If you quit therapy...

I see a few people here saying that they were frustrated or victimized with therapy and that they were able to quit and work things out on their own.

I'm at the point in therapy that I'm spinning my wheels. We keep having the same session again and again, and I don't feel like I am going to get much further with this therapist. It's not even his fault, really. I just don't want to talk about the past when I've seen three other therapists about it and they did nothing to help. One only made it worse. I like my current therapist, but I don't believe telling him will be any different in the end. Sometimes I think the only reason I keep going is because I like him and we have some good conversations. And he has helped me with certain issues. But the deeper painful past, I need to come to terms with this on my own. Or just keep paying every week for nothing.

If you feel that you accomplished working through your past traumas yourself, how did you do it?

I don't think I've solved every issue in my past, but I also don't think you need to solve every issue in your past to move forward. Sometimes it's putting miles between my past and my present which has been the most helpful thing. I always come back to a quote I heard once: "No one ever thought their way out of depression." I have come to accept that, for a lot of things, I will only figure out the answer by actually living more, not contemplating more.

When I left therapy, I felt very let down by my therapist, so I decided to do things that wired me a bit more into life. I started volunteering, I wrote a bit more, I made a point to see my friends more often. I went easy on myself.

It also helped that life just happened too: after two years of infertility and a year of talking about it I fell pregnant, I bought a house a few months early with the money I saved on therapy, and so much stress left me when my permanent residency came through. Sometimes it's not me -- sometimes life is just plain rough, and it's ok to struggle when life is hard.

Please trust your instincts on this. If you'd tried the same medicine three times and it never helped, your doctor should be looking for alternatives. Your therapist should be too. If he's not, try something else.

I did it by bearing the unbearable, one little bit at a time. Every time I allowed myself to feel something from my past that felt unbearable, I was that little bit closer to "bearing" it, just by the fact that the little bit had been borne by the moment that it was conscious, that I was aware of it, before the "I can't stand this" feeling came on and the feelings shut down. Like a muscle, maybe, eventually I could tolerate more.

I had been doing that before I quit therapy. I thought therapy would help me "resolve" things, help me put things together better, help me make me a better me. It didn't.

I also lucked into a good support group. Some of the people have become friends, something I hadn't had for years. But I had tried some other support groups and they were OK, just not like the one I'm in now, so I definitely feel it was just a matter of luck, although I had kept looking for something when it seemed impossible to find.

My psychologist M has been a vast source of transformation in understanding trauma. He was able to help me resist the siren song of dissociation, a lifelong retreat. This is something I find mindblowing, really, as I thought of losing time as an inherent part of who I am, not as a child's only recourse that persisted into adulthood. He gave me practical help- like scales for assessing if danger was from the past or in the present etc that calmed down hypervigilance. One of the most difficult challenged is "attribution"- tracing an emotion to its original source. If I feel terrified in the present, it is likely I have arduous work to do in tracing it back always to the same source. Sometimes it makes me angry to be redirected because I want it to be a quickly solved interpersonal issue with quick if not instant resolution, and that just cannot be. Trauma treatment isnt like the way therapy is sometimes portrayed in movies or TV which someone showers you with positive attention, solace, sympathy the way someone might if you were sick. There's just too much crucial work to do, and both the therapist and the patient have to battle some very difficult material- on sunny days, on rainy days, on birthdays, and days someone close has died. It is relentless ( I suspect on both sides?). The reward is change. I understand my own life story in a clear-eyed way that escaped me my whole daydreamy life. I'm starting to learn about trust, with lapses to not trusting and fear hangovers from attempts to trust like a kid learning to tie shoes. In my opinion, besides training and loyalty to the difficult shared project, the T needs to have and hold for you a vision of better days, better years and see that bigger picture when you cannot.

I learned so much from your post, including the parts that I did not quote, about how my last T taught me so little despite her Ph.D. and 2 years post-doc training in trauma and dissociation.

You don't know what you don't know -- and that included me not knowing how little the therapist was "helping" in any significant way.

I feel pretty cheated myself.

Though I am so happy that therapy can be more than unending pain for others.

This sounds almost exactly like how my therapist worked with me. Nice to hear a therapy story so reflective of my own experience.

