Weird relationship with my counselor

I feel my relationship with my counselor, who isn't a therapist, has become a bit weird. I like her and we have good chats but more as colleagues or as acquaintances than as client and counselor.

I'm within a strange situation as my counselor knows I need proper therapy, I've brought it up, but at the same time she can't do anything about it. She's not in a position to make decisions about my care that goes beyond my contact with her.

If she would bring up that I need therapy when we both already know the facility can't offer it, her manager would most probably tell my counselor to end our contact and that would leave me with huge problems as I then also lose my sick leave and my doctor. I live in Sweden and we don't have a referall system and no public facilities offer longer therapies which is what I need.

Anyway, my counselor shares a lot about herself, and we talk about psychiatry in general. She knows about my issues as I've written them down but she never brings anything up or asks about them. I think she kind of hesitates as she knows I know much about therapy and she perhaps feel she can't talk about my issues in a professional way and by that she doesn't care to bring them up.

I don't know what to do as I can't just leave as there are no other options and I don't want to lose my counselor abruptly by filing a complaint about not getting the care I need.

At the same time it feels strange seeing her as we don't really work on my issues and this goes on month after month. I'm convinced she wants me well but it's also a fragile situation as I don't know when or if one of her managers suddenly will put an end to our contact.

I find it strange she can't talk about my issues in a more simple way either, just listen and comment even if she can't work with me on a therapeutic level. I don't know if she hesitates about it because she knows what I want and that I need a therapeutic conversation and she can't offer of that or if it's because of something else.

As she kind of helps me from getting shut out from the facility I don't want to question her too much as I know she wants well.

By that, this is not a "go talk to your therapist" or a "look for support groups" situation but I want empathy and a discussion around this and how my counselor acts.

It does seem a strange and awkward situation. It sounds a little bit like when I was seeing a counsellor in university, she was quite open about herself and we talked about some of my issues but it always felt very surface level, is that how it feels with her? Do you feel like you are missing a deeper connection with her?

It may be that she isn’t trained so not allowed to talk about your deeper issues and how they could be worked through. I volunteered with a mental health phone line a while ago and we were trained to listen and mirror what people told us, but we weren’t allowed to give advice or discuss diagnoses and things reserved for professionals. It was quite frustrating when the people calling clearly needed more help than we could provide.

You say that she knows and you know that you need more therapy and that you both know of you discuss this it will have harmful repercussions for you. You are also both aware you need in depth therapy and she cannot provide that. She may not bring up certain things as she doesnt want to open something she cannot help with.

Are you able to bring up the things you want to talk about? Keeping in mind she cannot help you and that her manager may end contact at any time.

This may be an odd way at it but... would it maybe be possible for you both to read a book about what you want to work on and discuss the book? This would give more distance and less professional liability but maybe help you get closer to doing the work you want to do?

Hi Sarah,

You wrote:

Here, in this thread anyway, hopefully we can give some of that to you. If not, people are frustrating sometimes, that’s for sure. Including institutions and counselors!

As you know, I have tried to get help for my issues, including trying to get some good definitions of what they were, and they didn’t have anything that helped much and it made things worse in some instances. So, I do not think there is such a thing as a proper therapy for some issues (yet). Despite what their books and other recommendations say. So – then what?

Can you say more about how you feel your relationship has become weird? Are you feeling frustrated that she can’t “get” for you the care you feel you need?

You wrote:

Is this perhaps the crux of things feeling weird, or at least conflicted for you?

How are you with relationships in general? Is that perhaps one of your issues? If it is, then perhaps she is trying her best to relate to you person-to-person despite your issues. Since, in my experience, there isn’t any reliably good therapy for that in some instances, despite what “they” say and write.

Maybe she hopes this relationship will give you some experience in day-to-day things, which can help you in your regular life, too?

Would it help the weirdness if you mentioned to your counselor that you are still finding this situation very frustrating?

