[pixiedust72]

I’ve been feeling really terrible about my therapy session last week and I had therapy again today expecting I would talk about it and I didn’t. At all. So I still feel bad about what happened. I know I should have brought it up but I don’t know why I didn’t.

I’m debating whether or not therapy is for me because I feel like the main thing I want to work on is self esteem and awareness of my emotions but I feel like my therapist points out my flaws (so I can be aware but still) and doesn’t really acknowledge my emotions when I bring them up. Like if I’m feeling a certain emotion, we’ll try to reframe it or change it when I am really trying to figure out how to feel my feelings. If I wanted to reframe it, why would I come to therapy instead of just avoiding it because there’s the same end result. I’ve pushed down the feeling whether through reframe or avoidance.

I also got a new job where I would be working typical daytime hours and would have to leave early one day a week to be able to keep attending therapy. Is it worth it enough for that when I could just reframe on my own and not have to miss any work or be told something that makes me feel worse about myself?

I have had some really good sessions with this therapist but I don’t know if this is working for me anymore.

[Yaowen]

It is difficult to know sometimes if the pros outweigh the cons in that situation. Wish I knew what to say to help. My heart goes out to you!

[ArtleyWilkins]

Hmm. I never found reframing my emotions to be the same as avoiding my emotions. Perhaps that is something that you might need to talk with your therapist about (or perhaps your therapist really doesn't know how to do this with you).

Actually, reframing wasn't about reframing my emotions. It was about reframing my thinking so that my emotions would follow. So, for instance, I might be really angry and thrown by a student's behavior today -- I am totally keyed up and maybe even crying about it. My therapist would work with me to figure out what I was thinking about the situation; why was I thinking that thing; why was that thought so upsetting, when did I first have that thought about myself, etc. etc. What I would discover as we dug was that my initial thought (a thought that happened so quickly and instinctively that I probably didn't even recognize it in the moment) was almost always about something much older in my history AND often that thought was something that I had internalized as a belief about myself or about life that was usually a mistaken belief (core belief). Once I realized which thought had triggered such a chain of overwhelming emotion in me, I could reframe my thinking about what had happened with my student because, quite honestly, it wasn't today's incident with my student that was causing my extreme emotional reaction; it was that old stuff. Once I reframed my thinking and understood what was setting me off, I could at least acknowledge that the current situation wasn't nearly as severe as I was making it out to be. I could place the emotional reaction in the right context (old stuff) and handle the new stuff with more perspective.

So I wasn't avoiding emotions at all. I was validating where they came from WHILE reframing my thinking about current events. AND, once I had bumped into the same old thinking setting me off enough times, the bonus was that I reached a place where I could see it happening and calm the storm on my own more effectively.

If your therapist is just saying change your emotions, that's probably not taking it through enough steps to be helpful or validating.

[Fuzzybear]

I would terminate this therapist...

Good post above.

[pixiedust72]

Originally Posted by ArtleyWilkins

Hmm. I never found reframing my emotions to be the same as avoiding my emotions. Perhaps that is something that you might need to talk with your therapist about (or perhaps your therapist really doesn't know how to do this with you).

Actually, reframing wasn't about reframing my emotions. It was about reframing my thinking so that my emotions would follow. So, for instance, I might be really angry and thrown by a student's behavior today -- I am totally keyed up and maybe even crying about it. My therapist would work with me to figure out what I was thinking about the situation; why was I thinking that thing; why was that thought so upsetting, when did I first have that thought about myself, etc. etc. What I would discover as we dug was that my initial thought (a thought that happened so quickly and instinctively that I probably didn't even recognize it in the moment) was almost always about something much older in my history AND often that thought was something that I had internalized as a belief about myself or about life that was usually a mistaken belief (core belief). Once I realized which thought had triggered such a chain of overwhelming emotion in me, I could reframe my thinking about what had happened with my student because, quite honestly, it wasn't today's incident with my student that was causing my extreme emotional reaction; it was that old stuff. Once I reframed my thinking and understood what was setting me off, I could at least acknowledge that the current situation wasn't nearly as severe as I was making it out to be. I could place the emotional reaction in the right context (old stuff) and handle the new stuff with more perspective.

