How many of you feel jaded by the therapeutic process and chosen not to return?

I'm interested. Any details you're willing to share? Do you entertain thoughts of returning to therapy? Are you happier without it?

I don't want to be in therapy for years and years and in my last therapeutic relationship, I found both she (my t) and I unknowingly reeancting my old familial patterns and I do not wish to do that again. I'm still engaging in the process because, intuitively I feel like I'm not done yet, but I'm hanging on by a thread.

How do you feel about therapy overall, now?

My current T says that if you are in therapy with the same person for more than 3 years you should probably change due to diminishing returns over time. The thing about leaving is to try to work out if you are running from therapy that threatens to change your status quo ( which after all is why you went there in the first place) because you are scared, or whether the therapy you are getting is not what you need right now.
I've started and stopped many times over the years. Early on it was because I was scared. Later on it was because I had done enough and needed time to assimilate what I had learned. Occasionally it's been because I didn't click with the therapist. Having choice is very empowering.

It's a strange process; I've had therapy on and off for 10 years. Some of it has helped, some I didn't feel it did. For the last year I've been on the waiting list for psychotherapy, I'm feeling in a different place emotionally but the waiting is making me desperate. Alternatively, I'm generally high functioning and I've lasted this long without it. I deal with things. But maybe now is the time to try to change because I don't want to be like this forever. Maybe this is me.. as you can tell, I'm in 2 minds about it! Hope this makes sense

My ex-T abandoned me 2 years ago. I never even thought about quitting therapy, but I was terrified to try again. I had to though. I wouldn't have survived.

My T is helping me to change my habits of attachment by tapering down our sessions. It has actually been helping. I find that I don't need therapy as much as I used to. Sure I still have issues; issues that can be helped by therapy. But I'm starting to accept myself the way I am. I realize I will never be perfect, never be completely "healed", but that I'm okay. Even now, my depression is in recession, but I know it will probably come back. And if/when it does, it's okay. I can cope with it. I have the skills and the support. My T will be there when I need her. It's different than any other T relationship I've had.

I'm glad I took the risk and went back to therapy.

PC has been a sounding board for me, especially over the last year, and I have felt accepted and supported -- or at least not rejected -- here. As I've indicated before, I DID feel rejected by my last therapist, a feeling that was traumatically difficult for me, and I believe that feeling eventually got connected with feelings that were cut off when I was a child.

I had been in therapy off and on for more than 50 years, almost continuously in the last 20 when my late husband was diagnosed with a terminal disease. When it didn't work, despite my best efforts, research, interviewing therapists, I got actively negative, not just jaded.

It may well be that a need for me to process dissociated and confused negative feelings -- and to work through a negative transference, maybe -- had been an issue all along, which I couldn't completely understand because, of course, some of those feelings were unconscious or dissociated. I intellectually suspected it and told my last therapist that I thought that I was having negative transference toward her but then -- the depth and intensity of my hatred, I guess it was -- she couldn't tolerate. Six years into a therapy, the last 3 I paid out-of-pocket because my insurance changed -- and we get to the core of my issues and she can't tolerate them!! Jaded is not really the way I felt.

She offered some referrals. But I don't really have another 6 or 7 or even 5 years to devote to the mythical therapy "journey".

Fortunately, the last therapist had helped enough with some other issues of dissociation, and I had developed some other sources of support, that I think I may be going to be OK, or as OK as one might reasonably expect at my age.

Overall, I "believed" in therapy -- now see that as an idealization in many respects. But that's not something I could see at the time.

I still "believe" in therapy -- with some enormous reservations. Trying to find a "good fit" with a therapist is a farce -- it can take years or never. But . . .I almost starved myself to death when I was a teen-ager and without therapy -- or the 11 months in a psych hospital away from my family -- it probably could have been worse for me.

Not that there haven't been many years when I was very ready to pack it all in, wishing that law and custom allowed a "walk-in" clinic at the funeral home.

