Therapist Is A Deaf Mute

[Dana1010]

I mentioned to the therapist I see that she rarely asks questions or gives prompts to get me talking about something.

I come in and sit down and she just sits there with nothing to say. It's kind of awkward. I have to get the ball rolling myself. "So, ahem, I had a some trouble with sleep this week." Or whatever.

This is a problem, because I don't actually want to talk about the trauma, but I know I need to, therefore, I need a therapist to push me.

Her response was basically, "Why would I direct your therapy?" Funny that. Another therapist said the opposite: "I can't let you drive your own therapy."

Just goes to show the total absence of standards and best practices in this so called profession. No one knows what the fu*k they're doing.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

Yep, you're totally right

 

[Deleted member 39333]

I understand how you feel. This would be a HUGE problem for me. Unlike you, I wouldn't be able to get started at all; I would just sit there for a while and then have to leave.

I would suggest that perhaps you look at the website Psychologytoday and click on their "find a therapist" option. Once you are there, you can refine the search by what you are looking for based on your diagnosis, gender preference for a therapist, and so on. This site has "blurbs" that the therapists themselves have written about how they work, and so they are useful and revealing. I would further suggest that you call a few of them up and leave a message saying that you would like to ask them a few questions about how they work; phone calls are free. This is what I did, and I found a wonderful therapist who is perfect for me on the second try.

One of the first things I told him was that I had never told anyone what had happened to me; I had kept it a secret for 40 years; that I didn't trust anyone, and I wasn't even sure that I trusted the therapy process. I told him that I really needed help because my flashbacks had got out of control, and that I would try hard to respond to therapy because I do want to get better, but that I would NOT be able to just come to the office and spill it. That I would answer questions when I could, but that I wouldn't be able to initiate anything at all.

He said that he would have three sessions with me as a sort of trial period, and we would go from there. It worked. He asked questions. Sometimes he asked me things that I wasn't ready to talk about, and I'd just tell him that. He'd say "well let's plan to start there next time" which gave me the week to think about what I could and would say about it. He doesn't let me off the hook, but he gives me time, and distance, and space when I need it. It helps a lot. He always starts by asking me if I know where I want to start; I never do, and so he starts. Sometimes he'll give me a few choices; other times he will ask me if I can talk about "x"; if I can't, he will come up with something else.

From what you are saying, it sounds to me like this approach would be helpful for you, so perhaps you can find someone who is willing to work with you the way you feel you need to be worked with. I tell you all of this personal stuff so that you know that there are people out there who will work with you the way that you need to be worked with; sometimes it just takes a while to find them.

 

[Crow]

I would get frustrated at my T for rarely pushing. She is totally into self directed therapy with clients she feels have the internal strength/guidance/fortitude to do so. Luckily it finally paid off for me.

 

[Dana1010]

@C j, so in your experience, which approach works? Is my therapist right?

 

[Deleted member 29920]

I've give up on therapists because none of them have helped my main issue

 

[Cannottakethis]

This is exactly why I left my last therapist. She never asked questions or gave advice or suggestions. It shouldn't be up to the patient to direct IMO.

My new therapist gives me weekly goals, topics to think about, new breathing techniques for anxiety. It's all about me, but she is actually moving things along.

Only my first therapist from my late teens and early 20's did anything remotely similar.

 

[Deleted member 39333]

@C j, so in your experience, which approach works? Is my therapist right?

Your therapist isn't "right" if what she is doing isn't right for you. We are all different and respond in different ways.

 

[Anarchy]

There are a bunch of different schools and modalities of T.

Your T is coming accross as very Freudian/analytic. In that school, if you say nothing, you can sit in the room for the whole hour, in silence.

Other schools have a gradation of increasing structure.

Something like Transactional Analysis, which is a subset of humanistic, looks to establish a contract of defined goals for the therapy.

Something like DBT is very structured, and given the Very suicidal and emotionally dysregulated population that it was developed for, who typically don't get much from most other styles of therapy, it needs to be.

I know that this is going to be hard, but I think that you need to have a couple of good long discussions with your T about where you and her see your therapy going, and how you each see your route to get there.

If you do decide to change, spend plenty of time shopping, find out about structure and timescales.

 

[Anarchy]

Oh, I'd better add.
CBT is great for quick specific stuff, like a bout of depression, but, if there's complex childhood stuff, the ordinary practitioners don't have enough depth to unpick it all.

ACT, and it's other mentalisation type therapies are building up a good base of empirical evidence for success with the same population that DBT was developed for

 

[ladee]

I laughed When I read your title. Not laughing at your situation.
If she isn't helping you please find someone that can.
I've only had one weird situation with a T..he was very young . I could tell he was more nervous than I was. So after a while of him fumbling around...I simply said..this isn't going to work.
His reply..Thank God you said that..I have no idea what I'm doing...
We ended up spending the rest of the time left discussing what new carreer path he should take..
Thank goodness I was having a good day!

 

[Deleted member 29920]

Just goes to show the total absence of standards and best practices in this so called profession. No one knows what the fu*k they're doing.

I mean, that's the smartest thing I've read for a long time. They take all our money and still lots of us are no further ahead. It's a f*cking joke.