[amicus_curiae]

If many people here have ongoing (until death) mental disorders, then I assume that many people have various therapies for maintaining a psycho-equilibrium.

I think that it would be helpful to all if we could name our particular flavor of therapy. As I noted (somewhere) some people might respond to CBT (not for me!) or ECT (yes!) and both are therapies but have almost nothing in common save for an end means.

My flavor is talk therapy. Heavy on the analytical side.

Yours?

[smallbluefish]

interesting question! I guess mine would be talk therapy as well--I think my counsellor has called it "integrative therapy," with an integration of narrative, mindfulness-based, feminist, and humanistic therapy, and elements of any other models or approaches that are helpful at any given moment.

[satsuma]

Mine is schema therapy and I find it very helpful.

[growlycat]

I’ve seen psychodynamic t’s (self psychology look up kohut), cbt and dbt. For me it has been 80 percent the quality of the relationship with t. I find psychodynamic “deeper” but cbt has its place too

[Mike_J]

For me my therapist (psychodynamic) has done more for me than meds ever did. I'm not sure I will be in therapy forever but it's my plan to keep going as long as it's feasible.

[MoxieDoxie]

Ego state therapy/EMDR

[Elio]

I would have to say mine is mostly a bit of exposure, regression, experiential, and analytical.

We talk about parts but I wouldn't say we do IFS or direct parts work. We do allow the parts to express themselves as much as appropriate in order to work through things and experience things differently.

She has very much let me lead the style of therapy based on what I feel I need.

[Carmina]

Art therapy

[kecanoe]

Brain Spotting, EMDR, Internal Family Systems. Some CBT/DBT along the way that I still use but not currently doing that kind of therapy.

Flexible-frame therapy

[amicus_curiae]

Originally Posted by MoxieDoxie

Ego state therapy/EMDR

My (now ex-) therapist discussed the ego state therapy methods and toyed with the treatment for a couple of years.

I asked him what the devil EMDR was as I had only seen it in passing here. He assured me that it wasn’t for me —> I’ve no PTSD. It’s still controversial, isn’t it? Does it help you?

[amicus_curiae]

Originally Posted by smallbluefish

interesting question! I guess mine would be talk therapy as well--I think my counsellor has called it "integrative therapy," with an integration of narrative, mindfulness-based, feminist, and humanistic therapy, and elements of any other models or approaches that are helpful at any given moment.

That’s a much better description of my psychotherapy to date.

Still... I rage against the word ‘mindfulness’ because it seems to be a state that I have never been able to achieve.

I’ve had male and female shrinks but I think that my therapy has only been feminist-oriented when with male shrinks. We know that men can be real s**ts and expect an anti-female rage to come from most men. It’s different with female shrinks: I am so obviously a radical fanatical leftist that there is no doubt that I am a feminist. I have to say that the latter breeds trust in other areas, too. There is an easy leap across a chasm of social ignorance with women shrinks.

You’ve fleshed out my therapy CV. Thank you!

[LabRat27]

Still figuring it out. My current therapist is like 50% CBT 50% psychodynamic

I like it because I need to be able to deal with my life in a practical way here and now and break out of maladaptive behavioral and thought patterns (CBT) but I also think that long term I need to deal with my childhood/emotional abuse and neglect and learn to not hate myself (psychodynamic)

Psychoanalytic/dynamic with 2 different psychoanalysts for long term therapy.

One was a PsyD. He took an an authorative stance and made all the decisions. He also thought I did not exist outside of the transference. I was really dependent and lived in my past trauma, felt powerless-a person with no autonomy. He seemed to engage in these power struggles rather than step out of it so to speak, but it led to disaccord since I'm not masochistic.

I have DID so I do have a masochistic part. I don't this T had a grasp on my diagnosis or issues very well, which may have partly due to his own transferences.

The other analyst treated me as an equal. I had dependence issues with him too, but the therapy had more positive effects. I still keep in touch with him after all these years, and we are casual friends. This one was a psychiatrist, and I seem to have less problems with psych doctors. Not sure if that had anything to do with it, but I've had about 9 psychiatrists over the years, and although this is only one who really did therapy, I have had consistently good relationships with them.

So even though the type of therapies were similar, the outcomes were much different.

I don't consider myself as having ongoing/lifelong mental illness. I think I have predispositions and had a few challenging periods in my life. I also don't think that therapy is necessary to manage my challenges - tried it for a couple years in my early 40's, in part out of curiosity. I did psychoanalysis for about a year then another roughly one year with a T who describes his approach as eclectic (psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, coaching, CBT, narrative, interpersonal). I liked the eclectic much better.

[LittleAfrica]

Initially it was ego state therapy. Now I'm not so sure anymore. Hmmm, perhaps I should ask.

[smallbluefish]

Originally Posted by amicus_curiae

That’s a much better description of my psychotherapy to date.

Still... I rage against the word ‘mindfulness’ because it seems to be a state that I have never been able to achieve.

I’ve had male and female shrinks but I think that my therapy has only been feminist-oriented when with male shrinks. We know that men can be real s**ts and expect an anti-female rage to come from most men. It’s different with female shrinks: I am so obviously a radical fanatical leftist that there is no doubt that I am a feminist. I have to say that the latter breeds trust in other areas, too. There is an easy leap across a chasm of social ignorance with women shrinks.

You’ve fleshed out my therapy CV. Thank you!

glad to have helped! I have been a little wary of the word "mindfulness" too in the past, but mostly because I've heard the term misappropriated by people who interpret it to mean "clearing your mind" and just not thinking about your problems (even though the point is for many of us, esp. with mental health or illness issues, we can't just not think about these problems...! and ignoring your problems isn't the point of mindfulness anyway). I guess I'm lucky that my counsellor is not one of those people, and uses this approach very thoughtfully.