I recently went through the worse rupture we've had over the the 3.5 yrs and I wondered if I had reached the limits with this therapist. I am glad that I stuck it out. The rupture is not completely resolved. I am feeling more trust towards her. I think being able to come back to trusting her is part of what has changed for me. I am definitely more gentle with myself and there is more time where there's only one voice talking in my head at a time.

How'd I get here? Day in and day out, little steps and giant leaps. There's been lots of taking chances and seeing/feeling accepted for those chances, there's been lots of sharing/talking about pretty much anything, the good, the bad... there's been tons and tons of tears and general sadness. There's been some laughs, too. If you look through the in session threads, I used to post very detailed session notes.

They often say that talking does the trick, for me I don't just talk, I engage in many different forms of interactions and communications - I share music, we play games, do jig saw puzzles, watched a movie, watched some football, color, play with toys, and have read many picture books, sit on the floor.

Some of the healing moments have come from an interaction while doing one of the many other activities than talking as she just responds to something in a certain way that leaves me feeling seen and attended to. Others have come from sessions where I end up sitting on the floor and sobbing most the session for no seeming reason at all. Sometimes it's simply sharing the story, being heard/seen/understood, and affirmed that what I experienced did feel that way for me - and all kinds of things in between.

Recently I brought in dinner that I had made - a new dish from my vacation. This was a pretty big step for me because I don't like to eat in front of people - part of my eating issues. So, little and big steps, day in and day out - trying to find the balance between pushing and supporting.

Why do you keep repeating the same session over and over again? Are you talking about the same topic? What do you think has you holding onto this topic? Maybe try purposely not talking about that topic or try talking about it from a different angle?

Are you just talking about your week/random stuff - maybe time to look at your goals? In what ways do you think that painful past is holding you back or impacting your life?

Have you tried talking to your T directly about feeling like you're in a rut? If not, why? If yes, what has your T said?

What would you like to be doing/talking about instead? Is there any images or fantasies that come to mind on how you'd rather spend your time with your therapist? Maybe it's time for a break?

To be honest, there isn't really a good right/wrong answer here, especially when there's nothing particularly wrong/harmful working with a specific T, just gotta try to feel it out and do what you think is best for you.

I'm not sure what working thru trauma means. It's a good marketing slogan.

I did have success figuring out some things on my own post-therapy. Main thing was to learn how to reason and how to think for myself.

Quitting therapy was itself helpful. It signaled the end of helplessness and savior-seeking.

Going forward I'm interested in psychedelics for trauma and depression.

I also think the health of the physical body is fundamental to everything.

Then perhaps you don't know. It isn't a slogan. To say so is belittling the difficult work many of us here have had to do, many of us dealing with PTSD as the result of trauma. You mean to attack the therapist; that's clear. But in your words is also, perhaps inadvertently, an insult to those that have needed the help of a therapist because of debilitating effects of trauma, who haven't been able to, apparently, "reason and think for themselves." Having the support and specific skills of an effective therapist can be the difference between making it through that trauma and the resultant PTSD symptoms and death. Working through trauma on one's own, for many, isn't really working through it. It is suppressing it, repressing it, so that we can simply function. Unfortunately, those efforts have a tendency to be only temporary fixes and can blow up in our own faces.

I also have no idea what those people meant when they talked about working through X or Y or Z. They said I had ptsd - I doubt it -but even if I did - it wasn't going to be fixed by therapy and its(or their) refusal to explain what they meant by anything

This is a complicated question!

Therapy unfortunately didn’t work for me, though I did try my best and endured many years of pain with the hope of getting to a better place. My earlier postings describe the details, which I won’t rehash.

Moving forward without therapy has been a slow process. I needed to re-acclimate myself to living without professional support and start relying on myself again. The first few months after termination were a “one day at a time” situation since I was decompressing from cumulative therapy trauma and pulling away from a toxic, addictive relationship. I experienced really intense withdrawal symptoms and my inner structure basically collapsed. It was a dark time in my life.

Months later though, through just getting up each day, I was able to piece together my broken psyche and separate from the dependent victim I felt like when I was in treatment. Moving past collapse was really empowering and gave me the confidence that I could recover from just about anything else. Life suddenly seemed less scary and more open.

