Controlling Your Therapy

[Northgirl]

I've been with my current therapist for nearly 3 years, mainly helping to manage depression/stress, difficult family relationships, and skirting the surface of trauma work. After a few months away, I'm back with a new focus of going into deeper trauma work including EMDR but not for a couple months yet as I'm not able to go in regularly right now. The last couple times I've went in for maintenance/check-ins my anxiety has been overwhelming and I've struggled to find what to talk about. We finally pinned my troubles on the fact that I put pressure on myself to find the "most important" thing to bring up to talk about in session, which ends up being the heaviest topic that I think is therapy worthy. Not the day to day issues, or struggles like finding a job, worries about the future, etc. My therapist is very good about reminding me this focus on my part isn't the best way to go about things, but I struggle with the fact my time and energy may be going to things I should be able to process without a therapist. I'm curious how others choose what to bring up in therapy...do you approach it as a time to get down to business with trauma work or treat it more as a mental health check up by including what's going on in your real life since the last session?

 

[desiderata310]

It all matters. My therapist and I had a similar conversation a while back because we were doing 'maintenance' and working on day to day stuff. The thing is it is important. It established a relationship, it enabled my therapist to understand how I cope, where my blind spots are and how i deal with triggers(and what they are)
It's all part of the plan

 

[Suzetig]

I'm working through this just now, I need to settle down to building a longer term relationship with my therapist but block her every attempt to get to know me. I know part of my thinking is that everything I have to deal with in therapy is hard, painful stuff and I'm not able to go there yet, but don't know how trivial is too trivial either. My therapist tried to help me but I'm so anxious about where every topic of conversation might lead that I struggle to engage with her - I'm amazed she's not thrown something at me yet. I've been so aware of her trying to feel her way round the edges, waiting for me to actually speak to her.

I think I know how I'm going to tackle this at next session, in trying to learn more about me she asked what I was like as a child and I pretty much ignored her - that'll be my starting point, both answering the question and talking about the defensiveness that made me ignore her the first time around. Good luck in working things out, it's not easy.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I struggle with that all the time. When we talk about the day-to-day, I feel like we won't make progress towards the overall picture. And when we talk about deeper things or past memories, I feel like I can't cope with the day-to-day. I also throw up barriers whenever I feel we're getting to close to anything too hard. So I always struggle with the best way to spend my time in therapy. Most days we start with my therapist reading my journal entries and then she takes it from there. If she gives me the choice, I choose silence. I really want to spend the summer focusing on building up my strategies to known triggers though. I have just haven't communicated that to my therapist yet. It is a hard balance to figure out.

 

[mrsps]

I find this as well. My T will ask me when I go in how my week was then she will start talking about something that happened in my week and we will end up talking about this for the whole session. For example I was telling her I was struggling to get a job, she was going on about how I should look at doing a course as I have been struggling to find work. I don't want to do a course as I need a job to have money coming in. I understood that she wants me to keep busy but its not practical at the moment. But the whole session was pretty much taken up talking about what course I could do blah blah.

I decided that I was going to take control of my sessions so I wrote down how I wanted our sessions to run. First 15 mins to talk about how my week has been, 40 mins on a certain topic. 5 mins to decide on the topic for next week.

I found I would have stuff in my head I would think about each week between sessions but my T would go off n another direction and I couldn't tell her that there was something else I had on my mind. By writing it down and letting her know, we can now work together on what topics we will discuss each week and I know in advance what we will cover.

 

[Lucycat]

I have been in therapy for over 4 years with the same therapist. We started when I was in crisis, so it was stabilisation first for several weeks then the focus was on the trauma. That is now essentially all 'done'. Now I see him infrequently and we do talk about the day to day mundane stuff - like how I am 'feeling'. We talk about work, relationships, dreams anything I want to. I sometimes start with a list, as I did this week as I did not want to forget to tell him anything. I do not know when I will see him again so it felt important to get it out.

Therapy is no longer hard for me. I love that I can talk freely without judgement. I love that he understands me so well. I know that he is there for me and if a new memory or worry comes up we can get back to the serious business of processing at any time.

I am in control of my therapy. I think it is important that I feel like that because never again will anybody else control me.

 

[Suzetig]

This is the place I would love to get to but I've a very long way to go. At the moment it feels like we spend sessions circling each other and I know that's about me and my trust issues rather than her - how to explain that I *do* feel safe with her, as much as I feel safe in any relationship, while really struggling to engage on the most basic level.

I feel quite stuck in my original presenting problem and at that time I was very much in crisis but that's passed now. It's like she's seen me in a state when, of course, I was vulnerable but I can't let her see me in my day to day self. I had little control over me in my crisis state - I wonder if I'm trying to regain control over how she sees me now?

 

[Sarah2732]

@Suzetig So many things in this post sound familiar. I just wanted to encourage you that time and effort do pay off. It your desire is to get to a place of being more vulnerable, and she is competent and patient, it's going to work. Because you've been traumatized you don't attach and connect like most people, and I'd guess she understands that- and knows that waiting and being safe and consistent for you over a long period is the only way to "get in".

But communicating with her about it would help. The post I quoted above sounds like something that would be really helpful for her to know. Could you copy and paste that into a note or email to her?

I can really sympathize with that difficulty letting a therapist really see you. I have a super comfortable and safe relationship like, LucyCat described, with my old female T- but have a relationship much like you are describing with my new T- a male- who I just can't seem to trust enough to give even the smallest details of my past. It's frustrating!

 

[Suzetig]

Thanks Sarah2732, it's worth thinking about sending her what I've written or bringing it to session to talk through. I appreciate your encouragement that it does get better with time and effort, at the moment I feel quite stuck but I'm getting a better sense of how to move things forward.