I am curious to know the view points and actions out there regarding participation in individuals'therapeutic care. On the one side do you heed the advice of your mental healthcare providers? Do you have a more relaxed approach? Do you place responsibility on yourself to participate in your MH management or do you place more responsibility on the shoulders of your therapist and/or psychiatrist? Is this just the way things have fallen into place or do you have hard thoughts on the matter? Just some friendly interest in the spectrum of views out there.

[maybeblue]

I put "other." I do consider myself an active participant in therapy. In fact I believe that most of the responsibility is mine to make sure I improve. But I am not always "compliant" with what the therapist wants me to do. Sometimes it's stupid or simply doesn't make sense. If they can convince me that it is worth trying then I will. Otherwise I tell them no.

[Salmon77]

Other. I'm an active participant, but I wouldn't say "compliant" because that makes it sound like I'm following orders. My therapy does not involve tasks or homework, and my T makes recommendations only rarely, if I ask. Maybe this poll is meant for people doing CBT or something?

[Taylor27]

Im an active participant in therapy. I try to do my homework if there is any sometimes i get homework . I don't follow orders i consider my therapist part of the team like my doctor. I have more of a laid back approach and it seems to be working for me.

[starfishing]

I don't think the concept of "compliance" belongs anywhere near therapy as you seem to be applying it here, and any therapist who suggested I "comply" with them would probably be fired before the end of the session.

But that doesn't mean I'm not am active participant or that I don't take responsibility for the therapeutic process. Quite the contrary--I make an autonomous choice to work as hard and as thoroughly as I can in therapy, and to use therapy as a way of seeking out growth, insight, stability, and health. It's my therapist's role to take responsibility for his portion of that by using his professional skill and insight to guide that process. And no one is assigning or doing any homework.

I suppose the closest thing to the idea of compliance in my therapy is around medication, but even there--my therapist prescribes based on mutually agreed on needs and goals, and from there it's my responsibility to determine whether meds are helping or hindering and keep him informed in order to give him enough data to form his own opinion on whether my medications are well-managed, but ultimately it's my assessment that matters most, as it should be. Compliance doesn't really factor in.

[feileacan]

Other. I am a very active participant in my therapy but my therapy does not include any homework, recommended tasks nor expectations for compliance. I would not engage in a therapy that would include any of those components.

[nottrustin]

Other.. I am very active in my care I feel it is my responsibility as it is my life. I do take and appreciate T's advice. I figure if I knew all the answers without advice then I wouldn't be in therapy. However, neither T's want me to always take their advice. They want me to do whay is right for me. There have been many times I disagreed with T and told her. Often she agreed that my ideas were better fore and agreed. She never gave homework.

[InnerPeace111]

I voted for other. I am a very active participant in my own therapy. I create my own homework assignments, though. I decide what I want to do, when to do it, and how to do it. I modify my own homework during the week if needed. I am open to any and all suggestions from my T. I will give whatever she says a try. She always suggests reasonable things that can be easily integrated into whatever homework I have planned for myself. I will also say that I purposely make my homework assignments super simple — always things that will move me forward but easy too.

I really only think of compliance in terms of showing up for my sessions, being on time, paying each week, not carrying a balance, leaving on time, etc. I am compliant in this regard.

[RaineD]

We disagree a lot on theory and approach so I don't think his recommended between-session tasks would be helpful. He likes to focus on concrete and specific things. I care only about the relationship. So, yeah, I often don't do what he tells me to.

For almost all of my therapy (over 6.5 years) I have been "I am an active participant and always comply with my therapist/psychiatrist". Currently, I am an "other" because I am not sure exactly what is going on right now in therapy. I think I am quitting. But I won't know that until I either do or I don't on Thursday. Totally weird session the other day. "Totally weird" doesn't even do justice to how weird it was.

[Amyjay]

I chose "other". I am the leader of my therapy. My therapist doesn't give homework and she doesn't guide sessions apart from the thee very rare occasion when I front up and say "I've got nothing today, what shall we do?" Then she will suggest a thread of something or another and I will choose whether to run with it or not.

I am very active and very driven in my therapy. Because I am very dissociative she does have a better overall view of what is going on with me and sometimes she will very subtly suggest or guide some thing or another. Very subtly though, like laying two dissociated threads nearer to each other on the table. If it feels meaningful I pick up the threads and run with them, weaving some fabric that is useful to me in some way.