You also wrote:

In my view, her reasons are her reasons, even if they seem strange to you. An important aspect of relationships I think I have learned somewhat, finally, is – other people are other people. They are who they are. They do what they do, for their own reasons that are often not in my control and not really my business, except maybe to try to understand them, in order to make my life and the relationship easier.

Yes, she knows you want and need something else and, yes, she can’t offer that – so she offers and does what she does. You still want and need something else – she can’t give it. Frustrating, again, but she can’t give what she can’t give. It is easier, in my experience, just to try to accept that kind of thing. Strange, to you, maybe? To her, probably not, even if you don’t understand why she is and does the things she does.

Hope this helps and is in the ballpark of what you asked for.

You can work on your issues if you want to. You can talk about your issues if you want to. You have the freedom to talk about anything you want in there.
You can just say to your therapist that you don't want to talk chit chat, you want to talk about x, and then you can talk about x.

Is she not providing what you need because she doesn't want to or because she doesn't have the training?

She possibly doesn’t bring your issues up or asks you about them because she doesn’t know if you want to talk about those issues. If you want to discuss your issues, you should bring them up. It doesn’t matter if she isn’t a therapist, you can still discuss want you want to discuss.

I think guessing why she isn’t bringing stuff up might be pointless. We can’t possibly guess what’s on people’s minds. You could either bring up your issues or ask her why she isn’t bringing up your issues. I’d not spend energy guessing.

PS it could also be that she knows you have difficulty connecting with other people and what she’s trying to by having casual chit chats and telling you about herself is modeling how people interact and form connections. So perhaps she’s working on your issues without directly naming your issues. Even if she isn’t a therapist per se, she is a professional trained to work and talk with people.

In the past you never found therapy helpful so maybe she is offering something else that might be helpful. You said you like her and are enjoying her company and it’s more than you ever said about anyone else

Thanks. Yes, it´s like you describe; she lacks a deeper understanding about my issues. There´s a kind of connection between us as I like her as a person but as she isn´t a therapist we don´t have that therapeutic connection.

My counselor has worked within psychiatry for more than 30 years but not with counselling. It´s a bit like the mental health phone line you describe, that she can listen but not do so much more than that.

Thanks. No, it´s of no use to bring up things I want to talk about, if I could I hadn´t written this post.

I had a therapist similar to that. She was a nice person and we had good chats, but my depression wasn't improving at all. In the end, I decided to stop seeing her. Not saying that's what you have to do.

Thanks here today. Yes, what makes our relationship weird is that she more or less ignore the fact that I need more help. At the same time I know she´s not in a position to do much but at least I expected her to talk with a manager.

I now see her more or less only for practical reasons, to be able to keep my sick leave and get my welfare. This is though rather common in Sweden as our mental health care system seldom offer proper help. Instead it locks people in and keeps them in a non profitable situation.

Yes, I believe she thinks my meetings with her are better than nothing and perhaps they are. Within our public mental health care they more or less never do proper check-ups on patients and how they feel isn´t interesting. By that, my counselor´s managers don´t bother she doesn´t reach any results with her patients.

I´ve brought this up many times, in different ways and I shouldn´t have to mention this every time to get her to understand.

Within relationships with friends or a partner I agree you have to accept the other for who he/she is and not try to change the other person. But within health care, the counselor, therapist, doctor and so on should adapt to the patient. It´s not in any way acceptable to be a patient for years without getting the help you need and then in the end it´s the patient who´s expected to just accept things as they are.

Thanks. Yes, I think there are a lot of staff within mental health care who don´t have qualifications enough to help people. Much of the "treatment" given is more or less just plain chats you could have with any other decent person. But it won´t help in the long run.

In Sweden they seldom hire psychotherapists within public health care, you have to pay out of your own pocket, which makes that type of care unavailable to most people.

I've thought of leaving mental health care for years now but can´t as that would mean not getting my welfare and losing my apartment. If I had options I would for sure leave this counselor.

As you probably know, I feel a lot of commonalities in our experiences with therapy, despite the many differences in the specifics of our situations.