So I wasn't avoiding emotions at all. I was validating where they came from WHILE reframing my thinking about current events. AND, once I had bumped into the same old thinking setting me off enough times, the bonus was that I reached a place where I could see it happening and calm the storm on my own more effectively.

If your therapist is just saying change your emotions, that's probably not taking it through enough steps to be helpful or validating.

Yes, you’re right. This is what my therapist does with me. It just feels to me like we’re avoiding the emotion. I’m not usually able to get to the place where I feel like my reaction was not rational with what was going on.

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by pixiedust72

Yes, you’re right. This is what my therapist does with me. It just feels to me like we’re avoiding the emotion. I’m not usually able to get to the place where I feel like my reaction was not rational with what was going on.

I really love Artley’s example about reframing and it’s clear how useful that type of exercise could be. But Pixie, despite the value of that kind of work, there might be times that you’re not up for it and that’s okay. You might just need to vent sometimes. People who haven’t been allowed to have all their feelings might need a bit of time to just figure out what emotions even are and how they experience them before they attempt reframing. I don’t know if that’s what you mean by avoiding emotion?

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by pixiedust72

I’ve been feeling really terrible about my therapy session last week and I had therapy again today expecting I would talk about it and I didn’t. At all. So I still feel bad about what happened. I know I should have brought it up but I don’t know why I didn’t.

You can tell your therapist this exact same thing, that you wanted to bring up something about the therapy but you somehow didn't and you don't know why....maybe it would give you a chance to figure it out.

I’m debating whether or not therapy is for me because I feel like the main thing I want to work on is self esteem and awareness of my emotions but I feel like my therapist points out my flaws (so I can be aware but still) and doesn’t really acknowledge my emotions when I bring them up. Like if I’m feeling a certain emotion, we’ll try to reframe it or change it when I am really trying to figure out how to feel my feelings. If I wanted to reframe it, why would I come to therapy instead of just avoiding it because there’s the same end result. I’ve pushed down the feeling whether through reframe or avoidance.

Yeah this is very familiar. The bolded happened so much!!

I also got a new job where I would be working typical daytime hours and would have to leave early one day a week to be able to keep attending therapy. Is it worth it enough for that when I could just reframe on my own and not have to miss any work or be told something that makes me feel worse about myself?

Just really sounds like he/she wasn't able to connect to your emotions. I've never found a therapist that really connected to them. Then I figured out that I was going to need to take time anyway to really find my feelings anyway, and that I could do this on my own the best because the usual therapy or other psychology based (e.g. self-help) techniques just would not work for me for that. Just patience, observing myself, reading about psychology and making sense of it for myself, that stuff's what helped me the most. Plus my social worker, she's been nice too.

I have had some really good sessions with this therapist but I don’t know if this is working for me anymore.

Again I think you need to tell him/her this. That you had some really good sessions (when? why? how?), but in general you feel like your emotions aren't paid attention to and you regularly get to feel worse in the sessions because your flaws are in focus the most.

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by ArtleyWilkins

Hmm. I never found reframing my emotions to be the same as avoiding my emotions. Perhaps that is something that you might need to talk with your therapist about (or perhaps your therapist really doesn't know how to do this with you).

Actually, reframing wasn't about reframing my emotions. It was about reframing my thinking so that my emotions would follow. So, for instance, I might be really angry and thrown by a student's behavior today -- I am totally keyed up and maybe even crying about it. My therapist would work with me to figure out what I was thinking about the situation; why was I thinking that thing; why was that thought so upsetting, when did I first have that thought about myself, etc. etc. What I would discover as we dug was that my initial thought (a thought that happened so quickly and instinctively that I probably didn't even recognize it in the moment) was almost always about something much older in my history AND often that thought was something that I had internalized as a belief about myself or about life that was usually a mistaken belief (core belief). Once I realized which thought had triggered such a chain of overwhelming emotion in me, I could reframe my thinking about what had happened with my student because, quite honestly, it wasn't today's incident with my student that was causing my extreme emotional reaction; it was that old stuff. Once I reframed my thinking and understood what was setting me off, I could at least acknowledge that the current situation wasn't nearly as severe as I was making it out to be. I could place the emotional reaction in the right context (old stuff) and handle the new stuff with more perspective.