One important piece that I integrated into my life after therapy was excellent self-care. This is included getting enough sleep at night, exercising, eating better, taking time off from work when I needed to, long hot baths, cutting back on drinking, aroma therapy and anything else that I deemed healing. The results were fast and effective. Seeing what could happen if I didn’t take care of my mental health was the wake-up call I needed to make better choices.

I also read self-help books and haven’t given up on introspection and self-discovery. I still journal every morning. I do my own CBT work when I’m overly-challenged. I limit interactions with people who stress me out. Self-directed work is not the same as therapy, but I don’t feel like I’m missing out on therapy either.

Do I have unexplored and undealt with traumas? Absolutely! Few people escape life without trauma, and yet most manage to live meaningful lives anyway without going trough therapy.

I was describing my personal experience and point of view. Meant what I said.

Everyone is doing difficult work... it's called life.

Revisiting trauma or futile speculation of its source only habituated my victimhood. A pneumatic model of trauma, that feelings release pressure through their mere excavation, never worked for me.

I subsequently progressed on my own: pursuing goals, overcoming obstacles, abandoning unrealistic expectations, firing my gurus and simply aging.

"Working through trauma" sounds like therapy speak, but the actual process isn't just marketing. It's real to the people who've had to do it, whether they did it in therapy or at home. That's why I started the thread, to see if anyone has successfully done it without a therapist. I myself have not been successful with it in therapy, possibly because I'm hesitant to discuss the trauma and reopen those wounds. I don't want to do that, but I also know that what happened to me when I was younger still affects me on a daily basis to the point I can't always function like a normal human being. It has also affected my physical health negatively.

As you say, life is difficult work. But for people who have experienced significant traumatic events or been heinously victimized, what is already difficult can feel impossible. Getting out of bed is too much at times. I'm sure you know this. I don't think it's fair to say life sucks, get over it. If you're strong enough to get over it that easily, then congratulations.

And I often find myself agreeing with much of what you write about therapists/therapy here, but I have to disagree with this point. Some people need more help than others, and not all therapists are used car salesmen with a couch.

In my own case, I did have a bad, manipulative therapist and she did a lot to keep me from working successfully with the one I have now, and he's good. I just do not want to have to tell my story...again...and have to go through expressing those feelings again.

Agree with all that you wrote. This particularly is one of my fears, though, as I'm thinking about taking a break or quitting therapy.

The first part of your quote is a big part of why I am hesitant to do this in therapy. My current therapist is big on releasing feelings and/or sitting with them, physically feeling them, etc. I don't know if forcing the past to be felt all over again is something that is healthy when all I want is to move forward with my life in a more positive way.

An excellent factor in decision-making with therapy is how functional you are when you don’t do therapy.

I completely agree with what many people have said here - that therapy can be life or death for many... the difference between a quality life and not.

That said I don’t think it’s critical for everyone, and I think there’s a subset of people it can be detrimental to.

I live a really boring, normal life right now without therapy in my life. I get up, go to work, spend time with family, see friends, enjoy hobbies etc. On a scale of 1 to 10, past trauma registers as a 1 or 2 for life-impediment. Going through ‘trauma work’ upped that to 8 or 9 consistently, on a regular basis, with no sign of getting better. I think it’s because of how my brain works with rumination and that my therapist was sub-par. Therapy truly isn’t a necessity for me, so I chose to step away from it.

If my life were materially impacted by past traumas, I’d definitely have a difference in approach. I don’t think everyone can just white knuckle through bad feelings or ‘toughen up and get over it’.

I relate to the bolded, with my last T. Eventually I stopped seeing him because I did not think it was worth paying a lot of money to just have interesting and mostly pleasant conversations, even though they were not superficial in any way and I did talk about my past and psychological issues deeply. It's just that the nature of my problems was such that talking really did not do much, only changing actions and my behavior was helpful. I also talk about early life adverse experiences all the time, I do research that quite extensively probes into some form of that, for living. And I relate the knowledge to my own experiences all the time. It rarely gets out of my awareness but I don't need therapy to maintain the awareness and to decipher those things, introspection comes very easily to me.

