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

[Dana1010]

I've been out of therapy since last fall, and I'm now ready for another round and am shopping for a doctor. I want to understand what exactly I desire, and what I want to avoid so I can make a good choice this time.

The last go around, one of the big reasons I fired this therapist was her strange reluctance to talk about what was bothering me. Every week I would go in and say, "I was thinking about x again," and every week she would steer the conversation away from x. Some people here told me that sometimes therapists want you to be very experienced with grounding and coping skills before they go into your trauma, and that going into trauma before you're ready would hurt you more than help you. That is fair enough, but if something has already bobbed to the surface and is looping like a broken record, I think it's a little damned late; it's fairly screaming to be processed.

I'm divided between two theories about why she did this. One is that she can't handle hearing about dark and gritty stuff, hence the happy talk she would regularly blow back at me whenever I'd say something cynical or pessimistic (very annoying). The other is that she wanted to drag out clients' therapy for years to keep her roster full. She was big on "the relationship," "management," and was fond of saying how loooong it was going to take for me to trust her. I actually asked her if there was a reason she was steering, and she acted like she didn't know what I was talking about. If there was a therapeutic reason for it, she would have told me, right? That makes me think the whole thing was shady and profit driven.

Has anyone else had therapists who won't let you talk about what's bothering you? What do you think their motive is? I want to know how to weed them out this time.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I guess I'm a bit confused as to why she was saying it was going to take a long time for you to trust her?

Ok, so I am very UN-trusting.....but at the same time, I know that a certain level of trust can be there right away. I had one therapist that I trusted from day one because she gave me a HUGE reason to trust her from our very first meeting.

Maybe this therapist was accustomed to trauma clients being unable to trust, and this was her way of saying that it was ok if you couldn't trust her? Of course, this is just a guess.

Yes, I did have one therapist silence me, but it was only in relation to reporting issues. That is, she had a VERY good reason to silence me when I said certain things because she was legally bound to report abuse once she had identifying details. That is, she was protecting me from having reporting forced upon me before I was ready.

I think that a good therapist will let you talk about things when you are ready. A good therapist will know how to take things slowly so that you can avoid being triggered. That is, rather than silence you outright, a good therapist will know how to take things slowly so that your system doesn't become overwhelmed. Silencing you isn't a good thing, but there is also the need to protect you from having a system overload by saying too much at once. Its a balancing act to say the least, and I don't think your last therapist quite knew how to balance it all out.

 

[WillyKat]

One other possible reason is that she wanted to change perceptions. Now maybe she did it ineffectively, but I know my shrink will do that. In other words, you speak about how you see things and they offer back a differing perspective. I'm just guessing though.

In any case, it doesn't sound like the chemistry was right for you. So I would suggest phone screens and maybe even in-person sessions just to shop around. You may or may not want to tell them your shopping, but don't commit to regular meetings until you're reasonably certain you will have a good relationship.

 

[Fadeaway]

Yes, that sounds exactly like the therapist that fired me recently. It was something I needed to address sooner rather than later because of the effect it was having in my day to day functioning and the more I felt like the therapist was avoiding the subject the bigger it became for me.

 

[rightkindofme]

I've dealt with this. During phone screens I say, "I need to be able to talk about trauma that goes to 11 on a scale of 1-10 without you flinching or changing the topic or making your discomfort the focus of a session. Can you handle that?" I haven't been fired for being scary in a few years...

 

[HëllaBubz]

One is that she can't handle hearing about dark and gritty stuff, hence the happy talk she would regularly blow back at me whenever I'd say something cynical or pessimistic (very annoying). The other is that she wanted to drag out clients' therapy for years to keep her roster full. She was big on "the relationship," "management," and was fond of saying how loooong it was going to take for me to trust her.

Your therapist is most likely neither. And yes, it can take several years for your mind AND body to trust your psychiatrist.

She is most likely steering you away from that topic because you are unable to avoid triggering when you talk about X. It is wise of her to teach you how to feel safe first.

If she didn't, it would be the equivalent of you, a small child, saying "I want to get that toy at the bottom of the pool".

If she let you, knowing you can't swim, it would be wrong of her. She needs to teach you how to swim, and the confidence to swim by yourself with very few accidents before you're allowed in the deep pool.

If she let you talk about X, and you got triggered, your next complaint might be that your psych triggered you and that sessions make you feel worse.

At the same time, it also sounds like you have made your mind up about this T, and you're looking for supporting reasons to bolster your confidence in your decision.

I could be wrong, it's just my feeling from this.

Give her a chance, and ask your T directly why she does it. There is method to her madness.

 

[rightkindofme]

The thing is... when someone needs to talk about something... telling them that they aren't allowed to until an outside observer decides they are "ready" is...

That's never worked for me. It has never resulted in those people deciding I get a turn to talk. I'm never calm enough for them. I'm never collected enough.

I stopped playing that game. I'm paying for this time. I'll talk about the stuff I need to talk about.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

@TheBubzilla,

I think she's talking about an ex therapist that she ended things with awhile ago.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

I agree with @rightkindofme.

I am the one who decides when I want to talk. Sufferers have typically gone through a LOOOONG period of silence, either through shame, denial, or threat. The last thing we need is a therapist who continues to silence us. (My therapist's hands were tied due to the law, so it wasn't her doing that was silencing me.)

I think that we know ourselves best. No therapist is ever going to know us as we know us. This is why I vote more for the middle of the road route where a client is allowed to speak, but the therapist closely monitors the client and urges the client to take things slowly so that things can be processed. If a therapist is constantly silencing a client, dare I say this could be a continuation of the trauma itself? We all deserve a voice, and we all deserve to be able to speak when we want to. The therapist does indeed work for us, so if the therapist is doing nothing but silencing, it is a sign that the therapist may not know how to balance the clients needs and such.

 

[Dana1010]

Yes, that sounds exactly like the therapist that fired me recently. It was something I needed to address sooner rather than later because of the effect it was having in my day to day functioning and the more I felt like the therapist was avoiding the subject the bigger it became for me.

So did you ever find out why the therapist was doing it? Do you have any hunches?

I've dealt with this.

Do you have any idea what was behind it? Was it their own squeamishness?

She is most likely steering you away from that topic because you are unable to avoid triggering when you talk about X. It is wise of her to teach you how to feel safe first.

I remember when I first told her about what happened and the memory that was looping. There was some inappropriate laughter and judgments made about the person in question. I was not dissociating or breaking down in tears or hysterics. Whenever she gave me the chance to talk about it (oddly, almost never) I left feeling cleansed and somehow lighter. So no, I don't think she was worried about me disappearing into a K hole or anything.

I still have this crap playing like a movie in my head, and I'm really hoping I find someone who will let me process it thoroughly this time. Actually there is a whole chapter of my life in which the aforementioned incident occurred that contains a mass of trauma. I didn't even touch that with my former therapist. Not that her happy talk would have done any good, anyway.

 

[HëllaBubz]

I remember when I first told her about what happened and the memory that was looping. There was some inappropriate laughter and judgments made about the person in question.

That's disturbing. I'm sorry you had to deal with it.
,

 

[Dana1010]

Oh, I should have clarified, @TheBubzilla, I was the one laughing and voicing judgments--not the therapist.