How Do You Find A Good/ The Right Therapist?

[Tweedlebug]

I had an extremely difficult time finding the therapist I am currently seeing.

As a result of everything I have horrible anxiety and basically won't leave the house without my husband. I also have such a fear of people I don't even answer the phone. When it comes to making appointments I rely on my husband to do this for me. Any time I try to do it I just freeze.

Almost every Dr he contacted would not allow him to make the appointment even after he explained the situation. My husband then got my PCP involved and still could not make the appointments for me.

Finally we found a therapist that would allow my husband to make the appointment but I dislike him so much! I stopped going to see him for a few months and stoped the medication he had me on.

Stopping the medication was the right thing to do, that was not the right kind for me, but I know I need help.
I went back to see this therapist just this week. It was soooo nice of them to fit me in the next day.

While I was there it was the same as the previous visits. The therapist did all of the talking. Telling me about when he was in medical school and stories from his past. I also just get told I am depressed. Well sure I know I'm depressed but I need a little more help with not being able to leave my house! Not one word about it.... I say how I am angry just pure rage..... And I get told I am depressed.

The kicker to the whole therapist thing is each visit I was told I needed to make friends. " get out join a social group, join a club" This was my homework. I would come back the next week even more dejected because my normal type A personality had failed. I do not accept failure and that's all my life has been recently.

I openly say how I dislike people - people scare me - the world is rude - I would rather stay in my house.
The response I receive is that I am defecting my anger on others that is why people are rude.?!?

I also don't understand why I could shove all this away for years and be fine but now when I am trying to push it back down I can't. I just want to lock it all away again. Why can't I? I know there isn't an answer to that one but... I was a rant roll

I apologize for my rambling half story but any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[Ted Moen]

Good therapy requires a therapeutic alliance between you and a trained professional. It doesn't sound to me like you're doing your part right now. Like most of us, you're wishing for that "good fairy" that will wave their magic wand and make our emotional world right, almost like going to a doctor and getting a shot to get rid of our problems.

If I were looking for a good therapist, I would identify my major symptoms and check out online what they might indicate, then I would look for a trained professional that specializes in that area. In my case, I would look for a clinical psychologist that specializes in ptsd. You might want to start with a clinical psychologist that specializes in agoraphobia. Then share your symptoms with them and go from there. Most trained professionals are pretty good if you participate openly in the therapeutic relationship. During my treatment, isolation was a symptom, so naturally the first thing I was told was to get out and participate in stuff. It is hard and takes practice and therapeutic support, but in the therapeutic alliance it is your job to be open with the professional and, step by step, make the effort.

Ted

 

[ronin47]

Look specifically for a clinical psychologist. Sure, there are good nurses, counselors, MFTs, etc out there, but in my experience they are really just hit and miss. Clinical psychologists are a much safer bet as they are held to a much higher standard in terms of education and training. I agree with Ted's suggestion about looking for someone who specializes in agoraphobia and/or PTSD. It wasn't until I got my diagnosis that I really started to make progress with the person I was working with. Before then all of my therapists, like the one you're describing, tried to slap the "depression" label on me and shove medications down my throat. If you have a therapist with a comprehensive understanding of your condition they, I'd be willing to bet, would do better at treating the cause rather than the symptoms.

Also, as hard as it may be to accept, it is true that if you have a truly effective therapist you will start to feel worse before you feel better. However, the difference between the first therapist who truly made a difference for me and the ones who didn't was with the ones who didn't I actually would walk out of their office feeling more depressed than when I walked in. Versus the one who really helped me, where, yes, our sessions would get more and more painful and intense at first, but in the end we always had some sort of resolution or strategy for dealing with it and I would at times walk out feeling ladened with intense and conflicting emotions, but with the clearly defined and firmly set tools for dealing with them. In short, it is a matter of finding someone who will talk about your trauma versus someone who will talk about your trauma and how to resolve it. Yes, people are rude, and you can't change that, but you can change how you respond to their rudness. It seems to me this therapist is only telling you why you feel that way, not how you can change it.

Your relationship with your therapist truly is a partnership. I always described as "working with me, not for me or against me." My first helpful therapist, a very straightforward and direct main phrased it well, "I'm going to do the best I can for you, but for this to work I need commitment from you to."

I hope you can find a wonderful therapist who will meet you where you are and help you realize a whole new life.

 

[Tweedlebug]

Thanks Ronnie

I can search till I am blue in the face, which both my husband and I have done, but it just seems difficult finding a Dr let alone the right Dr. I live in a major city too.

I originally saw just a therapist who said he couldn't help me any further and wanted to refer me to another Dr.
That Dr would not see me because I could not make the appointment myself even though the therapist was referring me. I do not understand this they were in the same large practice.

Then my husband went to my PCP to get help and we found this other Phycologist but we just dont click.

I think the issue I am having is that I don't feel like I am working on anything when I go there. I walk in and am asked how I feel then I sit for 40 minutes and am told about how I should be kinder to myself, I am a good person and that I am depressed. Y therapist adds a few jokes, gets annoyed that I often don't laugh at them, tells me every time about when he was in medical school and that's it.


I was honest about the medication he wanted to change me to when I went back this week. My therapist asked that I was going to keep taking this new one. I replied asking about the side effects wanting to know if it would make me numb, if it I would cause weight gain, if it would interact with my other medicine.... I was told I was being difficult. I don't see being informed and not just blindly taking any old pill a dr wants to give you difficult. I did remind him before I asked that " me and medications dont interact well together"

Shortly after my attack, several yrs ago, I went to a therapist that would miss appointments on me.
She tell me I canceled when she would not show.
I would be waiting at her office for a half hour or more trying to call her. It added injury to the trama I guess.
I don't have much faith or trust in these Dr's......

 

[ronin47]

I know it seems hopless. Believe me; my experience with therapy started when I was 15 and it wasn't until age 19 when I first came to my University that I finally found one that was effective for me, and really that was just by chance, it wasn't as if I was searching or anything. I know what you mean about the medication though. It seems like so many Ts are just terribly anxious to dish them out these days. On my "therapy journey" I was told more than once that if I didn't want to take medication that must mean I "don't want to get better" (seriously, at least to Ts used those exact words). I even read an article the other day that said a lot of psychiatrists won't even do "talk therapy" anymore because insurance doesn't pay as much for it as it does for medication

.

Don't stop trying though. It's frustrating and difficult but it's worth it in the end, well worth it. My bad experiences left me feeling highly distrustful of Ts for a while, but I bit the bullet and went into "just one more session" every time and finally I found a T who cared enough about me not to take no for an answer and held my hand through all the hardships. You turn will come. And, I know it's not the same, but you can always message me if you want to talk to someone

.

 

[Tweedlebug]

Thanks Ronnie