For me, I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the issues when my last therapy ended a year ago. Plus, fortunately, my last therapist has been willing to engage in some occasional email and snail mail contacts so that, now, I don't need her or hate her quite so badly. So, writing here and having some other just general acceptance and support from some in-person groups seems to have made the difference.

Time will tell. I may yet get well and write a book. Or just continue to post here when I feel like it.

I hope this helps you some, Calilady. Hanging on by a thread -- is a thread! Mine seemed to break a couple of times this last year but somehow, maybe, it grew back. Things feel a little stronger than that, now. Though who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Today, I want to quit all therapy.
Today, I think therapy is a load of horse crap.

I wish I had read this 3 years ago. I'm going on 6 years with current t, trying to break up with her right now, and it's so damn hard. I am waaaaaay too attached.

How do you feel about therapy overall, now?

in a nut shell, 'bitter-sweet'. the six year relationship with my ex-T definitly had it's good moments...even a few healing moments sprinkled in there from time to time, but overall, the process of therapy left quite a bitter taste in my mouth. similar to you, much of therapy seemed more about reenacting and triggering old patterns, relationships, and traumas, but never moving past them. not only do i now recognise that my ex-T was a bit incompetent when it came to working with my level of truama, and, much of the time, therapy seemed more about him and fulfilling his needs than mine. i also now question the methods that were used in therapy and wonder if they were more harmful than helpful for my issues, like covert levels of manipulation to trigger or bring forth my transference reactions in therapy or to T.

Do you entertain thoughts of returning to therapy? Are you happier without it?

if there is one thing that i am pretty damn positive about, i have absolutely no desire to return to therapy. i am quite over the moon with joy that i no long feel that therapy, or being in a 'therapeutic' relationship with my ex-T has to be a part of my life just so i can exist everyday. i have reached a point where i feel quite content and comfortable about life. i no longer carry an eternal dark pit of despair inside my very being nor do i fear being alone or unworthy of love anymore. now, i can confidently say that i except and embrace myself for who i am, faults, quirks and all, while remaining true to myself.

I feel extremely jaded because I haven't received the kind of therapy that suited my needs. I've always had to rely on the NHS because I can't afford to go private, which is extremely frustrating, and I've only ever been offered either counselling or CBT.

I developed Social anxiety during puberty, and at 17, asked my doctor for some help because I'd dropped out of college and was worried about my future. When I tried to explain how I felt, he told me that I was a pretty young girl, had nothing to worry about and just sent me on my way! This man had been my doctor since I was a child and I'd never felt comfortable around him because he spoke very little, and when he did, his manner was brusque. He was also well into his 60s when I was a teenager and seemed quite irritated by me so I didn't feel confident enough to insist that he listened to me.

A couple of years later, he retired and I was assigned another doctor who put me in touch with a counsellor, who visited me at my home. This woman was very hippyish and eccentric and would shower me with compliments and told me that we all just 'muddle through' and that I should too. I only saw her for several weeks, and because we only ever talked about general things, it felt pointless to continue. I did see another counsellor when I was 21, and although she seemed more knowledgable than the other, she told me that she wasn't qualified to deal with my issues.

By the time I was 27, having spent a decade trying (and failing) to access the right kind of help, I changed my doctor and she put me on a waiting list for CBT. I had to wait 18 months, which seems like a long time, but that's pretty much standard with the NHS. Of course, over the years, my social anxiety worsened and I became very depressed, and was practically house bound. I didn't know what to expect this time, but I felt positive at the start and really hoped that I'd finally get the help I needed. My therapist seemed pleasant enough and she said that I'd be seeing her for 3 months. In the first session she explained what CBT was and that it was 'proven to work' for people suffering from anxiety and depression. As the weeks went by, I became increasingly frustrated because whenever I tried to open up, I'd go off on tangents and she'd quickly try to change the subject and talk about 'making positive changes'. It felt like she wasn't really interested in my past and only wanted to focus on goals for the future. I just couldn't say or do anything right and I was beginning to feel worse and I was glad when it ended. She made me feel like a failure and it took me a while to get over that.