As for the "how", I just wrote a post on another thread that addresses some of it:
https://psychcentralforums.com/6545148-post32.html

Approaching trauma has done the same for me. When I start thinking about those events and working on them, that's when I feel the worst. But it doesn't ever seem to get better. I tried it in the past with other therapists and never felt a difference. Focusing on the moment and staying in "the now" has been the best help for me, though it is a daily struggle.

We've been working mostly on getting through panic attacks, fear, and anxiety. This is good because it is one of my main goals, but on the other hand, I won't talk much about why I have this problem in the first place. He's told me more than once that talking about the root causes would do a lot to stop the panic, but for me, it's torturous to sit there and go through this again. And I've done it with other therapists and felt zero difference in anxiety.

There are several online resources for dealing with panic that have helped me as much or more than what we do in sessions, and without the threat of wading through old traumas. And that's a big reason why I am considering quitting. Between what's online and what I've learned about staying focused on the present moment, I think I can work on the anxiety in private.

My past experiences cut off or killed certain aspects of my personality, and warped other parts. I'm extremely distrustful of almost every person I encounter, I'm extremely timid in social situations, I'm afraid of negative judgment pretty much every time I interact with someone, I avoid socializing as much as I can get away with, and I break off relationships if I start feeling overwhelmed for whatever reason rather than talking about it with the person. I've made improvements in all these areas, partly as a result of maturing and getting older, partly as a result of effort. But I have a long way to go.

And I realize after reading what I just wrote, along with some of the answers given in this thread, that consciously focusing on that list I just made would probably make all the difference for me if I did it daily, with or without my therapist. I guess that is what I need to decide, if I want his help or if I'm good on my own.

have you read Bessel van der Kolk's book 'The Body Keep the Score'? he talks about how 'talk therapies' are not the most helpful in addressing trauma and what seems to be better approach is using body oriented/centred methods in conjunction to talk therapy. this includes somatic experiencing, neurofeedback, EMDR, and some forms of yoga as well. talk therapies are a cognitive, 'top down' approach and body centred therapies are a 'bottom up' approach that helps to integrate the emotions and feelings left from the physical effects the trauma has inflicted upon the body. so basically, the way our fight, flight, and freeze response is set up (both physiological and evolutionary) it's quite difficult to talk or reason your way out of a panic attack, hyper vigilance, and overwhelming anxiety.

when i got stuck in therapy at the point where i was 'spinning my wheels' and also sliding backwards into the deep pit of despair, i knew it was time to find another modality of therapy or something body centred to help. i wasn't ready to leave my talk T, mainly because of the strong attachment to him, but i was desperate to get better so i could start moving forward and enjoying life. i read Bessels book and that is where i learned about neurofeedback and how it had been found to be helpful for CPTSD and developmental truama. i found a practitioner who could help me, who was familiar with using NFB for developmental trauma, and continued to do talk therapy with my ex-T. for me, this was the turning point and the begining of a new and brighter chapter in my life.

if you have not read Bessels book, i highly recommend it. it was quite eye opening and validating for me.

I second this recommendation.

I found out the hard way that talk therapy can cause severe dysregulation in trauma clients which can’t be managed by “skills training”.

Trauma can be further compounded by therapists who don’t understand the dysregulation they are witnessing. Mine seemed to think I had control over a nervous system that had gone haywire, and then proceeded to layer on shame and blame. Ultimately I was left trying to figure out and reconcile my own bizarro behaviors while feeling absolutely shattered with confusion and self-disgust.

It’s CRITICAL that trauma is treated by competent hands, and using many modalities. Otherwise clients may be harmed irreparably by secondary therapy trauma. Then, good luck getting a re-traumatized client to trust the system enough to seek out the help they need.

agreed...well said!

i too found out the hard way that ex-T definilty was lacking in the competency dept for working with trauma and then that lead to an entirely new set of issues that i had to extract myself from.

Absolutely! My therapist directly spoke about the danger of retraumatization at the hands of therapists who didn't know how to work with trauma and PTSD. He was also very direct about explaining exactly why he was making the decisions he was making, taking the approaches he was taking. He was quite transparent about his therapy decisions to me. It was reassuring to understand the reasoning behind things. So often feeling internally out of control, I had some peace knowing he understood what was happening with me, and he was deliberately working to minimize any additional trauma.