Therapy? What kind? How often?

i am curious who is seeking therapy to reduce symptoms. How often you go? Do you feel it’s useful? What type of therapy are you getting? How long have you been getting therapy?

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I was underwhelmed by psychotherapy. I started going over and over the same issues in treatment because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. My pdoc seemed to start out with the assumption that I was deluded about everything, and he often challenged the validity of what I said. For the most part he said nothing. It was part of that proscription for classic psychotherapy that the pdoc is supposed to be the passive listener, and the patient is supposed to project his inner conflicts onto the pdoc. I was afraid to do that for a number of reasons. I can see how that could be very punishing for pdoc’s, but it doesn’t seem like effective therapy to me.

I agree psychoanalysis is a poor choice of method. You may find psychodynamic therapy more beneficial, it involves a direct dialogue and goal setting. CBT is popularity with people with psychosis is unfortunately not a good fit. Gains made through CBT are often lost when psychosis returns, because it does not do a good job of preparing patients to deal with upcoming and future stress.

I am seeing a therapist who encourages me to do CBT - but the problem is that it does not always work so well.

CBT takes me so far, but its never enough by itself.

She feels that medication can help a lot more than psychological therapies.

I tend to like deep breathing for my panic and anxiety and have used guided imagery, this helps a bit, but it too is never enough.

I do go to therapy… about once a month when I’m feeling level. Sometimes I go every two weeks when I’m starting to get a bit shaky.

I was put in therapy when I was a young teen… there has also been family therapy before my swansong of a break.

My therapist uses a combo of CBT and just talking… there has also been some work on mindfulness and working through some specific problems.

I think it helps… I learned how to not let my head circus beat me into a paralyzing state of inaction. She’s also helped me let go of some stuff that I shouldn’t hang on too…

Plus for me… I used alcohol and drugs pretty heavily in my life… I’ve also been breaking that habit and mindset as well.

Clean and sober for 6 years… glad of that… but sneaky brained thinking still happens and old cravings and habits like to try and sneak back in. She helps me kick through that as well.

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I live in a small town with sketchy access to mental health services. What passes for ‘therapy’ out here leaves you needing more afterward. I’m taking the 4-H “learn to do by doing” approach to my problem areas. Trouble socializing? Do lots of volunteer work. Fear of public speaking? Take up podcasting as a hobby. Negative person? Find a hobby like photography where you constantly find and share beauty with others.

It’s what keeps me going. :smile:

Pixel.

Edit: Oh, and at least one AA meeting weekly. 23 years sober and counting.

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Congratulations on the twenty three years! That’s a great accomplishment. Since you’re limited to resources you may find the website sevencupsoftea.com helpful for the in betweens. They are a volunteer group of international social worker & psychology interns. Although it lacks a personal touch that face to face gives you it can be a quick fix for small issues.

I’ve recently started seeing a new therapist who’s also a nurse practitioner so she can prescribe medication.

I find the therapy refreshing. I’ve only ever done CBT, which was helpful in some aspects for my anxiety, but not for my psychosis, and some parts of it felt kind of insulting. (“You know that’s not positive thinking right? You’re scaring yourself away before you even start” NO DUH I know my thoughts are wrong that’s why I’m seeing you)

This therapist is psychoanalytic and I feel like I’ve learned more about myself in the past 3 sessions than I did in 3 months with my old therapist. (I’ve only had 3 sessions with her so far the other 2 therapists I’ve seen I went to for maybe 4-5 months)

I think some people ABSOLUTELY need therapy prolly just as a system of monitoring progress/degression but the few times that I tried it what I perceive is that nut crackers are payed to give us a place to vent.

Well I do it here for free (thanks everyone) .

give yourself constant therapy if you can,

do everything and anything to try and feel good and to relax,

if you can make your own therapy that is great and try and do it all the time.

I’m kind of interested in DBT, though I doubt if anything can help me.

every month…if you want to get better…you have to take the first step.
take care :alien:

I do bible study,it helps the voices to go away!.

That is psychoanalytic therapy. Although a few older MD psychiatrists still use it, the vast majority do not. And most prescribers no longer do psychotherapy; they refer. Unfortunately, many refer to their pals or to those who provide kickbacks.

In my experience of 28 years working with severely mentally ill people, it is clear that while psychoanalytic, psychodynamic, behavior mod, existential and cognitive approaches can be helpful (and I can use all of them), the current gold standard is mindfulness-based cognitive therapy of several specific types, including those listed below:

DBT - http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm

MBSR - Welcome to the Mindful Living Blog

ACT - ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science

MBBT - An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc

10 StEPs - Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing

My pdoc told me I don’t need therapy. I suppose I would enjoy some group therapy, just to hang out and exchange experiences with people who are similarly diagnosed, since I never met anyone that I know of. There is something like a patients association in my country but they only have meet-ups once or twice a year in my region. And this is not therapy of course. I asked my doctor if he could get me in touch with a fellow patient but none that were in a somwhat similar situation were known to him and his network. So I use this forum for therapy :slight_smile:

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The therapy here doesn’t deal with toxic relationships that resulted in onset of symptoms, usually just scares victim silly into nervous breakdown if she has PTSD and then demands meds to do therapy making anxiety bad enough to result in firing for most…Not even told to leave it alone, even though relationship said things work better if people stay in contact with her or just quit talking to them altogether when they wondered. No, she did not have any good intentions toward anyone… Others on this site have similar story but told not to share it with the mental care. Found out some who talked about something like this are not denied SSDI assistance if you end up psychotic…

Worse, some of the mental care sent some victims back to the abuser telling them it was false memories. Girl got assaulted badly enough to break her legs. Cops then threw her into mental hospital. Back then they could torture victim into dropping charges…People are still running around doing this scam…

Mental care was NO help when I needed any assistance with social problems from the thought broadcasters/psychotic stalkers. I did therapy for 5 years with 3 different people, it was useless here trying to use LMSW/social worker.

I think the therapy is really just determining if you need an intervention for some schizos and rest is just useless small talk.