Therapists Who Won't Talk About What's Bothering You

[Dana1010]

I wasn't willing to pay a lot of money to figure out what her issue was. That's the thing about therapy, it's expensive. I can't pay to find out why other people are shutting me down.

So having played the "Wait until you stabilize," game and then took the other route--basically, "Hurry up and process this, so that I can stabilize," would you say the latter is definitely better?

For myself, the only times during my last stint in therapy where I felt like I was getting somewhere towards stabilizing was after real processing was done. The sessions where she lingered on small talk, I left frustrated and swearing to myself that I would fire her next time.

 

[rightkindofme]

Hoo boy. I won't say "definitely better". It's fraught.

I am not a stable person. I am getting slowly more stable... but not at the rate that outside observers wish. It is not ok for me to pay for services at a rate someone else feels like delivering them. I'm asking for what I need, how I need it, when I need it. Don't bleeping tell me that you think I don't need it.

So... it's fraught. Things are improving... my life is still very rocky.

 

[Dana1010]

So basically, the requirements are:

1. Let me talk about what I want to talk about.

2. Don't blow smoke up my ass.

Doesn't seem like much to ask.

 

[City Slicker]

I think the one I saw was simply scared and not experienced enough. I could see she had issues but I was stupid enough to think that I could work with her despite what I was seeing and despite my mind, body and soul were telling me to get the hell out of there. I thought maybe this was a chance to challenge my own 'comfort zone' and learn to trust someone finally.

Some nasty stuff happened that red-flagged me early but she consistently shut me down the entire time. She never explained why. She never talked about stabilizing but when I would approach telling her about a specific trauma she would tell me she didn't know what to do with what I had just told her. And then uncomfortable and unusual silence.

My attempts at disclosures would just sit there and we never went back to any of it - she never commented, never offered any thoughts, except her not knowing what to do with it. This happened enough times that after I thought about the pattern I did eventually say to her that it seemed to me as though I scared the crap out of her by trying to tell her things.

She stumbled over her words when I asked her directly what the deal was - she mumbled that it seemed like I had told her all my traumas already and that there probably wasn't much left to tell. I wasn't shocked by what she said, but I was terribly saddened. I had barely been able to talk about anything and I knew it was over then - I wouldn't be able to 'unsee' how bad this was.

I never would have expected I would have been so affected by a situation like this I guess because I tend to stay fairly guarded my entire life but I found the experience intensely retraumatizing, destabilizing, and humbling.

I haven't been able to consider finding someone new to work with. The thought of it makes me sick and I never felt that way before I saw this past one. The whole retraumatizing thing with her kind of disrupted me for a while there. I still feel it and that was almost a year ago now that I ended therapy with her.

 

[Dana1010]

@City Slicker, that's the whole thing--this idea that they have to "do something" with what you tell them. Such as dice it into cubes and make a stir fry with it? Who told them they had to do anything with it? That must be what the happy talk from my old therapist was all about--doing something with it. No thanks. I'm not looking for a ping pong game. It would be infinitely better if they would just shut up and listen to what we say. Was that too hard for her?

I hope to God you weren't paying her out of pocket. Was she a trauma specialist?

 

[City Slicker]

Hey @Dana1010 - Yes I was paying out of pocket - $160 per session (it went up while I was seeing her - I should have taken that as an early sign lol!!).

No, she wasn't a trauma specialist.
The funny thing was when I went to see her I didn't know I had PTSD, I didn't know the scope of PTSD so I had no idea I should have been looking for a trauma specialist. Early into our work she told me I had PTSD so I set about researching and studying everything I could find about it. I asked her if she was able to deal with ptsd and she said she was. I see differently now.

I know what you mean about the ping pong - she needn't have 'done' anything. But by not being able to reach out and connect in any way, by not being able to even make a simple empathic comment to me to acknowledge what I was saying, or to 'witness' in some way, her inability to facilitate a shared alliance created not just irreparable ruptures in our relationship but it lead to a flood of all kinds of stuff I am just now feeling able to start breathing through.

She did say that she had no idea the extent of the 'trauma' I had experienced when I made that first phone call to her. lol, neither did I.

Then she said her 'career trajectory' was taking her on a different path. It was all really loaded so that ultimately I felt I was shameful and wrong - and I hated that I had given her this kind of power.

She still wouldn't say she was out of her depth - In the end I felt like a monster, - wanting something from her, expecting something from her that she couldn't give - and I felt cruel, like a bully for even wanting what she couldn't give. It replicated the kind of kind of childhood I had - wanting a mother to just pay attention long enough to stop the horrible things that were happening - so I thought I would make use of what I could learn from the experience.

In the end the 'corrective experience' came from me in that I was the one that ultimately was there for me when I felt no-one else was or could be.

 

[Ivan the Elder]

Hmmm. I am certainly glad that I have such an excellent therapist. She is very good at dealing with PTSD. I think that is in part because her own husband has PTSD.

One thing to remember is that it only takes a slight pause in the word therapist to create the rapist, especially when your own money is involved.

 

[Kefira]

One thing to remember is that it only takes a slight pause in the word therapist to create the rapist, especially when your own money is involved.

Right, because that's appropriate helpful, or even some what accurate.... and in a 4 month old thread.
Some therapists are awful. Sometimes we just aren't seeing ones who are skilled in what it is we need (trauma IS a specialization after all), and yes depending on where you live the cost can be prohibitive. It can also be more than a bit frustrating trying to cover out of pocket fees on your own, and then discovering the therapist you were seeing wasn't what you needed or was generally sub-par.

Typically though I'd personally consider conflating someone who is in my employ taking an agreed upon fee for a service that can be terminated at will with a rapist as rather crude and unnecessary. Maybe that's just me though.

 

[Ivan the Elder]

It may be four months old but it's near the top of the list the forum provides in my weekly e-mail. I thought it was a somewhat appropriate joke, somewhat.... At least here the expense is covered by the government. They even have very good people available too, at least in the therapy department. I can't say the same for certain other areas of psychiatric treatment I recently was treated to and by, against my will. They cranked up my PTSD to maximum and the word rapist isn't nearly strong enough.

I am currently considering suing the government for more money than they have. I don't want the money, I want it to hit the supreme court and I have enough to get lawyers to do that. I don't want to ever see anybody else subjected to the abuse that dissolved my ex wife and my marriage of 44 years.