Ughh I hate therapy. It’s so pointless and they just want to boss me around like I don’t know how to live life
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Totally. I havent gone for almost three months. Maybe i should talk with someone just to sort out my thoughts but thats only temporary. Soon as I’m home its again a mess. 
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After receiving therapy for about 4 years, I began to half-joke that I needed therapy because of therapy.
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As so many of the Psy.D.s (roughly, “super-therapists”) and Ph.D. CCP’s say, “One third of psychotherapists are good; one third are not but they’re at least harmless; and one third are plain poisonous.” (I know one reputable Ph.D. who says 80 percent of them are in that bottom “third.”)
I have spent a lot of time working with recovering psych pts to help them recovery from bad psychotherapy. BUT… that is not to say that all PT is bad. Just that in the wrong hands, it can mess people up.
I’ve gotten FAR more benefit from the professional psych schoolbooks I have studied and workbooks I have used than from any therapy I ever did.
Anyone on this forum have good experiences with PTs?
I really don’t go to see my therapist for therapy.
I go in and see her for the Human Contact and conversation.
She is a nice woman and pretty easy to talk to - we sometimes go over psych meds, she is pretty familiar with meds for a therapist, shes a PHD clinical psychologist.
Often the case here in California, though the Psy.D’s here vary. The ones who came out med schools (like Loma Linda) are usually very up to speed on meds because they are solidly grounded in the physiological as well as behavioral models.
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no, therapy helps me…i wish people had given a ■■■■ when i was young…
i am getting better now…i would encourage all the mentally ill to get therapy…cbt has helped me.
take care 
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best advice from therapist: “Let the pain wash over you like water…”
worst advice from therapist: “So what if people are watching you, just live your life…”
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I know more therapists who are better at leading a group therapy more than an individual one.
That’s my experience too. The hour spent talking is fine, the ride home I feel great. 5 minutes later inside my home everything goes out the window and nothing has changed. I found this to be true of meditation and massages too. The actual experiences are fine but the feeling wears off quickly.
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cc: @Sarad
In the era of HMO/PPO financial governance, the New Order is fast becoming “skills training.” (I was started when I first encountered it while observing an anger management class at the VA 11 years ago. The Ph.D. in charge told the assembled, “This is not group therapy. We’re not going to share our feelings or describe our childhoods. This is a school room. And we are going to learn what to do to manage our anger.”)
The mindfulness-based cognitive therapies I rant on (and on, and on) here are not “talk therapies.” They are collections of skill sets one learns in class… or from workbooks. (In fact, a lot of us are taking the position that most therapists are so under-skilled at the complex techniques of interpersonal reconstruction that they are only worth it as teachers of these skills sets, and maybe not even that. Some are safest being mere prods for those using the workbooks, period.) (Okay; enough venting from me.)
The real deals now are
DBT (see http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm),
ACT (see Acceptance and commitment therapy - Wikipedia),
MBSR (see Welcome to the Mindful Living Blog),
MBBT (see An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc) and
10StEP (see Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing).
As Sara knows, I feel very strongly about the usefulness of the older psychodynamic or psychoanalytic therapies, BUT… I do not see them as be-all’s or end-all’s; only as grist generators, and then only in the hands of those who are competent to use them. And most LCSWs in the public health settings most sz pts will encounter are just NOT. Nor do they believe that most sz pts can benefit from these therapies because of what they are TAUGHT in SCHOOL now: “If the pts are dx’d psychotic, go supportive only.” Plain robotic. Also stress-reducing (for them).
CBT is also skills training, but it covers only two of the three legs of the therapeutic triad and pretty much ignores the necessary re-connecting of the left and right brain hemispheres.
Probably way more than you wanted to know, but I was on a roll.
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Few of your posts more and im gonna teach my therapyst what she’s supposed to do. 
Not me. My physician sent me to one about seven years back. His concern was that I am very high functioning, but that was completely discounted by nursing staff in the hospital when I was admitted for serious gut issues. The second they saw SZ on my chart many assumed I was dangerous or had minimal function. They more or less stopped talking to me and would only deal with my wife.
My doctor was upset enough by this that he wanted me to see the local PT who was supposed to document how high functioning I was to add to my file. I wound up with a Russian immigrant who was basically out to prove how dysfunctional I was in defiance of my doctor’s request. He refused to give me a clean bill of health unless I submitted to addictions counseling after having admitted I was a serious boozer and user in the past. Never mind that I was clean/sober for about 17 years at that point. My weekly AA attendance was not considered a serious attempt to deal with my addictions.
It was a complete gong show and I told the PT to arse off after a couple of months. The fellow performed so unsatisfactorily that I understand he was eventually let go.
Pixel.
I don’t know if most of my therapists helped me but they were all harmless.
The standard 15 minutes the doctors are allowed for each patient at my HMO always ran longer than either of us planned, but even so, the drive to get there took longer than the session.
The best quote?
Just because (they) ruined the first half of your life, doesn’t mean you need to ruin the second half.
The worst thing said to me?
You’re not cost effective for treatment.
What a dick.
I’m intrigued by the 10 steps of emotional processing. It seems that dbt has beaten the 1st 5 steps up to acceptance into me but I stop short of owning my emotions and all the rest of the processing. To appreciate, understand, process, and reframe emotions… seems like a very daunting exhausting task. Heck I still have a terrible inner struggle identifying emotions and can only sometimes figure out the why.
I like my therapy.
@Kellie you need to find a good therapist. I don’t blame you, i wouldn’t like therapy either if it was pointless and they treated me like scum. My therapist always says “I learn so much from you!” and other self-assuring stuff. “I look forward every week to our appointment” and stuff. My therapist is the nicest lady in the world. I talked about my gal friend and how she was racist and she said “That’s the anti-DBT…In dbt you’re suppose to make no judgements. So racism is the anti-dbt.” She does a good job of mixing therapeutic terms and real life. And asks the right questions. And she’s pretty inexpensive considering she’s at an expensive hospital. Man I love her. She calls me up to ask advice on her e-cigarette. I felt bad cuz she had a cosmetic surgery on her face and her face was all blotchy for a couple weeks but now it’s looking better. I think she was worried it would never get better but now it’s getting better which is good because she’s a real nice person and doesn’t deserve that. Sorry I’m still a lil drunk from last night so maybe i’m ranting and saying pointless stuff, but I like my therapist, we have a real relationship.
I honestly think therapy would help me more if they cared more about what I have to say. a lot of times I’ll tell them about what the voices say and they’ll just be like “just don’t listen to them, they’re not real” and I’m like “???”. It’s not unhelpful it’s just sometimes frustrating and lowers my self esteem. that’s why I like support groups like this one better.
hope you’re all doing well xx
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