So I wasn't avoiding emotions at all. I was validating where they came from WHILE reframing my thinking about current events. AND, once I had bumped into the same old thinking setting me off enough times, the bonus was that I reached a place where I could see it happening and calm the storm on my own more effectively.

If your therapist is just saying change your emotions, that's probably not taking it through enough steps to be helpful or validating.

....The bolded is where I never got to in therapy.

As soon as the therapists would ask "what do you feel", "how do you feel about this", "what is your automatic negative thought", I just would draw a blank. And all these "why" questions. They always draw a blank. The way you describe it also draws that same blank. Yeah. So that's just not my approach and it never will be.

I find what works for me is observing myself, repeatedly watching the same feelings as holistic "sensations" (not really localised bodily sensations for me - yet another area where standard therapy and self-help would fail for me). Repeatedly i.e. over time, weeks, months, years, so yeah giving myself LOTS of time to observe all that, until I'd find enough contexts for the particular feeling experiences.

And then I'd end up observing other things (not feelings, just events, or anything around me or about me), and realisations would just come to me while trying to reflect during regular journalling. Using knowledge I got from psychoeducation (both from therapists originally and then self-help over the years and stuff I've been told in some online support groups, etc). Knowledge I managed to make sense of for myself. But if I showed you my journal you'd not understand why I'd even call that a journal. It's not the standard journal stuff at all. Again, nothing standard about any of this. : p

But all this has been good enough for me to figure out whatever the feelings mean and how to link them to earlier memories (not really childhood memories, but sometimes even that) and how to change things such as my environment based on the realisations, "insights" I would get from all this. Change my external environment, change what I do, change my approaches to stuff I do, change my conclusions and views, rather than change myself. What's more, God forbid, I know we are on a psychology forum, but I would also learn to control&dismiss some of the newly understood feelings in a more effective way

I know I'm supposed to change myself but I couldn't care less about that standard therapy approach either. I can change my conclusions about things, but I cannot really directly touch core beliefs even if I manage to uncover them (that's taken VERY long for me, got no help with it at all....), they have to change on their own somehow, after I've done enough of all the above. I never do reframing that's not grounded in action and my actual environment. I don't like theorising like that reframing would require me to do. So, I could go on and on....but I think that's it in a nutshell.

So yeah, I'm kind of bored with how standard therapy approaches try to assume everyone has the same brain. Anything from CBT, DBT to mindfulness stuff all assume that.

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

I really love Artley’s example about reframing and it’s clear how useful that type of exercise could be. But Pixie, despite the value of that kind of work, there might be times that you’re not up for it and that’s okay. You might just need to vent sometimes. People who haven’t been allowed to have all their feelings might need a bit of time to just figure out what emotions even are and how they experience them before they attempt reframing. I don’t know if that’s what you mean by avoiding emotion?

I apologise for posting another post, but this thread is like...wow. I really had a lot to say. So I wanted to ask, what do you mean by people not being allowed to have all their feelings?

What about people who just simply don't care to have so many feelings all the time? Comfortable with being detached and dismissing most feelings right away. But then this bites them in the arse eventually : p so they have to focus a bit more on them....That's been me

So I'm just asking have you ever seen any difference between individual people with regard to this? I just always had the sense that this doesn't fit me, the idea of not having been allowed to have all my feelings

Like something really doesn't fit about it and by now I've learned to listen to that sense, that shows me that the concept or idea or statement from standard psychology doesn't entirely fit me. I've learned that trying to ignore that sense would end up with me or a therapist trying to fit the square peg into the round hole

[Rive.]

Maybe your T's approach is not the one you need, at least for now.

I agree that it is important to first feel, name, recognise the particular emotion one is feeling *before* reframing. Is your T practising CBT?

Not all approaches work in changing how one feels. Other approaches focus on accepting whatever it is that one feels, respecting it and exploring it. So, other approaches might suit you better.

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by Rive.

Maybe your T's approach is not the one you need, at least for now.

I agree that it is important to first feel, name, recognise the particular emotion one is feeling *before* reframing. Is your T practising CBT?