I'm in my 30s now and had CAT therapy 3 years ago. I was told that it was similar to psychotherapy and that it would be a good fit for me. Unfortunately, it didn't help me at all and found it to be just as superficial and as scripted as CBT. Like before, my T was pleasant at the start, but after the first few weeks she'd try to pressurise me into attending groups and would get annoyed when I told her I wasn't able to. When I told her that I was struggling to deal with all the years that I'd missed out on, she'd just repeat the same scripted phrases about being positive, and implied that I didn't want my situation to change. She was very condescending at times, almost to the point of infantilisation, and then she'd remind me that I was an adult in my 30s!

One week, we were discussing Autism, and she said that she would put me forward for an assessment... 6 weeks later I was diagnosed with Aspergers and everything began to make sense. The following week, when I told my T about my diagnosis, we decided to end my sessions with her due to my lack of progress. She appeared quite flummoxed and told me that the NHS doesn't provide therapy for people on the spectrum. So that was that.

I've felt marooned ever since because I didn't receive any after care, and there are no more options for me now. If my Aspergers had been noticed sooner, I might not have developed social anxiety or depression as coping mechanisms. My life just feels like it has never been my own and my problems now seem insurmountable.

I would be very dubious about attempting any kind of therapy now, unless I could find an affordable T who understands Autism.

I see therapy is being quite a bit like religion - you have regular true believers, the missionary believers who want to convert everyone to therapy and think therapy can solve every problem, the rabid fight and kill any one who does not believe true believers, skeptics/agnostics, and then therapy atheists. At this point, after trying to use it for something real and having it fail, I use it more as a hobby. I go in and observe what those people do and I like to compare and contrast them to each other

Welcome to PsychCentral, Apollite.

I'm very sorry to read that you didn't get diagnosed or referred to effective help. I like PsychCentral because I can interact with people without feeling so much social anxiety. I feel like I've learned a few new ways to be and to express myself somewhat, which has then helped with the horrible social anxiety I used to feel when trying to be with people in person. I certainly hope that you might find something like that here, too. It's definitely not been a "quick fix", and I've been here for years, but it's something . . .And with the support of other people, even just these text messages on an internet forum, my problems have turned out to be not entirely insurmountable, although grieving the lost years has definitely been a challenge for me, too.

My therapy pattern has been to know I need help, make an appointment with a therapist, see therapist, state problem, not get explanation about how therapy works or what to expect, get questioned about the rest of my life, talk about that (while crying), the 50 minute session is up.

Sometimes, I'll go back and talk to that therapist a few more times. Sometimes, I won't go back at all.

1. I don't think I'm worth the money, which would be a never-ending pit of dough.
2. I don't think the therapist is worth the money, What are they doing for me?
3. I don't understand what they're doing? I ask them if they are diagnosing me, what is wrong with me? They don't answer, give me double-talk.

Then, even when I try to stick with therapy, this one doctor didn't know how to do billing and I asked him to correct the problem and call me and I'll come back to therapy, and he never did. I had seen him for months. It was under his care I did something major that was a horrible mistake, and he told me it sounded like a good idea.

I think this is true for me. During the first 6 months my therapist got me into the habit of being more self reflective then in months 7-12, she helped me process a few events. Therapy is to expensive to go to on a frequent, long term basis. People help me free at Psych Central.

Can I ask you if you have therapy paid for by insurance etc, or do you pay for it yourself?

At one point in my life, I guess it was in 2009, I was incredibly jaded by everything relating to psychology and psychiatry. I had been in therapy for years, on a plethora of different medications, the whole 9 yards, and nothing was helping. So I stopped. I stopped all of my meds cold turkey. I ghosted my T. And I didn't even contemplate going back until 2016. Unentangling with my FOO helped me quite a bit. I've definitely grown since then. But I guess I finally realized that I had improved as much as I could on my own. So now I'm in therapy again, and still managing without any psychotropic medication. I can't take anything at the moment, but I digress.

