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Do you trust your therapist?

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oakleaves

MyPTSD Pro
And I mean like really trust them?

Recently I have been feeling like my therapist (who I have felt like I do trust till recently and I have told him a lot and feel therapy has really been helping) doesn't really actually give a shit about me and isn't bothered and doesn't really want to help. I feel really low. I feel a bit like I am just annoying or irritating or that he has to put up with me and doesn't really want to. I have spoken to him about this and been reassured etc but I struggle with it. I feel like I want to talk about things but I don't know if I trust him enough anymore.

I don't know if it is because he is a man and I have not seen a male therapist before.

Things are more difficult generally but I feel like I am just moaning about nothing.

I have got a break now for a couple of weeks and the most recent session felt really difficult so I feel like I don't know what to do.

I can feel myself shutting down and not really engaging and not really going with things and trying to protect myself and I don't think it is helpful but I don't know what to do.
 
It may be that he is reminding you of past people who didn’t care. It is good to explore the idea asking yourself how others in the past made it come across that they did not care and then see if he is unwittingly doing that. I know mine cares even though in my early childhood not that many cared about me or what was happening to me. Mine knows things about me and keeps track and paces our sessions so that when difficult things come up I can work with the overwhelm. He is always there on time for my appointment and explains things to me sometimes phrasing that i may not have been told it in the past so we can just learn it together. When my appointment time is up and we leave each other he says see you soon and he means it, he isn’t going anywhere. If i email he replies if he doesn’t reply it is typically because i was just talking something out and did not really ask him anything. I don’t know other ways that that he shows he cares other than he is careful about things I may be reactive to in his space and rather than remove them helps me cope. He doesn’t have to say he cares as much as I know he does based on the type of non judgement help I get.
 
I know it's hard, but it's really good to keep talking about this in therapy. And in talking about it, you are doing the work of therapy because it's all connected. You can talk about what it would be like to trust him and how not trusting him helps protect you. You can talk about what you think started you feeling like you can't trust him. All of this is going to teach you valuable stuff. And it stinks and it's hard and I wish we didn't have to go through stuff like that (I recently went through something similar). Hang in there.
 
Yes I trust my therapist or at least my adult part does. I know she can take whatever it is I say, and she'll be supportive and non judgemental. My other parts: hyper vigilant; testing out; waiting for betrayal and abandonment. There is that doubt.

I'm in this whole 'transference' thing at the moment. Do you think you are?
Because if he has done nothing but show support, reliability and care, but you are interpreting it in another way, then it could be this transference too.

Having a break for two weeks is tough, as it means you're coping with this on your own rather than able to talk it through again with him. But talking it through will really help.

In the meantime, maybe looking up transference might help?
 
I trust mine completely. That being said, I haven’t always. I’ve been seeing I’m for about 2 1/2 years this time. It’s only recently that I started to really, fully trust him.

Before I was convinced that he didn’t care or thought I was a nascence and he was just trying to find a way to fire me. We talked about it a lot, he told me over and over again that he wouldn’t abandon me. I started trusting him with little things and we built on that over time.

I definitely think it’s something worth discussing with your therapist. That’s the only way you can really know or start to build the trust
 
Agreedl with everyone else - this is something really important to discuss with your therapist.

Argh, I hit post too soon. I trust my current T completely and it didn't take me long to trust her. The T before my current one, though ... She was the first T I specifically went to for trauma work, and it took me more than a year to trust her enough to actually do any of the work. It was just a buildup of trust over time. The more she acted trustworthy with me and my feelings, the more I trusted her.
 
I really do trust my therapist but he is the first of zillion that I have really trusted.

I think that even the best therapist has days where he/she is just there for a paycheck -- they would have to, right? I mean, they are just human beings at work.

That said, if it is an ongoing thing and it bothers you, it's worth bringing up to your therapist. The therapists I had that I didn't trust were kind of like prostitutes for me -- they served a purpose but I didn't worry about their emotional involvement. I was fine with that but not everyone could be.
 
I'm not even entirely sure what it means to "trust" anymore.

Do I trust that he would not physically hurt me? Absolutely.

Do I trust that he listens without judgment? Yes!

Do I trust that he keeps my information private? Yes!

But as a health care professional, I don't trust him. Because I trust none of them. I have had multiple traumas related to health "care," and have learned to be very cautious and guarded around "professionals." He understands that totally, which is super nice.
 
@oakleaves , I think I'm in a pretty similar situation to you. I did generally trust my T until recently when a lot of fear of the work and fear from transference. I also have a lot of bad experiences with mental health professionals not believing me or giving up on me. It's a rough road.

I've been generally feeling like I'm obsessing and moaning about nothing too. Like I should know better but my feelings don't agree.

I can commiserate but I don't any new useful suggestions (I also think you need to discuss this with your therapist) but wanted to say that you're not alone with this and I hope you can find some peace with this.
 
I trusted my counsellor. Haven't seen him for months because of covid. One of the important things to me was that he was male. I had, had a terrible time with female therapists because one of them abused me so I told her to f*ck off because I was so upset and angry at her behaviour. She got all pissy and got her friends too bully me. Then made out that I had a problem with professional women. Pretty predictable defensive behaviour. I wasn't surprised that she would do that. Anyways going back to my counsellor, he's brilliant. I can open up and say anything about my past and he doesn't judge me and frequently speaks up on my behalf when I tell him what other people have done to me in the mental health services.
 
Yes I think he does in some ways remind me of people who were maybe dismissive in the past.

@Teamwork your therapist sounds like mine in the pacing and being trustworthy but I don't know. I will talk it through if I can but I don't know what the answer is because it feels more like a part of me is wary somehow.

He is a good therapist and I trust him to do his best and to be trustworthy and to listen to me and those things. It is more than I don't know if I trust him with my actual self if that makes sense. I have told him some very unpleasant things now and trusted him in that way but it feels like I don't know how he genuinely feels even though I don't know what it would take for me to think he did so who knows.

@Friday that is exactly how I feel like I am just irritating.

I think the thing is he has always been trustworthy but it is as though I am looking out for every tiny thing to show he isn't or doesn't really give a shit and of course that is unfair because everyone has off days or days where things don't go well.

I am the one who is often slightly late for sessions (like a few minutes not really late) or hedging around things and I am the one who is paying but I spend so long trying to circle around and figure out what I actually feel ok saying and it doesn't make sense because as I say I have shared some really horrible shameful feeling things before.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.
 
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