Thinking of not going to therapy

Where? Where? Where?


I actually continue to learn stuff about therapy (I think). Here are some of my latest brilliant insights.

I want to quote what I wrote earlier about the therapy given by J. Hevesi:

Now this is why I don't think I would easily find another similar therapy: most therapists do not do this. It depends on the therapist. Even if it were someone else doing what claimed to be the same therapy it might well NOT be the same. Note how the therapy description sounds like trying to establish "mindfulness". I don't think most therapists are all that mindful.

I think about how I react to my own therapist. My attempts to talk things out get interrupted by comments from him. In fact he is continually triggering me. To get past that I have to remember that a lot of what he is introducing is about him, not me. It is not a reenactment of my past (except that my mother never listened to me either; it was all about her). It takes quite a bit of processing on my part to work through my triggering and see that my therapist is himself uncertain and defensive. What I dearly would like to have is a T to whom I reacted without thinking about it , without a lot of processing, realizing that he is on my side, he knows what he is doing, he understands anxiety and knows how to reduce it, not by claims that the situation is safe, but by anticipating the fears that people will have and knowing how to allay them in reality. I think that with this kind of therapist I would progress much more rapidly. Of course this kind of therapist may exist only in my own imagination.

This is the secret of why some therapists are better than others. Some people are better able to listen to others, while some are still occupied by their own needs. They always tell you to find a competent therapist but they do not define what competence is. It is not necessarily the same as having years of training...

On a slightly different note, I want to say that I do not understand a lot of the mathematics of the Catastrophe Theory, but the results are presented in the papers in a visual way. You see three-dimensional graphs of the state of a "system" -- you know, three axes at right angles -- at least as represented on two-dimensional paper. And in the graphs are surfaces that trace out how the system develops. You can see what is happening, where the regions of instability are, and how one goes from stable to unstable. Well, I thought I had better introduce that. Probably makes no difference to any of you, since you have not seen the presentations. Writing it out clarifies things for me.

Well, it is frightening, if not totally awful. I have tried to discuss some of this with him. He becomes defensive, and tends to argue with me. I guess I do learn some things in the process, but it is slow and frightening.

(See my latest post.)

Hmm.. a therapist who doesn't listen? and keeps interrupting you when you try and tell him how you feel? That sounds far from ideal and if you don't mind my saying, not the basis for a good therapeutic experience. Surely the basis of all therapy is the relationship you have with the therapist and how he listens to you, makes you comfortable, encourages you to open up more not jsut shut you down all the time.

What are the good points about him if I may ask? what keeps you going back? I guess there must be ways in which he does help?

BTC

Your words just crystalized my experiences with the profession also.

Good idea. Maybe a meditation cd or subliminal would help in addition, just until another solution appears. I understand though the difficulties you are running into. You would think that what you are saying is just ordinary stuff. I agree. I having problems with therapy on a different level and I am astounded at how unprofessional it is. Given that, and the industry is a mess it's no wonder finding something seemingly obscure would be difficult to find.

I do realize, like I always eventually do, that answer lies in focusing on the solution instead of the problem. That's quantum physics, so I'm told.

I kind of ran into a similar problem several years ago when I was feeling like I hit a wall in therapy. I was frustrated from spending so much energy trying to find someone to help me that I decided to do what I could and get whatever information I could and try to piece it together from the outside in a little bit more. I changed my diet, and sought out self help books, Law of Attraction meetings, massages, crying, journaling etc. and figured I would just chip away at it until it became more manageable. It worked. I am much more manageable and so is my life. I am really lacking outside input though. That I have not found a way to replicate. That's why I need to start going to sing kumbayah...ahem..I mean go to meetings LOL. They aren't precisely what I need but something is better than nothing right now. I'm not saying this for your benefit either. Just trying to show you how I patchworked it into something that works for me.

I remembered something my T told me a long time ago, that I didn't really have ADD that I was just used to having so much coming at me in life and never had anyone to really care for me before. I needed to calm down the noise inside my head. It helped everything except my ADD but it was good advice! Now I can work with my ADD and not be overwhelmed by it.

Anyhow, I will continue to read your posts and if I think of anything, I will of course let you know. Oh, what about starting hypnosis for awhile and seeing if that helps open you up a little?

Well... by whom? Is that good or bad?

Well, there again there is the problem of what hypnotist? The idea of being hypnotized scares me quite a bit. It reproduces the feeling of being under someone else's total control, which I felt as a child. That is not a nice feeling.

I've done it. It's not like in the movies. You don't slip away and not have control. It's just peaceful and opens your mind to new suggestions. And if that scares you, have the hypnotist read your list of suggestions to you. You will be conscious enough to know if he/she is cheating.

What do you see are your options at this point?