Poll Contact With Therapist Between Sessions

[BloomInWinter]

((((CraftyCath))))

Thanks!

I do think my T., a CBT, is good, just...very overloaded. ...and working in a place that doesn't make mental health a priority.

There's just no other options in this rural area. I do feel like I've gotten far more help from this forum than I've gotten from there, so if I have to dump something for cost...it won't be my internet access

 

[nie]

I didn't vote. I guess my answer would be no, and I don't know if he would allow it. I wouldn't say it accurate that I never need it. I would say it accurate that I would be afraid to ask.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

Text, emails are what I usually do with my T. He has called a few times when he is worried about me from something I wrote in an email. And when he thought I should go to the hospital.

Sometimes this is a live saver for me. To just be able to open up honestly about everything that is going on, when I am feeling it then.

Its still hard though, as I am so used to negativity.

 

[jo may]

Since getting my CPN I have phoned the office and spoken a couple of times if not to her than to one of her work mates. I find this very helpful as sometimes I feel lost and I don't know what to do.

 

[maddog]

I consider myself to be very, very lucky with my psych, who is as flexible, accommodating and spontaneous with me as his enormously busy schedule and competing demands allow. I am, or used to be, fiercely, viciously strict with myself about not contacting him out of session, not requesting extra sessions, and not indulging in any even tiny or insignificant indicator of dependence on him. Dependence terrifies me irrationally, and even though our relationship is now very strong, calling on him between sessions or displaying dependent/reliant behaviour in any form still distresses me enormously.

That said, I have called on him a number of times in crisis. At its worst, I have phoned him directly, or texted him asking him to call me asap. He has always obliged - at least he knows I don't do this lightly, and if i say it's urgent, he knows it is. Somehow, there are moments I can't take back control on my own, yet somehow, he can always help me do this. That's a terrifying truth, but it's a truth nonetheless.

But mostly it's e-mail contact that bridges the times between sessions for me, and I have to say I utilise this one-way, pseudo communication method very frequently. This has evolved to be a very productive strategy for us. Sometimes he sets me written homework tasks which I e-mail him between sessions. I often write long, journal-type e-mails, particularly when things are really tough, and I know he reads them and speaks to me about their content when we next meet. It helps me to feel connected to someone safe and trusted when i need to, which is often in the dead of night when it isn't appropriate to call anyone except in the case of absolute crisis, and it helps me to share lots of important things with him that we mightn't otherwise have time to discuss in sessions. Often I communicate more eloquently in writing than in words, and he accepts this, yet still encourages me to work on my verbal skills as well, which is a long slow process.

As I said, I'm very lucky. Sometimes - often in fact - I am deeply afraid of the dependence on him that I can't deny. For someone who trusts nobody, and who even now can spiral into irrational terror of his rejection at the drop of a hat, it's been a fragile and utterly foreign experience for me to recognize, let alone acknowledge, a sense of safe human connection. I try to take comfort from knowing that he is very aware of this,he is ultra professional in spite of his enormous capacity for empathy and "humanness" with me, and I trust that he would take action if he felt the dependence was unhealthy or counterproductive.

Maddog

 

[jka37]

Maddog, I have the same thing with my therapist. It's easier to detail everything in writing, so when things happen I email to her. She's even had my email printed out and referred to it in therapy. I try not to call, as I don't want to abuse that, but I love that she doesn't mind how much I email. It's great, because writing helps me stay focused, so I've been dissociated and emailed her to help me stay present.

 

[KP the nut]

I have finished my sessions with my T. However he has asked I keep him updated on my progress (or otherwise).

 

[maddog]

Yes, JKA, I totally understand about writing keeping you focused. It's become one of my primary grounding activities, as it provides mental focus and stimulation, physical grounding, by grounding me to the computer and keeping my hands busy, and perhaps most of all, soothing grounding, through the ability to envisage the conversation I am half having with my T and taking comfort from knowing that the words I am fighting so hard to communicate will reach someone who will understand. And he frequently refers to my e-mails during sessions, is often reading through them as i walk in, and we often use them as a platform to get us going or to guide the discussion, which helps me out a lot, as someone who often struggles really badly to initiate difficult discussions or to mentally get into the therapy place... if that makes any sense.

