- Moderator
- #13
Sideways
VIP Member
This sounds a bit like my ‘emotions’ conversations. T prods at my emotional experience, I respond with “I don’t know how to identify emotions”. They proceed to ask me a dozen different ways about what my emotional experience was, getting the same response. Session ends with both of us completely frustrated.
So I dumbed it down. I needed it dumbed down. And I started answering theid question with: “I’m a toddler when it comes to identifying emotions. Can you suggest some reading I can do to help me learn about identifying emotions as a place to start.”
The key to the success of that depended on (a) the T’s ability to recommend useful resources; and (b) me returning the following week with “This is the progress I’ve made, this is where I’m currently stuck. Help me.”
So, when a T asks, “What’s been helpful in the past?” You’ve identified that this is an unhelpful question. I’d be itching to respond with, “10 years in therapy suggests SFA has helped in the past.” Not a helpful way to dialogue though!
What may be helpful? “Can you point me to resources that suggest new coping methods I can try, because the ones I have aren’t working, and my distress levels right now are making it hard to problem-solve this myself.”
Then you can go back and explore what helped, what was a disaster, and what might be worth pursuing in terms of practicing new coping strategies. I always take written notes with this sort of stuff - it’s a visible way of demonstrating to the T “I’m not just being resistant, or recounting whatever came to mind in the last 5 minutes, I really have gone away and worked on this”. It makes it super clear for the T what problem you’re working on, the support they might be able to provide with that (usually their major role is to reassure you that you should keep up the hard work because it will eventually pay off), and the pace that you and your mental health need to move at right now.
Asking to work on coping skills, AND asking to work on processing trauma and dealing with current life stressors, are often things that aren’t done at the same time.
If you have the coping skills and simply need to emotionally unload to a sympathetic ear? Tell your T at the start of the appointment, “I need to emotionally unload today to a sympathetic ear, is that ok?”
But if you need to sure up your coping skills (why are my current ones not working, and what are new ones I can try?), that’s a different type of session. It’s a ‘bring your pad and pen and make a list with T’ type session. Simplify the process. Lists of ‘pleasant activities’ are a dime a dozen, and you can literally print them out and start ticking them off as you try them, and then take that work to your T as you work through it.
Other than that? Asking for a referral to a specific therapy course. Screw psychotherapists, and head to the classroom. “Okay T, can you refer me to a good CBT/DBT/ACT group?” Any one of those, even if uou’re re-doing it for the dozenth time? Is likely to provide a baseline support framework, and stimulus for new ways to look at new issues, that you may find helpful, regardless of already knowing the content backwards.
ETA: “I called 10 support people and got zero help”? Was a commenf worth exploring. Calling support people is crazy helpful. Unless it’s not, at whoch point it starts making everything a shittonne worse. 10 people is a LOT of phone calls to make and end up with nothing. The discussion might have been helpful exploring why that list of 10 support people didn’t work - because the strategy (calling support people) is an awesome one, and it’s worth fifurong out how to make that strategy work better next time.
So I dumbed it down. I needed it dumbed down. And I started answering theid question with: “I’m a toddler when it comes to identifying emotions. Can you suggest some reading I can do to help me learn about identifying emotions as a place to start.”
The key to the success of that depended on (a) the T’s ability to recommend useful resources; and (b) me returning the following week with “This is the progress I’ve made, this is where I’m currently stuck. Help me.”
So, when a T asks, “What’s been helpful in the past?” You’ve identified that this is an unhelpful question. I’d be itching to respond with, “10 years in therapy suggests SFA has helped in the past.” Not a helpful way to dialogue though!
What may be helpful? “Can you point me to resources that suggest new coping methods I can try, because the ones I have aren’t working, and my distress levels right now are making it hard to problem-solve this myself.”
Then you can go back and explore what helped, what was a disaster, and what might be worth pursuing in terms of practicing new coping strategies. I always take written notes with this sort of stuff - it’s a visible way of demonstrating to the T “I’m not just being resistant, or recounting whatever came to mind in the last 5 minutes, I really have gone away and worked on this”. It makes it super clear for the T what problem you’re working on, the support they might be able to provide with that (usually their major role is to reassure you that you should keep up the hard work because it will eventually pay off), and the pace that you and your mental health need to move at right now.
Asking to work on coping skills, AND asking to work on processing trauma and dealing with current life stressors, are often things that aren’t done at the same time.
If you have the coping skills and simply need to emotionally unload to a sympathetic ear? Tell your T at the start of the appointment, “I need to emotionally unload today to a sympathetic ear, is that ok?”
But if you need to sure up your coping skills (why are my current ones not working, and what are new ones I can try?), that’s a different type of session. It’s a ‘bring your pad and pen and make a list with T’ type session. Simplify the process. Lists of ‘pleasant activities’ are a dime a dozen, and you can literally print them out and start ticking them off as you try them, and then take that work to your T as you work through it.
Other than that? Asking for a referral to a specific therapy course. Screw psychotherapists, and head to the classroom. “Okay T, can you refer me to a good CBT/DBT/ACT group?” Any one of those, even if uou’re re-doing it for the dozenth time? Is likely to provide a baseline support framework, and stimulus for new ways to look at new issues, that you may find helpful, regardless of already knowing the content backwards.
ETA: “I called 10 support people and got zero help”? Was a commenf worth exploring. Calling support people is crazy helpful. Unless it’s not, at whoch point it starts making everything a shittonne worse. 10 people is a LOT of phone calls to make and end up with nothing. The discussion might have been helpful exploring why that list of 10 support people didn’t work - because the strategy (calling support people) is an awesome one, and it’s worth fifurong out how to make that strategy work better next time.
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