What Do People Do To Get The Most Out Of Therapy?

[ghotiff]

When I started being able to see how I could learn to manage here and now properly I had the trust in myself and my therapist to tackle the underlying and core issues.

This resonated very much with me. Until I am sure that my T and I can speak the same language I'm unwilling to get too into my trauma.

My ability to talk about it is limited and as such my statements would be easy to misinterpret, which I would then find difficult to fix. This happened with my first T and she thinks things happened that didn't etc.

 

[Elsa23]

Thanks. Funny you should say that. I actually had a session this morning, and I can only say I've never been so frustrated. Last week I felt I had finally been able to express myself and that she got what the problem really was. This week it was like that never happened and we were starting from scratch. It felt like we were talking about all the vague things and from a completely different angle. What I did say, I felt was misunderstood. The more I tried to explain what I originally meant, the more she tried to convince me my thinking was wrong and thought I was debating it with her. All I was trying to do was say that the original thing I said had been misunderstood. Not even sure if that even makes sense. :-/ Normally she has a very good memory for the things I tell her - even the seemingly insignificant. I felt so upset we were getting back into this vague stuff again. I felt we managed clarity last week and we were going to work from there. Afterwards I wondered if her going at it from a different angle was deliberate. Because otherwise I felt we just started from the beginning again and the session just felt like such a waste. It's difficult enough to express some of this stuff with clarity, I want to feel some progress for it when I actually manage it. It had taken me a year and a half to get to last week. Sorry for the rant - just very disheartened today </3

 

[sun seeker]

The more I tried to explain what I originally meant, the more she tried to convince me my thinking was wrong and thought I was debating it with her.

I hate it when therapists do this! They are probably trying to be helpful, but it isn't helpful when what you are needing is to be heard.

I wonder if you could tell her the things you just told us. Part of what is so therapeutic about therapy is being able to work out glitches in the relationship in a safe way, which for some of us is the first time in our lives we have been able to do that. She may think her job is to problem-solve (which is likely what she was doing when you felt she was telling you that your thinking was wrong) but if that isn't what you need right now, I think you need to tell her so.

With my therapist, who is fairly new (to me), from the beginning I explained that one of the things that went wrong with my previous therapist was that we were on completely different pages about how therapy was going. She was under the impression there was some therapeutic process going on while I felt we hadn't even begun, and I repeatedly felt she was falling short of understanding the severity of my symptoms. After explaining this to the new therapist she suggested we begin each session by going over anything that arose in the last session and talking about whether there was anything I needed to be different. Just the fact that she remembers to ask at the beginning of each session helps me feel heard. I wonder if there is something you could work into the structure of your sessions as a sort of safeguard so misunderstandings don't go on for too long?

 

[ghotiff]

I felt was misunderstood. The more I tried to explain what I originally meant, the more she tried to convince me my thinking was wrong and thought I was debating it with her

What a horrible session. I've been there, but I didn't try to correct after a couple of attempts, I just let her think the wrong thing. Ultimately I left that T.

You should definitely try to bring this up. This happened with my current T once early on and I sent her a long email to explain (email is easier for me) and after that one time, it's never happened again. Thinking about it, now, she checks often that she's understood and gives me opportunities to correct things. I really like my current T.