I also try to only ever call between sessions as a last resort. Sadly, I've done it, more often than I'd like to admit, but not often, and only when truly desperate. I guess it's good that I know he knows that if I call, it really is pretty serious, and that my e-mails, while often important, aren't indicative of a crisis. I guess I try to keep even those in check a little though, it feels as though it could become a slightly overindulgent obsession if I allowed it to.

Oh, and KP, it must be some comfort to know your T still wants news of your progress - justa bit of that safety net concept I suppose, I think that's a nice idea.
MD

 

[CraftyCath]

I agree with Maddog and jka. Now I know my T better I value the contact I have with him. Now things have settled down a bit I on;y see him every two weeks but I can still e-mail or ring if I need to. I text him once and he didn't reply and I realised he would rather I didn't contact him that way except in an emergency. But phone and e-mail he's fine with. He encourages me to write things down and contact him if I don't understand or need some grounding.

What I appreciate from him most is his honesty and his common sense. If he doesn't know an answer he tells me so. Non of this pretense at psychobabble. His common sense often helps me to understand my own wrong behaviour better than anything else. He might just say something that would seem obvious to others but is like some major wisdom for me...like a big blast of light in my darkness. It's amazing.:)

 

[maddog]

Hi CraftyCath, and I think you bring up a very valid point when you talk about common sense and sometimes just stating the "bleeding obvious". What I admire most is someone who can call a spade a spade, speak to me straight and true and like an equal human being, and who doesn't choose orneed to hide behind abstract theory or psychobabble when speaking with me. My T is incredibly real, very human and absolutely comfortable in presenting himself as a flawed, ordinary human being just like I am. There is something unspeakably validating in being treated this way and it has helped us to build trust and rapport possibly more than anything else. All I really want is to be treated like a normal person... and it's sad how hard it seems to be to find that in a mental health professional. I have seen 3 different psychiatrists in the time I have also been seeing my T, and none of them has come even close to achieving this simple, yet apparently rare, approach to our interaction. It's sadand disellusioning, yet again just makes me appreciate what I have even more than ever.

Maddog

 

[CraftyCath]

There is something unspeakably validating in being treated this way and it has helped us to build trust and rapport possibly more than anything else. All I really want is to be treated like a normal person

Totally agree Maddog. I got so fed up of fighting to get help on the NHS. This time my GP said he couldn't refer me directly to the T that I found but I would have to be referred back to my Psychiatrist. It has been 3 months+ and I still haven't seen him or even had a letter. I pay a lot of money to see this T and I'm sure he would see me even if I didn't pay him but if I hadn't found him I would either be sectioned or dead because I just couldn't have gone on as I was. :( My T says I am very different than when he first saw me. :)

I am so grateful to KP for encouraging me to find an EMDR specialist. He doesn't use any one techneque with me but amalgamates them all and I have moved forward gently but firmly. He sees right through me, understands my humour when others don't, he's unshockable, knows when I'm trying to be evasive, when I use subterfuge and avoidance and all he ever asks for is for me to be me. He actually said this week that he saw the real me for the first time. I told him it was a shame he hadn't took a photo because I didn't know what the real me looked like!

 

[maddog]

Yeah, it's odd and rather disconcerting that sometimes it seems as though these people knowus better than we know ourselves. Honestly, I experience this all too frequently when T will make some sort of observation about me, or my progress etc, and I'll think... "really? What are you seeing that I'm not..." It's humbling to realise that for all the intellectual insight I think I have into myself, I have very, very little emotional or subjective grasp of whoI am and don't seem to have the internal tools or resources to even begin to get in contact with that. Somehow I find myself relying on him hugely to rate and map my progress for me over time, as I don't seem able to do this reliably at all.

Something as simple as trying to outline my life and circumstances in a short series of dot points (as I've been required to do on commencing work with a psychiatrist) became the impossible task for me and was something I had to enlist his help to achieve. Seems I don't even really know who I am, or what is important in my past or current life.

And I'm glad you mentioned humour too, it's one of our greatest tools, weapons, and most positive defense mechanisms, and I'm glad we can use it to advantage too.

Personally, I would pay absolutely any monetary amount I could physically afford to keep seeing this person if I needed to... I have no problems paying good money for good service, but do object fiercely to paying a fortune to these psychiatrists who sit there, take notes, treat me like a lab rat and do and say very little. Sadly I think it takes either a lot of time or extreme and precious luck to find a good professional out there, so by God we hold onto them when we do.

Maddog