[MatBell]

Do anyone else feel like they have to be interesting/say something new has happened/show improvement with their T? I feel mine sometimes is bored or annoyed that I'm saying the same things, nothing new is happening, and not much progress.

[ElectricManatee]

I tell myself that it's my therapy so I can talk about anything I want/need to. Usually I have some new insight or angle or piece of something to bring in, but I definitely do not always have something new or interesting or something that shows I have made progress. In fact it seems pretty normal for me to get significantly better and then slide back a little, over and over. I often return to the same topic many times before it gets settled.

Maybe you could talk about not being sure what you should talk about? Your T might be able to reassure you that you aren't being boring. Or if might lead into talking about patterns you fall into, or things you could try doing to move forward, or your high expectations about your own progress, or who knows what.

[MatBell]

Originally Posted by ElectricManatee

I tell myself that it's my therapy so I can talk about anything I want/need to. Usually I have some new insight or angle or piece of something to bring in, but I definitely do not always have something new or interesting or something that shows I have made progress. In fact it seems pretty normal for me to get significantly better and then slide back a little, over and over. I often return to the same topic many times before it gets settled.

Maybe you could talk about not being sure what you should talk about? Your T might be able to reassure you that you aren't being boring. Or if might lead into talking about patterns you fall into, or things you could try doing to move forward, or your high expectations about your own progress, or who knows what.

Thank you. I think I want to make my T happy with me, and if I don't show improvements I feel ashamed in a way - that it's just the same with me. Maybe I should talk to her about it. But I always think it's hard to talk about how the therapy itself is doing.

[ScarletPimpernel]

I had a fear that my T was bored with me. I talked to her about it. She said she doesn't find me boring even if we repeat topics. She said she would be bored if we were constantly doing small talk like talking about the weather.

I actually had the opposite fear of yours too. I was afraid our relationship would change because I'm doing better. She reassured me that our relationship won't change whether I'm doing good or not.

When in doubt, the best advice is to talk to your T.

Originally Posted by MatBell

Thank you. I think I want to make my T happy with me, and if I don't show improvements I feel ashamed in a way - that it's just the same with me. Maybe I should talk to her about it. But I always think it's hard to talk about how the therapy itself is doing.

It sounds like that's exactly where the work is. It's certainly hard to talk about how the relationship is going but there's so much learning to be had there.

[MrsDuckL]

You know, this is something I was wondering recently too. I'm fairly new to therapy and I'm dealing with trauma and ptsd from childhood abuse. I was getting paranoid after a recent session when I shared a particular traumatic memory that I wouldn't be able to come up with more memories. It's something I still wonder sometimes, how much of my past is lost to time and how much I'll eventually be able to remember, personally I'm dealing with stuff from 15,20 years ago.

I've read a bunch of Irvin Yalmon's books, and although I have some strong opinions on some of his work, my therapist and both agree with his general attitude about therapy--that so much of therapy healing comes from the relationship, what develops between the two people in that room. I also like Irvin Yalom's idea that therapy is one ongoing conversation, that the next session should pick up approximately where the last one ended. (Irvin Yalom used to tape his therapy sessions for patients who had long commutes to listen to on the way over.) What works for me is to take notes immediately after I leave about what we discussed, and to review these notes + my journal entities for the week right before my next therapy session--this usually gives me a good idea of what I want to discuss.

Anyhow, I wouldn't be worried about this at all. I think therapy sometimes involves dealing with big, scary important issues, and this can take time and many recounting of the same issues to resolve. Like others have said, it's your hour, and you're feee to talk about what you wish. The best of luck to you!

[CantExplain]

I didn't feel I had to say something new. But I was annoyed that I kept coming back to the same things.

What Spoon said!! So much of my healing has been because of and within the relationship between t and I. we talk about it often. Yes it's definitely hard to talk about how the relationship is going sometimes harder than others even but yesyesyes there's so much learning to be found there.

I recently went through a miserable rupture with my t, it took some time to repair it (I even went so far as to quit via an email until I regretted it and reached out to her again), but through talking about it over more than one session we are now "back to normal" probably even a stronger team than we were before. And we were already a pretty darn awesome team before.

I wish you the best!

[DP_2017]

Usually I let him lead, easier on me

but if I have something I really need to talk about, I'll mention it. Sometimes it's repeated but its usually dug a bit deeper each time

A while ago I got tired of telling my pdoc I wasn't doing well. I felt like a broken record and I was afraid he would think I was just repeating myself instead of honestly saying I really wasn't doing well or improving. I wrote him a letter about it and now he asks the question differently, or starts by asking how my week went instead of how I am doing.

[InnerPeace111]

Yes, I discuss the same general issues, problems, and themes from week to week. Definitely. But I think what keeps the conversation flowing and interesting and lively is that I make sure to discuss how my thoughts and feelings have shifted over the past week. I take her suggestions and try them out and I create my own "homework", too, and we discuss it. I read books and poetry and that allows us to discuss the connections to my own life. I set new goals or refine old ones so we discuss my goal progress. I have noticed that the work of personal growth is absolutely endless and conversations about it can be approached from any number of angles. Plus, I don't truly believe we are the exact same person we were a week ago. I believe all human beings are in a continual state of change and growth.

[skeksi]

I talk over the same issues and problems with my T. Occasionally I worry that it becomes boring, but he assures me it is not. I find that for me, I often need a lot of repetition to learn a new way of thinking or a new behavior, so I think it's part of my therapy process.

I recently made some huge changes in the way I see myself and how I interact with other people (i.e. Boundaries) and I think it's completely attributable to years of hard work in the same stuff.

[stopdog]

I don't worry about whether the therapist is bored or not. It is not my job to keep the woman interested in her job. I certainly do not have any reason why I would need to impress her or make her feel better about herself in any way.

[anais_anais]

I have apparently told both my Ts the same things many times, each time with no idea I've told them before.

I do feel a self-inflicted pressure to be "good" and show improvement... but I generally try to show this through other means than in what I say to them.

[awkwardlyyours]

With my former T, I felt an immense pressure to show "improvement" week to week -- else, I felt like she got irritated / frustrated and so on.

I also felt a lot of pressure to "fill up" the time -- so, ironically, former T knows way way more (in terms of just facts / stuff that happened) than my current T who I've seen for more sessions.

With current T, I don't feel any such pressure. Sometimes, I've felt bored. But, now looking back, I think it was partly because I'd been irritated with her and I hadn't realized it and hadn't told her. And, the other part was that the "boredom" was actually a manifestation of some weird sort of fragmentation / disintegration / hollowness that I was experiencing i.e., I didn't feel like my mind / internal self was a whole and I didn't have words to explain how I was feeling.

So, it just felt like I was completely numb or rather speechless -- given how much I rely on words (and almost exclusively on words) to convey how I'm feeling (although current T is no slouch at picking up other non-verbal expressions), I interpreted that sense of emptiness as boredom because it was too frightening / strange to really get in touch with that fragmentation and let it play out in therapy (I'm always terrified that I won't be able to "put myself back" together and leave session if I don't tightly manage to hold it together through the hour).

Once in a while, I've joked to current T that I'm bored of talking about my mother and she's immediately shot back with "Your mother is anything but boring!". And, so we kinda figure out what to talk about if I'm sick of a topic and keep going.