told my t today, that i probably look pretty much the same as i did when i started with him (only ten years older argggh!), but INSIDE ive transformed from blackberry jam to lemon curd. From dark, clumpy, and seedy to light, slick, and tart? Idk! From undefined questionable contents to relatively clear and smooth. How? Stirring the pot and straining out the lumps.

[SarahSweden]

Thanks. Yes, I think so to, the problem I have besides this about therapy content is the fact that I won´t have 5 or 10 years on me, if I can stay with her for one year and a half that´s good as I´m within public health care.

What you wrote also made me wonder - do I want to change because of this specific T? Is she (or is it even possible to find one) the one who should change me through the relationship? I have no answer, it just made me think in that direction.

Originally Posted by unaluna

Its the relationship with t over time that changes us. I told my t today, that i probably look pretty much the same as i did when i started with him (only ten years older argggh!), but INSIDE ive transformed from blackberry jam to lemon curd. From dark, clumpy, and seedy to light, slick, and tart? Idk! From undefined questionable contents to relatively clear and smooth. How? Stirring the pot and straining out the lumps.