For instance, I don't see your experience here

as that different from what mine has been here in the US, despite the fact that I had private health insurance and could choose my own therapists, etc. I was depressed and couldn't work well and didn't have to work because I could scale back my lifestyle and live on what my late husband had left me. But I would have liked to find a way and place to go back to work, I would have liked not to be depressed and had the other issues I was dealing with.

No such luck!.

Recently I emailed my last therapist and the consultant, book author and trainer who referred me to her, and tried to make the point that therapy had failed me and I believed that the profession needed to acknowledge that more often and do more research into the issue.

I thought it likely I would not get a reply since it had been several years since I had seen them and they have no on-going relationship with me no.

The consultant did reply. The first reply seemed more "therapeutically" oriented toward me , that I had tried my best in all ways possible. That was not the issue I was trying to raise. I replied to her reply -- again, not necessarily expecting another reply from her. But I did get one, in which she seemed to acknowledge that therapy had not been helpful and she did not know what would have been more helpful.

That's not what their literature says very much. But it is what my experience has been. I feel it is in my best interest to accept the reality of what I have seen and heard, rather that what "should" be the case. Doesn't mean that therapy can't eventually come up with something that would have helped me or that people can refer you to there in Sweden. Just, for right now. . .it is what it is.

I guess you could say that I locked myself in an unprofitable situation and fruitless search. But the result is the same.

I also agree with what you wrote here:

Unfortunately, if they don't HAVE therapy that could really help with what you need, how can they adapt?

Since they CAN"T help me, based on what I have found, I am left with the question of what (else) am I going to do about this situation? What CAN I do?

I would be very interested in what you think you need and would like to get from health care, if it were available. I think that's where care providers need to look more, in order to develop better ways to help people in the future. But they are not doing it.

So, just for my own curiosity, if you would like to answer, what do you think would help you? Not what you have read about therapy necessarily but from your own experience in life?

Thanks here today. It´s positive you got at least some acknowledgment from that consultant about how therapy hadn´t been helpful. I think it´s important that a therapist or counselor can admit that during the process and refer the client but that doesn´t always happen of course.

When I wrote about how a therapist should be able to adapt to the client my viewpoint was that many therapies given within (our) public health care are shaped by a lack of resoruces. That means therapists do sometimes know what their patients need but they can´t offer that due to financial constraints.

The latest therapist I saw wrote extensively in my records about what I need so she did understand my needs but at the same time she wrote they couldn´t offer me that as the facility´s mission and responsibility don´t cover what I need from therapy.

I really agree on what you say about listening to patients and what they need and want from therapy. Treatment is relying way too much on predefined methods, manuals and regulations set by governments who know very little about the actual treatment and care of patients.

I need a personcentered therapist who knows about transference work and who can combine those two modalities. I need someone who also knows about sexology and who can talk about such issues on a psychological level. I think this is very hard to find as therapy here is often focused on one single issue, for example depression, and by that you´re most likely to end up with a therapist that knows about one single condition but can´t address other issues or addresses them in a parsimonious way.

My counselor talks about different issues in a very shallow way and often refers to something she heard or read, but without asking questions or follow through on anything. But in her case I know that´s because her training wasn´t as a therapist but as a psychiatric aide or similar and she doesn´t know how to talk to me on a deeper level.

But it´s still a problem as they won´t help me with a referall and I´m stuck in all this due to my need for welfare.

Whatever the specific circumstances, it still seems to me that they not only will not help but they also can not. Can't because of lack of resources, can't because your current counselor doesn't have the training, can't because. . .who knows? And if they can't help, can't provide what you need -- then what?

It's a real dilemma, that's for sure, I truly understand that. And an unacceptable one, I get that. But if it is what it is for right now -- how does not accepting that help anything?

Do you have Day Treatment Programs in your area? If you do, that might be something to consider asking about. You would get a lot of therapy, educational groups, meds (if needed) along with other types of support and resources.