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Therapists - What has been your therapist experience?

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Skywatcher

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I am on my second therapist. The first one was cbt and transferred me. My current one is trauma/emdr. Some times I feel like I am the reason she pursued more advanced trainings. Like structural disassociation, complex PTSD. However, she deals with lots of intense stuff, so maybe not. I’ve been seeing her for over two years. I wonder if I should have chosen someone who works more than 3 days a week for those crisis moments that I wish I could come in for. I joined her therapy at the last 1/3 of her career. She’s enjoying life, but I also benefit from her experience, so it works.

My daughter is on her second therapist. I just met him today and felt instantly at ease. I found it so refreshing to be with someone that fully feels like a therapist. Mine tries to maintain that, but I fall into transference so easily. It’s my guess that a new therapist isn’t the answer since it has taken so long to trust mine. I just wish you could do therapy without all of the connected relationship crap.
*What has been your therapist experience?
 
I've had two... one retired and still with my second. I like them both, but feel close to my current. I'm not sure she is the end all of trauma therapy but most definitely the best at being supportive and completely trustworthy which makes the rest ok. We manage to figure out what to do and she is a wealth of knowledge and experience in life in general. It's nice to have somebody to talk to although I don't utilize her 100% as I should sometimes. I guess I am very lucky...
 
One psychologist (who I now do equine therapy with every 3 weeks) who referred me to a psychiatrist who, unusually, I see for weekly therapy. Both I like but the latter is much more experienced. Sessions are never not challenging, draining and exhausting - I pretty much go to bed for the rest of the day. Doing this alongside a full time challenging work role ain’t easy. She works part time now but works hard on giving me the resources to look after myself between times. I have her mobile and email but I struggle to reach out. She has called me (with my permission) a couple of times after very triggering sessions - just listening to her voice message was enough to make me feel cared for. She was very clear in the beginning that if she couldn’t help me she’d find someone who could. That was really important to me - that I wasn’t “too much” and would have to do it on my own.
 
I had one trauma therapist that helped me a great deal...she encouraged me to file for disability and to go back to school, both of which I did. She was very supportive and had many therapy modalities that she used. That was my first therapist. I have had about 6 therapists, but then I have been in therapy for a long time. I have been in maintenance mode for a few years. I continue therapy so that I can maintain the progress I have made. Every therapist has their own unique approach but I feel my first therapist was one of the very best.
 
I went through a lot of therapists before finding one that clicked with me. None of them except one were trauma therapists, which is just as well because I wasn't ready to do the work anyway.

Once I found one I really clicked with, it still took more than a year before I built up enough trust with her to really start working on my trauma, then it all came pouring out. She handled it deftly. Unfortunately we were only able to work on it for a year before she moved away.

But that ended up being a blessing in disguise because it led me to the therapist I'm with now, who not only is very experienced with trauma, but she also does EMDR - which at this stage in my recovery is exactly what I need. I'd go so far to say that my current therapist is the best one I've had. But I wouldn't have benefited from her or the EMDR without establishing a pattern of trust and discovering what I really needed with my previous therapist.
 
I have only had three sessions with my therapist so far and she's my first one. I really don't know what to expect from therapy, but I wish she would guide a bit more. She asks me what I want to talk about every time, but I have already told her about the things that happened and the symptoms, I experience. I'm not sure what she expects from me and I'm alway so anxious that I can barely think of anything to say. She also has not suggested a diagnosis or even appears interested in making one. A friend who also sees her told me, that she focuses mainly on one's current emotional state. I'm not sure if that works with trauma as well, since you're supposed to work out your past in order to change your life, right? Otherwise aren't you just treating symptoms? Anyway, she's really nice and I want to see where this is going...
 
When i went into therapy i had one session with a therapist and immediately knew i couldn’t work with her and so paid, left and never went back. Fortunately this led me to my current therapist who is a consultant clinical psychologist- specialises in trauma and sexual abuse , has many therapeutic approaches inc emdr. She is amazing, she’s knowledgeable, experienced, she challenges me, knows me well and doesnt take any bullshit - i have shared some extremely intimate information with her so i trust her implicitly. In 2017 after approx 15 months therapy ended - i was in a really good place and she was also relocating. She had told me i could contact her via telephone or skype should i need any support etc. After approx 3 months i contacted her as i was making a massive decision re my ‘trauma’ - she agreed to offer me therapy via skype with the understanding that if it wasnt providing the help i needed that we review (she believed at the time that face to face ie in the same room was a better therapy option) - having sessions via skype has worked though and i has proven invaluable in supporting me through an extremely difficult time. It helped because we already had built a therapeutic relationship rather than have to start again with someone new. I did need some emdr and this was provided by another therapist my t recommended - again i was fortunate that this therapist was caring and knowledgeable and the emdr work was successful. Its amazing when the relationship works but also makes it harder sometimes to leave when we are well and the time is right.
 
