What has been your experience with therapy? Long term vs short-term? Are the therapists that get directly to the heart of the matter more efficient and more successful or do you benefit more from long-term therapy? Do you think or do you have experience where you felt a therapists was dragging you in therapy for long time because of her financial needs or other unresolved codependency issues?
It is no where near that simple. Trauma plays a HUGE part on therapy.
Taking the first year out of my therapy being he didn't know the real reason why I was there (due to me, not him) and to get me to stop coming onto him and actually stay seated and listen, it was IMPOSSIBLE to get all of my trauma out of me in one session or even a few sessions. Its an hour a week! And there are details and then stuff I was still doing today (and apparently still dive back into). That takes a
TON of trust to tell him of those. Trust takes
TIME! In my case, a ton of time and over time I felt more and more comfortable to tell him more and more.
That took 2 yrs. Going once a week for an hour a week for 2 yrs to tell him all of it.
Then I had Stolkholm Syndrome (advised by my therapist - I will not debate this) that took years to get through. Years! With that, my family took about 3 yrs of my therapy alone.
So are at 6 yrs already if not going into 7. I have been in therapy, once a week, for 8 yrs. It is not about getting to the point off the bat or the therapist wanting money. It is all based off trauma and how slow that takes. It isn't a race. I also pace our therapy. He goes off of how slow or fast I need to go. Actually, at this point, he almost seems to be rushing me a bit. I am activitly doing something that helps and is proactive to help me function in the future. Training a service dog for myself. He seems to be positive that I am not just distracting and I get the feeling that he will wrap this up soon ish. Like a year or so. And I am not sure if you are advising this or not and don't want to assume but I have been seeing a lot of 'if you are in therapy X long then you are stuck/want to stay sick' etc. That isn't the case at all. Not for me and not for many.
If you felt like therapy wasn't being paced by you then I would have said something (though I wouldn't assume she just wanted to pad her pockets) and going to a new therapist sounds like it was a good thing for you. But many, like myself, it would have been determental to my mental health to have rushed to the point. Also given 2 "therapists" had sex with me, and 2 ended sessions because I was "wasting their time", that would have been the end of me or at least of my going to therapists! I was forced into therapy as it was so it wouldn't have been good at all! Slow was and is the only way to go with me.
So those are my thoughts, feelings, and opinions on the matter.
