[nottrustin]

I was thinking today about other Ts. I know some here have Ts who will not let a client just come in and talk about their week or such. They need to be working on the issues (unless I am misunderstanding which is always possible). Do they let you have an appointment where you just have a light session especially if you have had some pretty intense appointments? I am just curious how other Ts handle a client going into an appointment and saying they are tapped emotionally and need a more relaxed appointment. For me it seems to also coincide with feeling we need to work on alliance and trust building. During COVID it seems to be a bigger issue than before. At the same time I feel bad for slowing things down

[ArtleyWilkins]

We definitely had appointments that were lighter by design. Sometimes what I needed was just a place to check in and not add to my already overwhelmed status. It wasn't that we didn't talk about anything relevant; it was a choice to perhaps focus on less intense issues. Lord know I had a variety and range of issues on my menu. It wasn't all that often, but definitely done by design.

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by nottrustin

I was thinking today about other Ts. I know some here have Ts who will not let a client just come in and talk about their week or such. They need to be working on the issues (unless I am misunderstanding which is always possible). Do they let you have an appointment where you just have a light session especially if you have had some pretty intense appointments? I am just curious how other Ts handle a client going into an appointment and saying they are tapped emotionally and need a more relaxed appointment. For me it seems to also coincide with feeling we need to work on alliance and trust building. During COVID it seems to be a bigger issue than before. At the same time I feel bad for slowing things down

here we have all kinds of therapists. some that are down to business right away and if you dont have therapy business you dont come in and other therapists are more laid back hi come on in how was your week, chat chat chat.

I have seen both types and those in between. my preference has varied over the years.

Before I know that therapy was for working on problems, I prefered the how is your week and hope we didnt land on any actual work, I was there because it was something to do, it was something that people do, I was feeling horrible about my self and life, but I didnt understand the fine art of "doing" therapy.

I sometimes feel so sorry for those therapists in the past that tried their best to teach me and I threw in self sabotaging the process left and right and blamed the fact that I wasnt getting better on the therapist of the moment. back then I was the Queen of denial and blame it on how horrible, uncaring, disrespecting the therapists around there were.

Then one day I had a no nonsense therapist who sat me down and flat out told me that therapy was ..........about me........... not about therapists and their being the necessary evil that cant do anything right and are treating me wrong.

The person actually doing the work was .......me.... therapists no matter what kind, what words they use, what therapy techniques they use and so on are only as good as I am about what I bring into the sessions. I could float through life feeling miserable and throw in self sabotaging and blaming the therapist or I can bring to the sessions what I want to work on.

that therapist changed my life. she handed me a notebook and on every page she had wrote on the top half.... Why do I want to go to therapy this week?... ... she wrote on the bottom half....what do I want to work on this week in therapy? and on the page opposite it she wrote the question What non therapy just chatting things do I want to remember to tell my therapist this week?

At first the just chatting side was longer. during my sessions I handed over my notebook and my therapist would read what I wrote under each question. then going through what I wrote she would ask me more questions.

Slowly I started feeling better and learned the fine art of therapy. that fine line between getting work done and just chatting. I learned how to balance the two.

Eventually my note book became more work focused and less chat focused. so now I dont focus on finding the "right" kind of therapist. I focus more on what my problems are and what I want to accomplish in therapy and based on that is how I go about finding a therapist.

if they turn out to be the no nonsense get down to business Im prepared for I keep a therapy journal that I bring to sessions. if I end up with an all chat therapist I bring in therapy work to chat about. I spend a brief few moments on my week and then lead myself into therapy by saying "and part of my week I was having such and such a problem...."

for me ....now.... I dont place blame for my not getting therapy work done on that is one bad therapist. now the only bad therapist to me is one that is actually violating laws and such. I understand that in order for therpay to be good therapy I have to be the one doing the work no matter if I get the no nonsense down to business therapist or the chat chat chat, or the nice mix of chat and work. it all rests on me to do the work, they can be the guide, they can supply the office space but its up to me if I "do therapy" or not.