Not all approaches work in changing how one feels. Other approaches focus on accepting whatever it is that one feels, respecting it and exploring it. So, other approaches might suit you better.

Yeah, I think two approaches that focus more on the emotions themselves at least in part of the therapy are ACT (Acceptance and commitment therapy) and EFT (Emotionally focused therapy).

Both offer tips for exploring emotions and for processing them. I haven't seen anything though that specialises in gaining emotional awareness and feeling the emotions before moving on to more in-depth exploring and understanding them. I assume this is because it may seem like a given to most therapists. But I can assure anyone reading this that it isn't always a given.

[Rive.]

I was thinking of the humanistic approaches, which are primarily based on awareness and their premise re accepting the whole of the individual as they are and with whatever emotion(s) they bring, without trying to 'fix' or change them.

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by Etcetera1

I apologise for posting another post, but this thread is like...wow. I really had a lot to say. So I wanted to ask, what do you mean by people not being allowed to have all their feelings?

What about people who just simply don't care to have so many feelings all the time? Comfortable with being detached and dismissing most feelings right away. But then this bites them in the arse eventually : p so they have to focus a bit more on them....That's been me

So I'm just asking have you ever seen any difference between individual people with regard to this? I just always had the sense that this doesn't fit me, the idea of not having been allowed to have all my feelings

Like something really doesn't fit about it and by now I've learned to listen to that sense, that shows me that the concept or idea or statement from standard psychology doesn't entirely fit me. I've learned that trying to ignore that sense would end up with me or a therapist trying to fit the square peg into the round hole

I mean, IDK, how/if this applies to you or your situation Etcetera. Maybe it doesn’t.

What I was saying to Pixie is that not everyone has the capacity to do the (amazing) work that Artley described at every session. And that sometimes one just needs validation particularly if one has never been allowed to have one’s feelings.

Not being allowed feelings often sounds like using words like “annoyed” to mean “furious,” or working overtime to understand the other person’s point of view (and not feeling entitled to one’s own). For people socialized as male it more often looks like not being able to express things like sadness or vulnerability.

When you’re in that kind of space sometimes you just need the session to get to the feeling itself. Or have the novel experience of someone just believing you and not arguing with your emotional world.

[pixiedust72]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

I mean, IDK, how/if this applies to you or your situation Etcetera. Maybe it doesn’t.

What I was saying to Pixie is that not everyone has the capacity to do the (amazing) work that Artley described at every session. And that sometimes one just needs validation particularly if one has never been allowed to have one’s feelings.

Not being allowed feelings often sounds like using words like “annoyed” to mean “furious,” or working overtime to understand the other person’s point of view (and not feeling entitled to one’s own). For people socialized as male it more often looks like not being able to express things like sadness or vulnerability.

When you’re in that kind of space sometimes you just need the session to get to the feeling itself. Or have the novel experience of someone just believing you and not arguing with your emotional world.

Yes, that’s exactly where I am. I just want to be believed and I feel like I’m fighting to defend my point of view when we reframe. I would enjoy a whole session of just validating my emotions tbh.

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by pixiedust72

Yes, that’s exactly where I am. I just want to be believed and I feel like I’m fighting to defend my point of view when we reframe. I would enjoy a whole session of just validating my emotions tbh.

OK, yeah, if I were you I would tell the therapist exactly this. It sounds like they are not able to get where you're coming from and that is a big problem in therapy, it will get in the way. If this therapist just isn't able to do this, another one might be able to.

Reframing shouldn't be about using the therapist's suggestions for that, it's just ideas, but only you can decide what fits your situation best. And it can't just be ungrounded reframing, it has to be actually matching reality and has to be to your benefit.

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

I mean, IDK, how/if this applies to you or your situation Etcetera. Maybe it doesn’t.

I mean, IDK how you think you can tell what may or may not apply to MY situation. You can ask about it if you are genuinely curious without first guessing that maybe it doesn't........ But to respond to you on this, it does very much apply to my situation or I wouldn't have posted in here. Please do not question my situation, ironically that's exactly the topic here.

