[20oney]

Every session, I go in, my defence mechanisms kick in, and I barely manage to say a thing. But, even when I am able to communicate a little of what I am feeling, I still leave feeling, unsatisfied? Like we're trying so hard to scratch at this itch, but just not quite reaching it.. Is this how it is?

Do you ever leave feeling like you've accomplished something and not long for the next session to come along? Is this all just normal?

I never had problems talking in sessions per se but often felt the way you are describing post-session. I would say probably ~60% of them. A good indicator was that I usually had a strong urge to email my therapist a few hours after out meetings, and most often I did so. It was very much driven by a sometimes specific, other times diffuse feeling of not being satisfied. Wit time, I figured that I was actually causing a lot of that for myself with discussing lots of irrelevant things, distractions, and not addressing the most important issues. Of course then I feel unsatisfied. My best sessions have always been when I confronted a key problem head on and did not allow myself to go on irrelevant tangents. I must say that the Ts often welcomed the tangents (even added to it) though, even after my repeated request to keep the focus better and push me a but when I deviate.

Another class of usually unsatisfying therapy sessions for me are when the T mostly just listens passively and contributes in a vague and very superficial manner, or just validates what I am saying. That makes me feel that I'm talking to myself and paying $$ for it. I like therapy interactive.

My second T said once that it's not easy to reach to the core of my issues. I don't disagree with that, I do tend to keep walls around myself, and then cannot blame it on others that I feel misunderstood or dissatisfied. The way I can try to confront this is deciding in advance what I want to address in a session and not allowing distractions, and diving as deeply into it as time allows. Definitely feels more satisfying for me that way.

[20oney]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

I never had problems talking in sessions per se but often felt the way you are describing post-session. I would say probably ~60% of them. A good indicator was that I usually had a strong urge to email my therapist a few hours after out meetings, and most often I did so. It was very much driven by a sometimes specific, other times diffuse feeling of not being satisfied. Wit time, I figured that I was actually causing a lot of that for myself with discussing lots of irrelevant things, distractions, and not addressing the most important issues. Of course then I feel unsatisfied. My best sessions have always been when I confronted a key problem head on and did not allow myself to go on irrelevant tangents. I must say that the Ts often welcomed the tangents (even added to it) though, even after my repeated request to keep the focus better and push me a but when I deviate.

Another class of usually unsatisfying therapy sessions for me are when the T mostly just listens passively and contributes in a vague and very superficial manner, or just validates what I am saying. That makes me feel that I'm talking to myself and paying $$ for it. I like therapy interactive.

My second T said once that it's not easy to reach to the core of my issues. I don't disagree with that, I do tend to keep walls around myself, and then cannot blame it on others that I feel misunderstood or dissatisfied. The way I can try to confront this is deciding in advance what I want to address in a session and not allowing distractions, and diving as deeply into it as time allows. Definitely feels more satisfying for me that way.

Thanks for the reply! So after a session where you''re able to stay on track, and the therapist puts in a bit of effort, you find that you do feel satisfied? Do you still have the urge to email after the session, or during the gap between sessions?

I'm just struggling a bit, I don't know if it's an attachment, transference or dissatisfaction that i'm feeling..

Originally Posted by 20oney

Thanks for the reply! So after a session where you''re able to stay on track, and the therapist puts in a bit of effort, you find that you do feel satisfied? Do you still have the urge to email after the session, or during the gap between sessions?

I'm just struggling a bit, I don't know if it's an attachment, transference or dissatisfaction that i'm feeling..

I do tend to feel more satisfied when I stay on track and dive more deeply into it, yes. Same in my everyday life, I like to be focused when I am tackling problems and projects, and getting into all sorts of distractions tends to be one of my dominant avoidance strategies and sign of stress. I am not saying at all that this should be true for everyone, I think it's best to try and figure out why you feel unsatisfied.

Yes, I usually have less desire to email after sessions that I feel satisfying, but it's not a guarantee that it remains that way during the entire week... a lot of it is related to my mood fluctuations and obsessive tendencies that come and go. I'm no longer in regular therapy, just see Ts occasionally, and I find it's actually more effective this way because I go when I have something specific to address and stick with the topic, then I follow up myself in everyday life. Still have the urge to email the Ts every now and then but nothing even close to when I was going weekly. When I go regularly, I feel that it takes up way too much of my thoughts and mental energy and often becomes depleting rather than enriching. I got easily trapped in obsessive/addictive cycles that I know I am prone to by default, so this manifesting in therapy was really predictable for me.

