I for one believe the onus is on me to make therapy work.

[Elio]

hmmm ok.. I think the onus is on the trying...doing the work...not so much making it work. I think making it work is a team effort.

[atisketatasket]

Is that because we're supposed to remember our mental health care team is human and therefore cannot be expected to do any work themselves?

[stopdog]

I don't disagree that many if not all therapists do nothing and just sit there collecting money.

[Pennster]

Well, I pay my therapist a lot of money. I don't think the onus is solely on me to make it work. I have my part to play, he has his. He's the one selling himself as the trained pro with decades of experience.

[awkwardlyyours]

Originally Posted by justafriend306

I for one believe the onus is on me to make therapy work.

I'm totally there with you except current T told me that former T failed in her job to make therapy work for me.

I could choose to disbelieve current T but then that would basically mean I'm contributing to not making therapy work with current T?

Or, I could believe current T in which case I'd believe that the therapist has a responsibility?

I dunno -- it all seems rather confusing and complicated

I really appreciate your ability to reduce it all to something so simple.

[atisketatasket]

Originally Posted by awkwardlyyours

I'm totally there with you except current T told me that former T failed in her job to make therapy work for me.

I could choose to disbelieve current T but then that would basically mean I'm contributing to not making therapy work with current T?

Or, I could believe current T in which case I'd believe that the therapist has a responsibility?

I dunno -- it all seems rather confusing and complicated

I really appreciate your ability to reduce it all to something so simple.

It's like if a Cretan says "all Cretans are liars"...are they lying or not?!

Originally Posted by justafriend306

I for one believe the onus is on me to make therapy work.

Simple statement. But there's a lot more things involved.
You need to be in a therapy that can be of use to you. There has to be a skilled therapist.

The vessel of therapy is the relationship. One person cannot make a relationship work, and you can't sail in a sinking ship.

[The_little_didgee]

Justafriend, why did you start this thread?

I also believe that ultimately it is my task to use whatever I get out of therapy in my own life and that if the lessons, conclusions, effects etc remain between my therapist and I only, it's pretty useless. For me, whatever comes of that relationship is only a starting point for changes in my mental landscape and implementation in everyday life. Some of us use the relationship with the therapist as a model. I am not interested in staying in therapy just for the sake of having a good, controlled relationship with a professional if I cannot translate it into anything useful... and that I have to do, the T cannot by definition. So in this sense, the onus is definitely on me to make therapy work in the larger context of myself and my life.

As for between the T and client, I think it's a two-way construct even if the T does not do anything but listens. It is some sort of collaboration even if it's riddled with conflicts.

[junkDNA]

oooooooooooooooooooh wow..profound

[ListenMoreTalkLess]

Originally Posted by justafriend306

I for one believe the onus is on me to make therapy work.

What's perhaps most interesting to me is that sometimes my reactions to what my T says and does help me learn about how I react to other people, and how other people react to me. There have been some remarkable similarities to things T has said to me and things my wife and/or kids have said.

I think therapy "works" whenever the client moves towards greater self understanding or positive growth or improved relationships with others (I'm sure there are other therapy goals, but these are mine, I'm not trying to define therapy for all). Therapy can work when a client leaves a relationship that is not right for him or her, whether because there is not a good fit with the therapist or because the therapist engages with the client in a destructive way. Or maybe after a rupture the client decides that rather than blame herself and stick around months and months flogging herself for the failures of the relationship, she'll move forward in a new way. I don't think it's so much "what" the work is but how it goes.

Most of my early adult life, I had trouble sticking around and making all kinds of relationships work, because I didn't understand my impact on other people and wasn't willing to move past a negative experience in a relationship, or I just didn't know how. As a middle aged adult, I'm better at sticking around but I've sort of oscillated the other way where I have more difficulty letting go of relationships that are not healthy for me. My T relationship of 8 years is not one of these and while the fact that it "works" is partly due to how I have changed and grown, I can't "work" in isolation.

Sometimes I feel that in attempting to encourage others to harness their own power and see relationships as turning out positive, it feels to them like finding fault for difficulties with others. It has been helpful to me to make greater attempts at communicating clearly and without judging. This is especially true as my teenage children navigate the bizarre waters of social life via e-communications and social media. But just as I have suggested to my kids that certain kinds of behavior from others are not acceptable, one's own reactions to that unacceptable behavior can either make things better or worse. And sometimes nothing we do changes how people respond, as there are times and people who say and do things that have nothing to do with us. But learning the difference between how we impact others and how others respond in ways that have nothing to do with us, and all that space in between? That's a life time of work, and constantly upgrading as time goes on.

[Argonautomobile]

I'm not really sure what it means for therapy to "work." Or what it means to "do work."

I try and keep expectations low. Now I'm just pleasantly surprised when T remembers my name.

For me, therapy sessions themselves were a collaboration with my therapists -- it took us both for our sessions to be productive and relevant. But for therapy to translate into real change and improvement in my life, the responsibility was on me to take the insights and skills and resolve for that change outside the four walls of the office into my real world. Therapy can't just be about the therapy or the therapist, not for me anyway. It just made sense to me (eventually) that if my goal in therapy was real change and improvement in my real life, the only way that was going to happen was to stubbornly and diligently apply that therapy to my real life over and over and over again until it became second nature. (Took me a long time to really get that.)