Therapy pisses me off

[Ihavetinnitus_mawp]

Bigeekgirl I have noticed some therapists like to cherry pick what they work on, it sure can be annoying when you want to deal with one issue and they keep dragging the focus to something else!

[brownblob]

No, I didn't try switching. I think enough of the problem is me. I may try it again at some point, but for now I'm quitting. I really don't know what to work on or how willing I am to change.

[Ihavetinnitus_mawp]

I struggle with that too. It seems like there are so many problems and they're all interrelated - how do you choose? When you start pulling at one thread in the web of shit, other things start getting pulled out of whack - how to fix one thing when nothing in my mind exists in isolation? I do think there has to be a therapist out there that can work with you when you're ready but I so totally get that sometimes it's just not the right time. It takes so.fucking.much.energy to work on this stuff. I also relate to not knowing if you even want to fix it - I start wondering if all I really want is to wallow in my own ranty musings than to actually be challenged by someone into changing myself. I definitely relate to that struggle.

[Ihavetinnitus_mawp]

So today my therapist said to me that I seem to have thought of everything already so she doesn't see much point in continuing to give me suggestions. So what can she do for me at this point, she asks. This is the second time I've been faced with this question by a therapist and I immediately feel like they're about to give up on me. Like I have to prove my brokenness to them. Is this a tactic they all do and what are they expecting to get out of it? Clearly I need help with my issues and I feel like they are minimizing my challenges, not listening (I have to repeat myself even though it's all there in the chat window) or just bored with me. Can a therapist dismissive someone and just say yeah I can't help you, or is this a ploy to get me to open up about something or to back me into a contradiction or something? It's so confusing and frustrating.

[brownblob]

To me, it sounds like they are frustrated, but maybe it is an attempt to confront you to get you to open up to their suggestions. I don't know.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm just wallowing in my issues or my past. But other times I feel like I'm bottling all of this in and I just need to be seen and let it out.

[Not Ready Yet]

Kati Morton is a therapist who has a YouTube channel where she talks about a variety of mental health subjects. (Paul interviewed her in Episodes 214 and 226.) One of the things she says quite often about therapy is "therapy is a job. And some people suck at their jobs."

I've had similar feelings/frustrations in therapy. I've been to several therapists and out of those only one was really helpful. I saw her for a year and would have kept going, but she moved across the country.

I think I would get fed up with a therapist who is giving me suggestions (not that suggestions aren't sometimes helpful) because what I really want to is first be deeply understood. The therapist I mentioned above really took the time to understand me. There were a handful of times she didn't understand me, and I was able to bring this up with her and resolve the situation without her getting defensive in even the slightest way, AND she thanked me afterwards for being brave enough to address the issue with her(!), which made her pretty awesome in my mind.

Regardless of what your goal(s) for therapy are or what you want in a therapist, you sound really frustrated, and for me that's enough to suggest you move on. If you decide to do so, feel free to interview as many therapists as it takes before you settle on one. The therapist above told me she still goes to therapy herself from time to time and will typically interview 3 or 4 before she picks one.

[Ihavetinnitus_mawp]

Do you have any suggestions as to what to ask your therapist or are there resources out there that you know of for interviewing a therapist? I fully get the need to be deeply understood. I feel so dismissed and unseen in daily life that it really hurts when my therapist also seems to act in a way that makes me feel dismissed or unseen. I know I'm a lot. I've got a lot going on in my brain and it's like wading through a mire to sort it all out and then do some meaningful work to improve my mental state but if they can't do the wading with me I can't get better. I'm not a one size fits all kind of person.

[Ihavetinnitus_mawp]

Well I changed BetterHelp therapists. When I asked if I was someone she wanted to work with she seemed indifferent either way. She wasted the first half of out first live session trying to make a phone call work but when the call wouldn't stop glitching she basically said oh well, get it sorted out with BetterHelp then maybe we can try again next week. Didn't even offer to live chat which was my preference to begin with. WTH? So when I finally just said I don't think this is a good fit she said well what do you want in a counselor? Just someone to vent to? Just so you know most counsellors don't respond as often as I do so you'll have to contend with that. Again WTH? I figure, what she offered was of so little substance and her rigidity with communication method was so off putting that I'd take someone who responds less but has more to say when they do respond that this empty back and forth we were doing. Moving on!! Argh.

[Not Ready Yet]

Wow... and ugh. I am SO sorry. That therapist had no business responding to you like that, and in my opinion, she should take a break from practicing.

I hope you like to read because I'm going to throw some links at you!

About questions to ask when interviewing a new therapist, I think an important one for you will be, "How do you handle resistance in therapy?"

Here are a few more decent questions: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -therapist

Some more to think about: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychi ... py-0129154

Pay attention to points 4, 5, 7 and 8 here: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -therapist

Some questions to ask yourself after you've been with a therapist a while: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... -therapist

Also, you might want to listen to this week's episode with Andy Richter. He and Paul talk about therapy starting around the 59 minute mark.

[Ihavetinnitus_mawp]

Thank you so much for all of this information! I read and saved all of it. I was definitely afraid to bail on this therapist because cutting and running can be a bit of a pattern for me, especially with jobs. But reading those articles confirmed that I made the right decision to move on from each of the therapists, for different reasons each time. I especially appreciated this statement: "If you are in therapy feeling alone and unsupported, if you haven’t learned anything new, and if your behavior has not changed at all, then you’re not in therapy, at least not in therapy that’s any good."

The Andy Richter episode is so timely for me. His statements about needing to keep trying and empathizing about how hard that can be were exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.