[20oney]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

I do tend to feel more satisfied when I stay on track and dive more deeply into it, yes. Same in my everyday life, I like to be focused when I am tackling problems and projects, and getting into all sorts of distractions tends to be one of my dominant avoidance strategies and sign of stress. I am not saying at all that this should be true for everyone, I think it's best to try and figure out why you feel unsatisfied.

Yes, I usually have less desire to email after sessions that I feel satisfying, but it's not a guarantee that it remains that way during the entire week... a lot of it is related to my mood fluctuations and obsessive tendencies that come and go. I'm no longer in regular therapy, just see Ts occasionally, and I find it's actually more effective this way because I go when I have something specific to address and stick with the topic, then I follow up myself in everyday life. Still have the urge to email the Ts every now and then but nothing even close to when I was going weekly. When I go regularly, I feel that it takes up way too much of my thoughts and mental energy and often becomes depleting rather than enriching. I got easily trapped in obsessive/addictive cycles that I know I am prone to by default, so this manifesting in therapy was really predictable for me.

Yeah ok, makes sense. I've considered cutting back on my sessions a bit. But, as you have sort of said there, I feel like I depend on it a fair bit, and maybe it does take over my thoughts more than it should. But I have found that when I have to wait 4 weeks, i have a higher tendency for emailing.. But in saying that, at the moment, I don't think it would make a difference, I just want it all solved yesterday so I can move on with my like (Yeah, right...)

Some days, I find after therapy, I am exhausted, some days I have endless thoughts on what I should have said, or spoken about.. Some days therapy opens my mind up to new thoughts and memories.. Regardless of how it has ended, it has never been a positive and I have always felt the desire to email.

It might be helpful to understand what exactly drives that desire to email, and the frequent dissatisfaction. For me, I think it is the existence of unresolved issues itself, that I am investing all that time, energy and money into therapy and the problems still remain or improve much less than I would wish. I get much more out of approaching it in a holistic way, seeking support and understanding from a variety of sources instead of just one therapist. When I feel dissatisfied like that, often it's also in periods when I isolate too much. Basically, the therapist becomes the primary target of unloading and even if I am able to view it realistically, not expecting therapy to resolve the entire universe, I'm still not connected enough to the rest of the world. When I am connected and am dealing with my practical tasks in a decent way, my level of dissatisfaction is much lower and less frequent, because I have multiple sources of rewarding and constructive experiences. It takes a lot of effort and forcing myself into actions though, even when I don't feel up to it at all. Therapy works much better for me when it's just one of the several ways to express myself, interest and understanding, support, and palpable progress.

[zoiecat]

I spend one session a week on EMDR and the next session talking. I usually go into each talking session with a written agenda. I won't allow myself to email my therapist in between sessions but I do work on journaling daily as he suggests. The night before my session I will go through my journal and pick out the top most important things and write them on my agenda list so when I go in I talk about what's on that list. It helps me to not get distracted and make sure that I get out everything I want to get out. That usually helps me feel pretty resolved at the end of the session. I feel like I accomplished what I went in there for. That doesn't mean that I dont have immediate questions and things to add to the list for the next week session but again I find as time goes on some of those things resolve themselves if I just allow it to. That's part of the healing process.

No offense to anybody that emails in between sessions. Everybody's different and has to do what they have to do but I think sometimes it just makes more problems. You email something that's in your head at that moment then your therapist has all of these things to go over at the next session that maybe are no longer even important to you by that time. Then you sit and worry and try to read their mind how are they taking your email should I email them again what are they doing with that email. It just causes more stress. Sometimes if we just sit with our feelings they resolve themselves if it's still important by the next session by all means bring it up but sometimes that thing is no longer important and just becomes a waste of time and energy. My therapist is constantly trying to get me to just be able to sit with my bad feelings. When things come up in session he will make me do that in front of them if I sit there for about 5 minutes and practice mindful breathing and feeling the emotion for the thought it does get better and the bad feelings do go away. I just have to have patience and allow myself to feel it. Good luck to you.