I don't know that I'll want to start seeing another T when RoboT and I terminate in December. I'm burnt on therapy currently, but that's probably due in large part to the tension between RoboT and I.

Yes, I definitely find it easier to express myself online but I have a habit of joining mental health forums, making several posts and then going back to being a lurker! I need to persevere with things and stop giving up at the first hurdle.

After serious research, reflection, networking... I have concluded that talk therapy is a gigantic hustle. A psychological shell game. Like most of healthcare, it exists to serve itself. And therapists are frighteningly indifferent to the damage they cause, and in some cases pathologically so. I'm not jaded. I'm informed. I get that there are bright spots, and that it could be better than continuing to spiral down. This is just my perspective.

I was hurt by therapy but I can't say that I am jaded. Instead I am much more realistic about what therapy can and cannot accomplish. It wasn't until I started to build a meaningful life OUTSIDE of therapy that I started to feel better. Focusing on the therapy relationship was painful and led nowhere.
Since I have realized that my therapy has been more helpful, more goal-focused and now I'm on a therapy break and I don't think I'll go back since I feel pretty content with my life.

I agree with you.

The mental health professionals that I've encountered - from assessors to clinical psychologists - have all been ideologues. These people are impossible to deal with because they refuse to believe or understand anything other than what they've learned. I appreciate that they need to be passionate about what they do, particularly if they've studied for years, but I also think that they should be more flexible and actually listen to the real experts - us. Disregarding our feelings because they can't categorise us is very dangerous; I wish that they'd treat us like the individuals that we are, and understand that what works for one person, may not work for another.

It makes me wonder if people with more conformist personality types are more likely to become therapists in the first place? By saying that, I'm in no way implying that all T's behave like "robots" or that they are incapable of thinking independently, I'm just going on my own experiences and what other people have told me.

Obviously you do mind answering my question. I therefore think that you don't pay for your therapy out of your own pocket, otherwise I think maybe you would have more respect for your therapist!!

You draw the wrong conclusion. It is simply none of your business.

The first experiences I had with therapy were very bad. In retrospect my pdoc who doubled as my T was right out of med school and did not have the insight needed to handle my complicated case. I took a ten year hiatus, knowing I was still sick, but preferred to make it through on my own because my therapy experience had been so bad.

I finally ended up inpatient a few years ago, and therapy was required-- otherwise it's very possible I never would have gone back-- the arrangement ended up working well for me though I was very skeptical for a time. My current Ts are competent and have earned my trust, and I'm happy with the work we are doing.

I found the "therapeutic" process the antithesis of what's promised, though I wouldn't use the word jaded. I found encouraged self-absorption , stewing in my wounds and defects, rather than living life. It conveyed an artificial message that I somehow was inferior to my therapists, who in retrospect I see as not particularly intelligent, insightful or even empathetic. It created a large amount of artificial drama that was detrimental rather than helpful.

I overcame much of my anxiety and learned far more "about myself" in actually living life. Therapy was a harmful sham to me.

I think I'm getting to the same place. I just don't know what it's doing for me anymore. I haven't had a panic attack in over a month (Knocks on wood)...while my therapists pushed meds on me, but I refused and decided to do work on myself and I'm the one who had a breakthrough, all on my own.

I just don't know anymore. I'm having no insights or breakthroughs through therapy. I'm a bit confused what I'm getting out of it anymore.

The whole "insight" flash thing was pointless for me. I can ruminate on mean mommy, childhood isolation and unfairness ad nauseam, but that never translates to being effective in the world. I had to prove my own competence to myself through my accomplishments, not by a paid actor's paid flattery.

Now in my mid-60s I'm far less anxious, far less passive and deferential than when I was younger. (Several women have told that that at about age 50 they became much less slave to other's opinions.) I still have my limitations certainly. But therapists never offered the slightest assistance for my deficiencies anyway.