I think i should quit therapy altogether

[grit]

how do you know you find the right therapist? do you have friends who may have known a good therapist?

 

[Friday]

But during the consultation and interview process, they start out displaying a genuine interest in helping me, explaining their treatment and therapy types. They seem like overall good therapists... Then, give it about 1-2 weeks and they turn. All of that empathy that they had during the consultations, disappears.

So perhaps

1. genuine interest in helping you should be a baseline, rather than an achievement? IE any therapist you’d even consider working with needs that, and what you actually look for is beyond interested & empathetic.

To be very clear, I’m not saying those are bad things to require. If you know you need those qualities is a therapist, that’s great. But check those items off your list, and look further.

Certain kinds of trauma tend to lower standards to ankle level, especially long term abuse, but a few others as well. I remember waking up one day a little while after my divorce (DV) and just kicking my own ass, because I realized that all I required in a man... was arms. Yep. The only thing I wanted, more than anything else in the world, was to be held. :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: FFS! Standards! Dropping! Aisle 3! :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: It was a huge shock to me (and wake up call), because I have dated soooooo many incredible & amazing men, but 2 abusive relationships took my complicated & highly individualized standards and anihiliated them. Like left a crater in their place, anihilated. It took me 2 years before what I looked for in a partner rose to my previous “baseline”. Meaning nothing below that is even given 2 seconds thought, much less thought special. The equivalent to being asked to date a corpse, or a paper plate. Um. No. You’ve got to be f*cking kidding me, right? A dead person or disposable dinnerware? You don’t date those! You just don’t! <<< That’s baseline. Absolute minimal standards. >>> Which do NOT include “doesn’t abuse me”. That’s below baseline. Right along with flatware and f*cktards and people who don’t bathe. Baseline itself includes things like being nice to me. That’s not special. That’s motherf*cking required. To reach special, much less amazing or incredible, someone has to be miles above baseline.

Clearly, I’m not dating a therapist, so I’m going to have different standards. But someone I can work with? Is going to be baseline. What I’m actively looking for? Amazing and incredible. What sets someone at least head and shoulders above their colleagues. Like a great teacher, instead of a great mechanic, that’s going to be subjective. But what I’m looking for, in either, is that next level. I can work with baseline, but I am going to seek out amazing.

2. If after a couple weeks (ie still firmly in “getting to know you”) they turn out to be not whom you’d hoped they were? Drop them. Consider it an elongated interview process where you’re learning to find the right mentor & shifting your requirements about / raising your own standards. <<< Which makes it a useful thing, rather than just a frustrating and annoying thing.

 

[OctoberMaple]

how do you know you find the right therapist? do you have friends who may have known a good therapist?[/QU...

At the moment, I don't really know anyone, personally, who has ever been in therapy.

 

[Mach123]

I had a hard time with them but not as much as other things? I guess I always felt empathy from them on some level, or maybe I just like talking to a women (almost all of them) as long as long as she is at least pretending to listen? If you count the guidance councilors and teachers in high school? I always went to therapy. I never stopped trying, I quit everything pretty much except therapy, which includes looking for therapists and switching therapists and quitting and starting again.

 

[OctoberMaple]

So perhaps

1. genuine interest in helping you should be a baseline, rather than an achievement?...

Thank you for that. I really needed to be reminded of everything that you said. Because of the way that I grew up, I'm so used to putting my standards on a backburner, with anything in life, while requiring only the bare minimum. Barely the bare minimum. A fraction of the bare minimum. And that's just how i've coped as a result of my upbringing.
I didn't realize, until you said it, that I am probably doing the same thing with my therapist search. I really need to look further than just empathy. I need to ask them, in the beginning, if they have experience with NPD and NPD abuse survivors. I never really thought that I needed to ask them that, because I just believed that this was something that a trained psychologist would know about, but apparently not. As I am seeing it now, not many therapists really have the experience. It's like a whole new world to them, and not many of them are qualified to help someone who has lived in the twilight zone all of their lives.

Thank you for telling me that. :hug:

 

[blackemerald1]

That’s below baseline. Right along with flatware and f*cktards and people who don’t bathe.

:roflmao::playful:^^

 

[Kopykat]

@OctoberMaple I'm sorry you’ve had to experience all of that. I would also agree that most all of us at one time or another had shitty therapists. I had a guy who regularly fell sleep in session and routinely broke confidentiality. Then I had a hippy lady who insisted meditation, sand raking were the way and I had a drinking problem, I didn’t. I took a break for awhile and then decided to find one on psychology today of all places. It is a frustrating process bc you’re interviewing them as much as they are you. But I wouldn’t lose hope, there’s someone out there. I would agree with what others said and look for a therapist that specializes in trauma. Good luck.

 

[Existentialanalyst]

I'm having a very hard time with therapists, and I'm starting to think that perhaps therapy just i...

I am sorry you’ve been thru some really bad experiences with therapists. Great suggestions here, but I just wanted to add, please take time and make complaints to relevant professional bodies about some of the malpractices you’ve encountered. Search for people you’ve seen on PACFA or AHPRA and file complaints outlining their conduct in sessions. If you’ve go the energy and the time, of course.
Secondly, it does seem peculiar that therapists you’ve encountered all seemed attentive and helpful in the beginning but turned rather insensitive and unprofessional later on. Would you be keen to explore what’s going on next time you embark on a therapeutic journey? Tell your next therapist about what tends to happen and maybe you’ll both be “on the watch out” when the change starts emerging.

 

[hithere]

Yes, they were all trauma therapists, and all emdr certified. Although they refused to actually gi...

the whole petty snide remarks, thing. I have had that happen from therapists! Also mocking me when I tell them the "general" story or what's it about--, these responses actually still hurt today. I mean really hurt--The whole power dynamic in therapy is effed up

Thank you for that. I really needed to be reminded of everything that you said. Because of the way...

YES! about asking if they have experience with NPD survivors. I know people throw that "NPS" around a lot-but BELIEVE ME there is a big difference and the insidious nature of this type relationship, with all of it's "stealth" , and appearances of "wonderful mother of the year" or "father of the year"--it is one big MIND SCREW! Your average trauma therapist has no idea really, and honestly, what all happens to a person who has to be in a relationship with some with NPD--as an adult who comes into this relationship it can so, so, so mess with you; so just imagine a little kid--holy moly -- It is a specialty all in it's own and there are VERY FEW therapists who even understand it let alone have any training in it!