So, I started 'psychotherapy' or whatever it is you people call it and right now this is the only immediate therapist I can afford so don't tell me to 'find another therapist,' because right now it's this therapist or bust. But all it's been is me word vomiting for an hour at a time while the therapist nods her head and asks me how that makes me feel continued by more word vomiting from me. It seemed to be going okay until we talked about my mother and I spilled out a hundred thousand words about my mom and after that session I felt so down in the dumps I didn't know what to do. After that session it my depression and anxiety were physically attacking me, like there was a weight put on my head after that session and I wanted to kill myself. Like, no joke, I wanted to die. I'm fine now, I got over it, but I have another session ahead of me of silent therapist/word vomiting victim coming on the fourth and I'm not looking forward to it. As I always have with therapy, I'm dreading my next session. I don't think psychotherapy is right for me. In fact, I think it's a pitiful excuse for treatment, it's nothing but me sitting there spilling out my darkest secrets to a stranger who records them. Why do you people do this to yourselves? I mean Jesus Christ, goddamn. It's no wonder half of the gay community is depressed and no wonder why straight depressed people are in therapy-- it's a form of oppression and it makes us think we're getting something out of it that we're not so we keep coming back for more-- to stay depressed and to keep the therapist's wallet fat. Seriously, what am I supposed to be getting out of this? Other than wanting to murder myself after every session that is?
How long have you been seeing this therapist? If it's only been a few (1-4) sessions, the word-vomiting may be due to her trying to get a thorough understanding about what's upsetting you, since therapists need lots of information to begin helping you out, and it can take a long time for them to get a clear picture. (For instance, my therapist needed about 5 straight sessions of talking before she could get a clear picture of what might help me and what would hurt me.) If it's been many sessions, that's completely unacceptable on her end- she's not even making an effort to do what you've paid her for. She may be "seeing progress" from you and just not seeing anything, but if so, she's pretty clearly wrong. (Ask her if she thinks you're getting any better, and if she says yes, tell her you're actually feeling worse.) My advice (ill-informed advice, though- get some other opinions, too) would be to ask her straight up what she can do to help you. Tell her, "I have a goal for these sessions. I want to come out of this with the ability to _____. How are you planning to help me achieve this?" I asked something like that of my therapist- I told her my goal was to end my freakouts and be able to focus on my schoolwork. She respected that, and ever since, being able to calm down and focus has usually been the main topic of our sessions. Although we get off-track sometimes (she really wants to know as much as she can about what's bothering me, and that sometimes involves treading on extremely uncomfortable territory), overall that goal has narrowed/focused the therapy into something helpful and progressive. If you try to set a goal and she fails to respect that (ignores you, seems to agree but forgets later on, plows ahead with her own agenda), drop that therapist. She is not helping you by making you talk endlessly and providing no input on how you can recover from your misery. If you feel like you can, go without therapy for a while until another option is available to you. It also wouldn't hurt to mention how badly that last session hurt you, if you can bring yourself to talk about it. I hope things start working out for you soon...
Thanks for your input, I've had maybe four sessions with her, now-- maybe I'm not giving it enough of a chance because I view psychotherapy as little more than glorified palm reading, but that last session hurt a lot. I went to sleep and when I woke up I was still upset. I thought if this is how I'm going to feel after every session then fuck this sideways with a hammer. But yes, I've only seen her maybe five times, four or five. Not many. Definitely not more than seven, not less than three. She's a licensed social worker, so I immediately don't trust her, and I don't like the fact that she audio-records everything instead of writing it down. It may be more efficient but it seems somehow unclean to me.
