Question for anyone else currently in therapy and not solely seeing a pdoc. Do you ever feel like things are moving achingly slow? I feel like we make like a cm of progress every other week. And some weeks nothing even happened at all, like my symptoms from the past week were discussed and then the rest of my session was dumb small talk.
I like my therapist and am reluctant to find another and have to repeat my story. Is it supposed to be this slow? I still haven’t even begun to cover what I feel I need to and it’s already been a whole semester.
Am I in the wrong therapy?? Do I need to go to a psychotherapist or something? I have a lot of past crap I need to work through, and a lot in my brain that needs sorting out. My therapist suggested doing psychotherapy when we first started but I’ll be darned if I start seeing two therapists at the same time. Ugh I just don’t want to go through the process of finding another therapist.
Not in therapy but I will say I’ve been completely dissatisfied with any of the professional help I’ve received in the past. They can’t even hold this mess in their head and I don’t even know how to describe it.
It’s like well I’m getting raped all day and apparently it’s by you people so if you would kindly just stop. Or leave me alone until I figure out a way to reverse this illness.
I’d say it’s the nature of some talk therapies to plateau. Especially non-directed therapies. It might help to acknowledge to your therapist that you think this has happened, and you’d like to hear suggestions on getting unstuck.
Success of the therapy lies, of course, in the ability you have to communicate such frustrations with your therapist and in his/her ability to react correctly to that information. If your goals differ from your therapist’s goals, it’s better to have a talk, rather a negotiation about it, so that you can meet in the middle and more of your acknowledged or perceived needs are met by him/her. It may be though that you think you have needs that you don’t have in reality and they see you lack some aspects you are not aware of. Again, if you want to keep this therapist you should talk about it, negotiate, understand what they want and make yourself understood as well.
Very often I find the lack of progress is actually the lack of cooperation from the client, of which he/she is not aware.
If all of these don’t work, maybe you’re simply not in the good type of therapy. Learn what type of therapy you are having, make some research if it’s effective for SZ or just recommended for the general public. You might be working with a therapist who claims to have a lot of experience with SZ, but not actually have any real results. I went through that and I can tell you, it was detrimental to me, it ended with a relapse after which the guy admitted he had nothing to do with my illness. But he never admitted it directly to me.
For example, there is one kind of therapy I would like to make, that is CBT, as it has proven results in the treatment of SZ. However, I can’t find a CBT professional in the country/town I’m in, so I’m just waiting for an opportunity to show itself. I’ll make an appointment today with a lady who claims she can help, but I’m not keeping my fingers crossed, as I have been too dissapointed too many times.
When I first started therapy thats all we did was symptoms and small talk. It was so frustrating for me. I never advocated for myself and brought the subject up with the social worker. It was about a year later that we finally started talking about other things. Looking back I realize that I wasn’t ready or capable of talking about the deeper stuff, that the superficial stuff was enough for now. But I should have had that conversation with him at that time when I felt like we were stuck in mud.
You know thinking about it it might partially be my fault. I know what things I really need to work on and deal with. They also happen to be thing so really don’t want to work on or deal with and am deeply dreading ever having to talk about. So I guess some part of me is relieved that she hasn’t brought them up yet.
Have you tried other kinds of therapy? What were they like/what did you do?
I just read a little bit about psychotherapy and it seems to be more what I’m looking for. The unfortunate thing is that there are NO psychotherapists in my area at all. I swear everyone is CBT now. And forget about anyone who has experience w psychotic disorders.
First I had to work up to the hard work… sometimes it can hit a pretty deep nerve that I’m not ready to face. So the therapist I have takes it slow and starts in the shallow end of the pool.
It’s been on going… and sometimes something will come up that is pretty hard for me to get through or work on… so we start back in the shallow end again.
I once had a very aggressive therapist who believed in chasing and tackling the problems head on… full force and I was a mess by the end of the sessions… I physically felt weak… shaky and shocked when my time was done… I’d be a curled up mess the rest of the evening.
I got a different therapist who takes things much slower and gentler.
I also look at it this way… There was a time I felt like I wasn’t moving forward… but at least I wasn’t moving backwards… into my old habits and ways…
Really depends what your trying achieve by going to therapy? Rather found of Transactional analysis (TA) myself. As it’s a cross between psychology and psychotherapy. But can be very invasive. Still be doing it if the therapist hadn’t just come out of uni and just started her practice. I really liked her too. With my history she felt she wasn’t experienced enough . She did put me on to some else but I just couldn’t open up to him.
Funny, but when I am not so stable, therapy does not seem to work for me - like now.
I am scheduled to see my therapist, but all the talking in the world is not going to treat my mood instability, only meds can do this for me.
But its a good way for my therapist to monitor my condition
Therapy helps depends on what therapists i was seeing. One therapist i hated, he asked me if i believed in God. I felt uncomfortable with that question. Another therapist i believed was trying to get me to break up with my partner. She kept saying negative things about my partner really pissed me off. (sorry for the language). I haven’t met my new therapist yet, i was suppose to see her last month but the back gate was stuck and i couldn’t get out to catch the bus.
actually to be honest YESi feel the same way you do about CBT how is this helping me? I keep asking her if it has started yet talking about what I had for dinner in one session but listening to the others here I think its about building trust…I would hate a pushy therapist.
Yeah I’m the kind of person that NEEDS to be pushed though. Otherwise I could just keep the small talk going forever, which I know is not what is best for me.
I decided that I was going to make my appointments a be early and ive done that…I assume that its gently gently so that its not a stranger poking you were it hurts be Patient and keep going lets both of us see what happens?