[CTECH]

Hello everyone! First post.

So, I'm living in a foreign country and luckily found an english speaking psychotherapist.

Now, ive had two rounds of it before. First one, great, super. I had another bout during a bad part of my life. She... was terrible. She kept on using the same techniques every time, even tho I told her repeatedly that it was just leaving me stressed and confused... she said "Well lets try again, stop thinking about it" ... cut and paste for 18 months (I held out a lot of hope)

Cut to me 4 years later. I entered a relationship and many issues arose again. I read about what I was feeling and got a psychotherapist here. I told her "btw my last therapist really stressed me out with these visualization and focussing on the colour techniques, I kinda felt traumatized"

"Ok, well we'll do what you want here, anything you feel comfortable with"- my first session last week

This week? What did this lady do? Exactly what I didnt want... "lay down on the sofa, what do you see?"... I dont care! I need coping mechanisms for my anxiety, not thinking about "yellow is an healing colour"... great, when i'm having a panic attack about an instagram post, or a cockroach in my room, i'll remember YELLOW IS A HEALING COLOUR.

Anyone else had this? Bad techniques? Like, its ok for some to just not work with some people right? I consider myself too scientific for this, that first therapist never used it, and I grew and grew. Anyone else actually had this technique?

For me it plain doesn't work. I left feeling frustrated, really regressed and annoyed. I'm an overthinker... colours are nice but relatively benign to me, please, I don't want to be constantly trying to find meaning in the images in my head.

Thanks guys

[Skeezyks]

Hello CTECH: Since this is your first post here on PC... welcome to PsychCentral. Thanks for sharing your therapy experiences. I've tried seeing a few therapists for brief periods over the years. But it never amounted to much. I don't think what you described would be anything that would be of any interest... or value to me. I hope you find PC to be of benefit though.

[velcro003]

i must say, i have never heard of a T using color as a technique.

[RaineD]

I've never heard of it either.

[lucozader]

I have also never heard of that 'technique'! And yeah, it sounds annoying, and it's absolutely fair enough for you to ask not to do it. I don't have a visual imagination so it would be even more useless to me than it must be to most people.

Colour therapy is a complementary-type therapy: pseudoscience or holistic depending on your view.

When I was having art therapy, we spoke about colour quite a lot - what did I associate with certain colours, what did colours represent, and so on. I found it useful and it provided me with an association-type framework which I still think about today. I didn't do any of the visualisation, lay back on the couch stuff though.

[CTECH]

Thanks for your feedback guys.

It is a bit pseudo-scientific, isn't it? I'm so annoyed I told her specifically that my last therapist had used it and it did nothing. I'm going to try another one who's associated with a clinic, presumably she'll be more scientific.

It's left me feeling right back where I was 2 years ago leaving the last therapist... all that progress i'd made has run away! Ay ay ay

[velcro003]

Originally Posted by SorryNorma

Colour therapy is a complementary-type therapy: pseudoscience or holistic depending on your view.

When I was having art therapy, we spoke about colour quite a lot - what did I associate with certain colours, what did colours represent, and so on. I found it useful and it provided me with an association-type framework which I still think about today. I didn't do any of the visualisation, lay back on the couch stuff though.

I talk about color in art therapy too, but that seems very different.

[Amyjay]

I see an EMDR therapist for trauma therapy and we use different grounding and self-calming techniques so that I will be able to re-ground myself once we get into memory processing. There are different "protocols" for this, some of them I like and some of them I don't. Honestly, most of them require visualization and imagery of some sort. One of the ones I am still learning to use relates to color. I am asked to focus on any uncomfortable physical sensation in my body and consider it in terms of color, texture, size etc. Then I am asked to imagine a healing light (of the color I most associate with healing) flowing down into my body and enveloping the physical sensation.
Honestly, I am really not into this kind of stuff at all, but I am giving it a go because T wants me to try it.
So earlier today I was very triggered and dissociated but I have some work I need to do, so I used some of the protocols she has taught me to try to ground myself. I tried 3 and it was the last one - the color one - that worked for me on this occasion. I don't "like" them and I think they are weird, but I am glad to not be triggered anymore. I was glad for my mind to calm down and be under my "own control" again.

There are lots of different mind tricks to use when your mind is under stress to help get calm again - that is all these things are. All they are really doing is getting your mind concentrated on something else other than the things that are disturbing you in the moment (for me, dissociating and triggers, for you - cockroaches maybe?). I don't know how open you are to trying different techniques tht don't involve visualization, but there are simple ones about observing your environment, focusing on rate and type of breathing, stuff like that. They are basically just self-calming techniques. Some people like to visualize, thus the focus on colors etc.

I personally don't see them as "bad therapy" at all. It's just stuff to help regulate your nervous system.

[seeker33]

I think working with colors and visualization can be nice and calming for many people.
However I also think it's not the main part of therapy. It's just one of many possible tools. If a therapist only uses this and nothing else... I wouldn't work with them.