[Lemoncake]

Originally Posted by nottrustin

I was thinking today about other Ts. I know some here have Ts who will not let a client just come in and talk about their week or such. They need to be working on the issues (unless I am misunderstanding which is always possible). Do they let you have an appointment where you just have a light session especially if you have had some pretty intense appointments? I am just curious how other Ts handle a client going into an appointment and saying they are tapped emotionally and need a more relaxed appointment. For me it seems to also coincide with feeling we need to work on alliance and trust building. During COVID it seems to be a bigger issue than before. At the same time I feel bad for slowing things down

At the end of the day you need to trust your gut instinct and if you need to have a slower session, so be it. You should be allowed to set your own pace when you need to and it's perfectly okay to do this.

[Lostislost]

With my T we never have a plan. Sometimes I find this annoying because I feel like he doesn’t care or remember enough to ask follow up questions about things I have said the previous week. Some weeks I have no idea what to say. Or even if I do, we go way off in the deep end randomly. Sometimes I want to be really deep and just end up on the surface. I think I would enjoy a T with a plan, even if it was just so I could tell them I didn’t want to do that today.

[nottrustin]

Originally Posted by amandalouise

here we have all kinds of therapists. some that are down to business right away and if you dont have therapy business you dont come in and other therapists are more laid back hi come on in how was your week, chat chat chat.

I have seen both types and those in between. my preference has varied over the years.

Before I know that therapy was for working on problems, I prefered the how is your week and hope we didnt land on any actual work, I was there because it was something to do, it was something that people do, I was feeling horrible about my self and life, but I didnt understand the fine art of "doing" therapy.

I sometimes feel so sorry for those therapists in the past that tried their best to teach me and I threw in self sabotaging the process left and right and blamed the fact that I wasnt getting better on the therapist of the moment. back then I was the Queen of denial and blame it on how horrible, uncaring, disrespecting the therapists around there were.

Then one day I had a no nonsense therapist who sat me down and flat out told me that therapy was ..........about me........... not about therapists and their being the necessary evil that cant do anything right and are treating me wrong.

The person actually doing the work was .......me.... therapists no matter what kind, what words they use, what therapy techniques they use and so on are only as good as I am about what I bring into the sessions. I could float through life feeling miserable and throw in self sabotaging and blaming the therapist or I can bring to the sessions what I want to work on.

that therapist changed my life. she handed me a notebook and on every page she had wrote on the top half.... Why do I want to go to therapy this week?... ... she wrote on the bottom half....what do I want to work on this week in therapy? and on the page opposite it she wrote the question What non therapy just chatting things do I want to remember to tell my therapist this week?

At first the just chatting side was longer. during my sessions I handed over my notebook and my therapist would read what I wrote under each question. then going through what I wrote she would ask me more questions.

Slowly I started feeling better and learned the fine art of therapy. that fine line between getting work done and just chatting. I learned how to balance the two.

Eventually my note book became more work focused and less chat focused. so now I dont focus on finding the "right" kind of therapist. I focus more on what my problems are and what I want to accomplish in therapy and based on that is how I go about finding a therapist.

if they turn out to be the no nonsense get down to business Im prepared for I keep a therapy journal that I bring to sessions. if I end up with an all chat therapist I bring in therapy work to chat about. I spend a brief few moments on my week and then lead myself into therapy by saying "and part of my week I was having such and such a problem...."

for me ....now.... I dont place blame for my not getting therapy work done on that is one bad therapist. now the only bad therapist to me is one that is actually violating laws and such. I understand that in order for therpay to be good therapy I have to be the one doing the work no matter if I get the no nonsense down to business therapist or the chat chat chat, or the nice mix of chat and work. it all rests on me to do the work, they can be the guide, they can supply the office space but its up to me if I "do therapy" or not.

I definitely agree that ultimately my growth and success in therapy is up to me. I do believe my T has a role in my success because of the techniques and personalityof the, however the work us up to me. Working in a psychiatric hospital one of our mottos is the we can not work harder than thr patient. My ling term therapist was one that started with how was your week. Since I have multiple issues inevitably that would morph into thr hard stuff. She didn't push too hard and I totally ran the appointment. It felt like a lot of chit chat partially because I have a hard time going in and starting with thr hard stuff right off. My Ts know it takes me a bit to warm up. I also take a bit longer to recenter after emotional appointments. I am usually the last appointment of thr day to allow for this.