Oof, my therapist experience. My first therapist I could actually report to the board and get her license revoked. She made me 150% worse. She was fine at first, pretty good. But then she injured herself. She's an addict (pills), and I think she got the doctor to give her pills, because she fell hard, fast. She stopped making sense. I stopped going as much, and one day we wanted to work on processing my rape. I chose not to report (there was no proof of anything, he was my boyfriend at the time, and there was no sense in going into an uncaring justice system with that information). She pushed me to report over, and over again. Then she told me the story of her rape, and how she was the only one he didn't murder, and how I was basically a terrible person for not reporting because this guy was going to do it to other people, and that *I* was responsible. She also blamed me for someone raping me when I was blacked out from weed and alcohol because "maybe if I didn't smoke and drink so much this wouldn't happen to me." I don't think I'd ever posted this on this forum before but I should have. After that I stopped going to her. I blocked her but she found me on facebook and EFFING *WAVED* AT ME like a year ago. I blocked her on everything. Which actually reminds me of when I broke up with the guy who raped, abused, and cheated on me and then his mom wished me a happy holidays and I asked who it was because I had deleted her number, looked up the number and I texted back "oh, I know who this is now" and blocked her lol. She was nice and I loved her honestly but her son was a terrible human being.

My second therapist, who is my current therapist, is amazing. AMAZING. I came in and he diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder about two months in. Within a year, I no longer had the full diagnostic traits. He always told me it was a diagnosis I wouldn't have to have anymore, and that I could possibly get past PTSD too. I went twice a week for about 6 months, and worked at it like it was my job (because it was, basically, I was out of school due to medical leave from PTSD). Now I go once a week or so, sometimes less. He's amazing. Great, great person, and an amazing therapist. He has wonderful metaphors, and it helps that we're both LGBTQ because he can relate to me on an extra level. In two years with him I feel almost fully recovered. I honestly couldn't tell you the last time I had a flashback. I still have anxiety attacks but I can stop them before they start. My depressive episodes are shorter. I'm managing my mental health much better than before. I'm really sad I have to move and find someone new.
 
I'm on my first therapist and only been with her for a little over half a year. At first I was really pleasantly surprised, but for a while now have felt a little stagnant. She seems experienced enough, including trauma, but is majorly about mindfulness and somehow I find this utterly annoying. We tried doing some trauma work including EMDR, but I didn't seem to respond on that. We're currently not working on PTSD/trauma stuff and mostly on more immediate stressors. I am slightly annoyed by her general positive enforcement aprpoach, which in itself is not a bad thing (and probably super important for the really depressed folks), but I feel like I'm being handeled with particular care that I don't need. You can tell me if I'm completely off with something, you don't have to praise me for even putting in the effort to think or research about something on my own.

Despite my occasional frustration with my T, I actually like her and do think it could've been way worse. I have to admit, though, that I feel I clicked better with my PDoch, but unfortunately only see her every couple months and only for 20mins/session. She doesn't do therapy and is purely about meds.
 
If therapy suppose to activate my early experience with my mother, and that beginning of my life was as harsh as my body and mind tell me implicitly, then I find therapy excuritianig but I am working through and so far have seen improvements of extremely deeper healing .

No matter how crazy or out of place, every feeling evoked, I investigate like scientist to determine if it is mine (mostly) it is or if it is the therapist or a new experience born out if the situation (hardly ever got the latter unless it is healing). The middle, if I get the courage to bring up, I already had a breakthrough.
It has not been this deeply satisfying though.
I have had 3 other therapists since I joined this journey in the past 2.5 yrs.
Every rupture was blessing in disguise. Every pain was a body memory verbalize,relived and finally reintegrated.

Today I can say I have a real and workable therapatutic alliance.
 
I changed Ts along the way. A lot. Mostly out of necessity.

Some were pretty shit in retrospect, and did a lot of damage.

But I learned something from every single one of them.

The time wasn't always being spent in the most productive way that it could have been. But hindsight is 20/20. The fact is I was a hot mess when I finally started seeing a T, and it's taken me a long time to know enough about me, and enough about therapy, to have some sensible degree of insight into exactly what I need help with and the safest way to go about that.

A lot of the time? They kept me alive and taught me some skills to help me do that by myself. Perhaps not a very high bar to set, but it's where I am. And I honestly don't think there was any other route that could have been taken.

I've learned that I don't need to trust a T to learn skills from them. If they're suitably qualified, I'll usually give them the benefit of the doubt - they see the world differently to me, and have learned enough stuff to get a certificate that I don't have, so even if all they offer is a different perspective and a requirement that I turn up, alive and in one piece the following week? That's better than isolating.
 
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