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When To Stop Professional Counselling?

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frustrated

Anthony.. I got the stupid question of the day.. My shrink makes me talk about the shooting death of my officer, his name is Ron.. I hate referring to him as 'my friend' or 'my officer'.. still in denial? I've talked about the incident, about him, about whether or not he would blame me, the way I blame myself. I know he wouldn't blame me.. I know it wasn't my fault.. I know these things happen.. blah blah blah. Obviously I still have issues.. I'm married to a Police Sgt.. I cant get away from that pain.. its there every single day.. I want to get as far away from Police/Fire/Medical work as possible.. after my 'breakdown', I took time off from work. I was protected by the Family Medical Leave Act. but as soon as the time was exhausted, I was terminated. Between the hurt and anger I feel about them firing me after I served them loyally all of those years, & the funk I'm in just being around a cop all the time.. I cant do it anymore. I a new life!! So the stupid question : I'm forced to, and think I've 'accepted' Ron's death, why do I have to keep going and talking about him??? (boy, if that wasn't babbling.)
 
VCC, if you have no negative stigma remaining about a trauma, then you don't need too talk about him. If you can talk about the incident, without getting ill, merely getting normal feelings of such a sad event, then their is nothing negative that affects your PTSD. If you can't talk about it without getting ill, I doubt you have actually healed all the issues surrounding the trauma. Talking is one thing, healing is another. If you don't have the correct feedback to ensure you have put things into perspective, found reason and acceptance where needed, then that is what healing is about.
 
Healing to me is no different from the path we walk getting PTSD, in that the path to healing can only be influenced so much by external factors, then you must do the majority of the work yourself..


I'm glad I read this. I, for some reason, was under the impression that therapy would hopefully, magically fix me. I see most of the work will be my own.
 
I think that you kind of come to a natural close when therapy is effective. Much of my frustration with the old T was almost two years of making little or no progress because we had to proceed "slowly"--so how slow is slow? If you've identified the problem and you still don't talk about it then to me that's a waste of time, money and hours you could be happy and functional vs. depressed and dysfunctional. In that case I felt like he was milking it. One thing I have noticed in facing my trauma head on this past year with the new therapist is that I feel "normal" again. I still have some work to do but at least I feel like I am out of the darkness I had to go through and I see an end by this fall. I like the idea of feeling finished at some point.

In thinking about God...He is an integral part of healing but we can also use the tools to which He avails us. Like doctors, these could be counselors as well. Depending on the church and belief structure there will always be a controversy of healing by faith and healing by man (i.e. counselor, physician, etc.) and thus for many Christians seeking professional help will be a stigma in many congregations.
 
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