Current T does typicallyask how my week was but unless I mention something of substance after a bit of time one of us will shift gears. She takes my lead on intensity.

[nottrustin]

Originally Posted by Lostislost

With my T we never have a plan. Sometimes I find this annoying because I feel like he doesn’t care or remember enough to ask follow up questions about things I have said the previous week. Some weeks I have no idea what to say. Or even if I do, we go way off in the deep end randomly. Sometimes I want to be really deep and just end up on the surface. I think I would enjoy a T with a plan, even if it was just so I could tell them I didn’t want to do that today.

That is why I tell T up front I need a less intense appointment. So she doesn't poke. There have been times she will ask me a question during those appointments then she will apologize for poking.

[LonesomeTonight]

Mine will let me chit-chat about things, like how my football team did or what I did over the weekend (back in the pre-pandemic times, when I actually did stuff over the weekend...) or a news item, something like that. And I find a little sort of small talk at the start of session can help me ease into the session, to get to deeper things.

My T tends to let me lead. If I spend too long just talking about surface or lighter things, he'll sometimes say something like, "Is this what you want to spend your session talking about?" or "Is there something else you want to discuss?" But in a nice way, not like, "We need to get back on track!" And that helps me get to what I want to discuss, more "clinical" topics, as he'd call them. Sometimes he'll come right out and ask me about something, or say, "Did you want to talk more about x from last session?"

To answer one of your questions, I have said a couple times if it's the session before he was going on vacation, say, that I didn't want to get into anything too intense. And he tends to be fine with that.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

We usually talk pretty superficially at the beginning of our sessions, I often tell him what's been going on during the week but sometimes it's not that much. He'll then ask whether there's anything important I'd like to discuss. Sometimes there is and I pick something. Other times there isn't or I don't want to discuss anything. In both cases I tell him that and why I don't want to talk about deep stuff, then depending on the reason we switch to ligher stuff or my T might try to come up with a good topic.

I don't have to be working on something every week. If week after week there was nothing we'd be really doing, my T would probably say something. But we have even talked about me worrying about not working on something every week of the year and he thinks it's pretty normal and okay.

My T does a good job of meeting me where I am. Mostly I think I set the agenda and pace. If I want to talk about lighter things it's ok and he will meet me there. If I want to dive deep he'll meet me there too. We can talk about something and not continue that topic for a long time. The space is necessary for me to progress. He's my long term T so I think that may contribute to a sense of being ok to slow down and knowing we still get "there".

.

[Taylor27]

My therapist allows me to talk about what ever i need to. If we need to take time to focus on light things she wants me to go slow and not get overwhelmed in my issues. I think with her as long as im making progress it's okay.

[Gettingitsoon]

Fewmiled, I like the way you decribed how you work with your T. It reflects how my sessions go as well.

I could never see a T who insisted on directing the flow of each session or prodded me to go deep when I wasnt ready to.
Im glad its possible to search for the T that fits for each person.

[ScarletPimpernel]

Lately L and I have been focusing on our relationship more in sessions. We've been trying to be more gentle and go slower, and trying to connect more. We talk about weekly stressors and sometimes do processing, but for the most part we've been doing games, questions and answers, and a lot of reassurances.

[nottrustin]

Originally Posted by ScarletPimpernel

Lately L and I have been focusing on our relationship more in sessions. We've been trying to be more gentle and go slower, and trying to connect more. We talk about weekly stressors and sometimes do processing, but for the most part we've been doing games, questions and answers, and a lot of reassurances.

Especially with Zoom sessiIns, I find this happening more often for me.

[coolibrarian]

I have all kinds of appointments with T. After all, it's my time. But if T has something very important to say, she says it near the beginning of the appointment. Like when she told me she had cancer. Then I had the rest of the session to overcome my shock (that actually took more than one session), ask her a boatload of questions, some of which she could answer, and some of which she could not, because she didn't know herself.

[*Beth*]

My T encourages me to direct our sessions wherever I want them to go. I'm sure if I evaded deeper issues for a long time she would bring it up.