But I am the tailor. She doesn't have the pattern. All she does is sit beside me and hold the loose threads until I am ready to pick them up and weave them into my fabric.

We often chat while I weave.

I picked active and always comply. I usually lead our sessions but she does give me work occasionally and I think I didn't follow through once in the 2 years I have been seeing her. It comes from a fear of disappointing her though so thats a work in progress.... lol

[velcro003]

I put "other," as I am rather resistant to almost everything she suggests, yet I continue to show up. She knows that I simultaneously need therapy to get me through a week, and dread it and am full of anxiety and shut down each week as well.

My T is great in that she says that as long as I find value in coming, she is there for me. She puts no pressure on me to "be" some sort of perfect client. I think she probably gets super frustrated with my lack of progress (as do I), but she keeps it to herself quite well.

[Ididitmyway]

I was never given any homework by any therapist and I would never see a therapist who gives homework. I find that approach infantilizing and, frankly, stupid. So, I voted "other".

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

I only get tasks or homework or whatever maybe twice a year. If I do it's something that helps me and I do it (or at least do it for a week and then say it's absolute crap). My T doesn't tell me how to do things in my life though (like there's no 'go talk to person X' or 'don't talk to Y' or similar). I do the things that are given as tasks to me, or at least I try to. But I wouldn't if it were orders on how to live my life.

[Pennster]

Therapy doesn’t have a lot to do with compliance for me - my therapy is more collaborative than that. We work together on things, and I use him to help me find my way through things. To me, compliance sounds like the therapist is an authority figure telling you what to do- I’m not looking for someone to direct my life. My therapeutic relationship is a lot more about having help with making peace with a lot of trauma and grief in my life.

I never worked with a T who gave me homework or tasks to do between sessions but I often thought perhaps it would have been more useful than all the aimless wandering I tended to do in emails to the T. Maybe that way I would not have used therapy as a distraction mostly. I would not like someone telling me what to do, like to a kid, but if I find the idea interesting and am curious about trying it out, I would not refuse for sure. I would prefer if we came up with them collaboratively though, not as instructions. I typically don't even just follow instructions from a real authority (like a boss, was same with my parents in childhood) and prefer to do things in my own way and in my own time. The issues I went to therapy for in the first place had strong practical dimensions and required action, things that just talking would never change. The problems existed because my own ways did not work and because of my stubbornness. I think if I ever tried therapy again, I would definitely want it to stick more closely to specific goals.

[seeker33]

I don't like the term compliance either. Sometimes I tell my T about a practical problem I am having and she either suggests something to try (grounding, mindfulness, creative activity) or we find a possible solution together. If I find the idea interesting or useful I'll give it a try. I do so because I think it's helpful. I see me and my T as a team working together. I don't feel my T is an authority figure for me.

[BonnieJean]

Originally Posted by feileacan

Other. I am a very active participant in my therapy but my therapy does not include any homework, recommended tasks nor expectations for compliance. I would not engage in a therapy that would include any of those components.

Same for me.

[fille_folle]

I'm a bit of a goody two-shoes, but in therapy, that mostly just means I try to never intentionally be rude to my therapist. Our relationship isn't one where I think the word "compliance" could be appropriately used in the way you mean. I am not court-ordered to attend therapy. I am there because I choose to be and if I take my therapist's recommendations, that is also a choice. I've never gotten the impression that she conveys her recommendations with the assumption that I will comply. I would be lying if I said she approves of everything I do, though.

As for homework, my T doesn't assign me any. Sometimes we talk about things I might do between sessions to work on something in particular, but it's not like she orders me to do a, b, and c before the next session.

[precaryous]

I chose ‘other.’

If I object to her suggestion, we set it aside or look for something else.

Her practical suggestions are more helpful than her request that I fill out ‘mindfulness’ worksheets, etc.

I drive therapy. Therapy does not drive me.

I had to choose "Other", too. My answer would have varied over the years, especially in my early years of therapy. I had to go through a lot to get to a point where I could appreciate therapy and give it the effort it deserves. But also some types of therapy seemed more useful and a better match for me. Some therapists inspired more effort than others. If I'm very unstable, therapy does less good for me than medications. At other times it is the opposite.