What I was saying to Pixie is that not everyone has the capacity to do the (amazing) work that Artley described at every session. And that sometimes one just needs validation particularly if one has never been allowed to have one’s feelings.

Not being allowed feelings often sounds like using words like “annoyed” to mean “furious,” or working overtime to understand the other person’s point of view (and not feeling entitled to one’s own). For people socialized as male it more often looks like not being able to express things like sadness or vulnerability.

When you’re in that kind of space sometimes you just need the session to get to the feeling itself. Or have the novel experience of someone just believing you and not arguing with your emotional world.

And that's exactly what I was asking about. It makes a load of sense. No wonder I wanted to post in this thread. I highly relate. In part it is that I do not care to be emotional all the time, but in part exactly this!!

[Favorite Jeans]

Originally Posted by Etcetera1

So I wanted to ask, what do you mean by people not being allowed to have all their feelings?

What about people who just simply don't care to have so many feelings all the time? Comfortable with being detached and dismissing most feelings right away. But then this bites them in the arse eventually : p so they have to focus a bit more on them....That's been me

So I'm just asking have you ever seen any difference between individual people with regard to this? I just always had the sense that this doesn't fit me, the idea of not having been allowed to have all my feelings

Like something really doesn't fit about it and by now I've learned to listen to that sense, that shows me that the concept or idea or statement from standard psychology doesn't entirely fit me. I've learned that trying to ignore that sense would end up with me or a therapist trying to fit the square peg into the round hole

Etcetera you asked what I meant and then proceeded to say twice that “not being allowed to have feelings” didn’t apply, “didn’t fit” with respect to you. So ok. Taking you at your word. Not trying to convince of anything. (Did not mean to offend.)

I don’t want to hijack and create a side conversation. (Which is why I initially returned to Pixie’s issue.)

But to elaborate super briefly, I’d say that “comfortable being detached/dismissing feelings” is just the grown up version of not having been allowed to have them. (Alas I did not necessarily welcome that particular insight from my therapist with open arms; it was the subject of years of work.)😂

[Etcetera1]

Originally Posted by Favorite Jeans

Etcetera you asked what I meant and then proceeded to say twice that “not being allowed to have feelings” didn’t apply, “didn’t fit” with respect to you. So ok. Taking you at your word. Not trying to convince of anything. (Did not mean to offend.)

I don’t want to hijack and create a side conversation. (Which is why I initially returned to Pixie’s issue.)

But to elaborate super briefly, I’d say that “comfortable being detached/dismissing feelings” is just the grown up version of not having been allowed to have them. (Alas I did not necessarily welcome that particular insight from my therapist with open arms; it was the subject of years of work.)😂

Alright, for clarification, what I mean is that the way it was explained to me before (therapy, self-help articles, books), it didn't ENTIRELY fit me. And whatever exactly it may be that doesn't fit about it, I was still interested in the topic itself.

And then what you described about the experience in your previous post, the examples fit well for my situation, when it's not simply about being comfortable with not focusing on feelings, i.e not just the natural detachment.

I see how you said here about how this is just the grown up version of not being allowed to have feelings. But and I think this is on topic actually, I've gradually become convinced that it's not always about that. But it gets complex there.

Let me try to explain what I mean. What I'm really trying to do is not mistake my brand of emotional detachment for this. That detachment has advantages and is natural for me. I've already had it at age 3. But the detachment also has disadvantages where I'll ignore something emotionally important.

And that's where thread OP sounded like a similar issue, with OP being too rational about those emotions too and looking to not always be so rational in therapy

But like I said for me it gets complex, I don't know if anyone else has had this issue. Because I've seen therapists mistake my detachment for that thingy with feelings being like, not allowed, being ignored and invalidated.

But to me if I was to accept that idea unconditionally, it would mean tearing myself down and making myself believe all those negative things that many therapists like to bring up as "examples" for automatic negative thoughts or guesses about my negative feelings, beliefs and the like.

I see that as a danger with therapy. Maybe I'm not alone with that.

So overall it's just really hard to know if something's just my normal detachment and something is actually ignoring an important feeling to be explored and dealt with. And because of that it's too easy for me to not get to the feelings even in therapy. In the same way OP described it.