Learning in psychotherapy

That is unsubstantiated excrement. One need only read a variety of online therapy forums to see that therapy casualties are ubiquitous. It's not uncommon to read about people having multiple bad experiences in therapy. There is so much secrecy and so little serious examination of outcomes that the safe assumption is the system harms more than it helps. Burden of proof is on these who claim benefit.

Hahaha. Classic therapy manipulation. As one critic said, client blaming is one of the hallmarks of therapy. They are masters at deflecting accountability. That is some greasy s**t.

Have you looked into Liposomal Melatonin for sleep? Magnesium, GABA, some other products and herbs could also help. No Rx needed. Also, could try wearing blue blocking glasses in the evening. And shut off the wifi and the cell phone and all electronics.

My current psychiatrist, who is actually a remarkably kind and gentle man, prescribed Valdoxan which is a melatonergic antidepressant. I was enthusiastic at first, but had a very bad case of akathisia when I took it, even just once. So we ditched that.

I was not able to find any link between supplemental melatonin (as opposed to a melatonergic AD) and akathisia. If there is an established link, I'd like to see info on this.

This drug is a melatonin agonist for both M1 and M2 receptors, just like the melatonin hormone.

I would avoid it like the plague due to liver damage. It's really downplayed since the clinical populations dont match the research populations, and psychiatrists will minimize the issue.. I wanted to try this one really badly but decided not to because of the liver failure possibility. Turns out, years later, there are numerous reports of hepatatic damage or failure from this drug. It's still a small percent, but what if you were one of those in that small percentage? It wouldn't seem so small, would it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4195644/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22290205

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25317372

I have learned quite a bit from therapy. I have learned how abuse has changed my life but that it is not my fault. I have learned to set boundaries with other people in my life. One of the most important things I have learned is that there are people I can trust. I have learned to somewhat deal with my Ptsd....and that a much as I hate anti-depressants they are important for me to survive. I still refuse to take my Ativan unless it is an emergency..but I do use them once in a great while (much less than T or Pdoc would like). Oh and thanks to T I know that I am a pretty good mom.

I think the problem might be that I have been abused a lot in therapy, and therapists don't seem to want to discuss the abuse with me. They prefer to hear about my childhood, my current life, and not much else. However, my current therapist, who is also a psychiatrist, does seem to be interested in hearing about abuse I've gotten from mental health professionals. In fact, he seems to be fascinated by it. I think this may be a good sign. (He is my first Brazilian psychiatrist, if that means anything.)

There are a million different types of therapy and a million ways to learn in therapy.

Some rely on cognitive behavioral therapy. To me that seems more like teaching like in a traditional school. The therapist teaches skills, like learning to recognize patterns of negative, self-defeating thought. There's even homework.

The kind of therapy I'm in is psychodynamic. To me this seems more about learning to have a healthy relationship with another person. The therapy room is a kind of living laboratory where relationship patterns in my life appear in the here-and-now of the therapeutic relationship. And we talk about them openly. If I did not talk about them openly, it would not work. So, for example, if I take the risk of talking about something touchy with my therapist about how I feel about him, and he doesn't freak out and in fact we become closer and we both see how we contributed to the difficulty, then I "learn" that this is possible in a relationship and I am more likely to try taking those risks in my "outside" relationships, like bringing up something difficult with members of my family.

If your therapist is analytic, then *all* the feelings you have described about him and about therapy are up for discussion. I'd encourage you to bring up *all* of them in therapy--your resentment, your attraction, etc. I also wonder if you *really* are doing the therapy only for the prescription or if you merely tell yourself this to avoid admitting your need for another person, and if this is something that crops up in other parts of your "outside" life (I don't know that! It's just a suggestion! It's the kind of relationship pattern that can be revealed and talked about in analytic therapy.)

I don't think I am a stupid or uneducated person, and I have learned a lot in therapy. Most of it has been a subtle, implicit kind of learning, more about thinking about how I relate to other people, and thinking about what kind of person I want to be and how to get there. I will say, though, that I had one therapy relationship that did not work out and was a very bad fit for me, so I think the therapeutic relationship is key. You have to really be open to the possibility of trusting the therapist. Of course, they have to earn it. But it has to be a possibility.

That's would be difficult. I can't imagine working with a T who was not open to discussing whatever I needed to.

I was getting Ambien prescriptions from a GP. When she stopped providing them, I went to another GP who insisted I see a psychiatrist. I was thinking "Oh no, not that again." I have a history of being abused by mental health professionals with psychiatrists playing no small role. But this guy is unusually nice, and has passed two tests: he does not think I am psychotic, and does not want to prescribe a neuroleptic.