Yeah, that sucks... delving into your most painful memories and being made to talk about them can be unbearable sometimes. If that really is how you end up feeling after every session, break out the hammer. No one deserves to feel that depressed so frequently. I'd say give her one last chance, and if she still makes you upset/refuses to work with you, drop the therapy. If you step up and tell her what you need in order to feel comfortable and make progress, she might be willing to make some changes. That could be the start of something genuinely helpful. If she continues the silent treatment, though, na na na na hey hey hey goodbye. I can see why the audio-recording would feel suspicious to you- I once saw a psychiatrist who I could have sworn was recording me with hidden cameras. (I was disturbed and paranoid at the time, but the guy was very unnerving regardless.) On the other hand, she might really need the recorder in order to remember what happened during a session. It might be worth asking about not using the recorder, if you haven't- this is a therapy session; you can say pretty much anything you want or need to say. Psychotherapy definitely works better with the right therapist and under the right life circumstances. And it works better for some people than others, but when it does work, it's the opposite of glorified palm-reading. The psychiatrist I saw in the past definitely didn't work out, but I think I may have ended up with an uncommonly good match for my current therapist (similar spiritual beliefs, similar views on life and acceptance and such). The biggest difference was that she's the kind of person who holds a casual conversation at first and then seamlessly blends it into the therapy part. She's willing to interact, to make jokes, and to switch topics if things start to get too painful (provided I try to tell her why it's painful). I've been seeing her for a year now and there have been one or two want-to-die-afterwards sessions, but there has also been a good bit of progress. It just takes an inordinate amount of time and mental effort... life can be funny (and incredibly jerkish) that way.
I thnk what you're experiencing is pretty much exactly what you should be experiencing at this stage. I suspect that the reason you have so much anger, negativity and contempt for the world in general is because you're holding in an enormous amount of unexpressed anger and rage (they are different.) So to be honest, it sounds like your therapist is actually doing a very good job of helping you -- simply by listening and encouraging at this stage -- to delve deeper into the issues that are causing problems for you. And that, in turn, feels miserable in the short term. You're feeling stuff you've perhaps never really allowed yourself to feel. And that's exactly how you work through it... by bringing it up, experiencing it, processing and reframing it, and then being able to let go of (or at least put into context) the anger you've got built up. Once you have done that -- and it might take a month, or three months -- then what will emerge is a different perspective on the world. I've had weeks, even months, where I felt *miserable* after therapy... simply because I was going into some very dark, unexplored places, and bringing up the feelings I'd carefuly locked away... but were affecting me in all sorts of different ways. And once I'd worked through those pieces, it was simply amazing how much better I felt, how much more productive I was, and how much more able to deal with the world. To correct a couple of misconceptions from above: -- Therapists don't necessarily need a deep understanding of who you are in order to help you. A well-trained therapist can pick up pretty quickly from a variety of input -- body language, demeanor, the actual words you speak, the way you speak, the things *not* said -- what's going on for you and it isn't uncommon for a good therapist to be able to key in on important issues within the first session or two. -- There's no reason to distrust an LCSW. In fact, I've met plenty of LCSWs who are better clinicians that Ph.D psychologists. There's tremendous variation, depending on training, because the LCSW track is entirely a clinical one oriented at therapy, while the Ph.D track at many psych programs is research oriented, and the social worker actually gets more training in therapy. Additionally, social workers are trained in a broader perspective of social justtce, family dynamics, and the impact of society and things like heterosexism, so for LGBT people they often have deeper insight. Of course... there are terrible social workers, terrible psychologists, and outstanding ones of both, so the degree itself isn't key... how the particular therapist makes use of the skills s/he has is what's key. The fact your therapist records sesslons can certainly be unnerving, but is actually a sign of a really good therapist: She can listen back to the session and identify places where her interactions aren't ideal, she can pick up on nuance that may be lost in the moment if she's trying to take notes, and it can potentially give her the capability to better help you. It's also an indication that she really cares, as it takes extra time to listen back to the sessions... most clinicians wouldn't take the time to do that. She should also have set the tone that if you're feeling shitty in between sessions that you can call her... and you should make use of that. (If she doesn't do that, there's a problem.) The nature of dealing with the sorts of issues you are dealing with is that there's going to be a lot of "aftershocks" and "vulnerability hangovers" and a good therapist will be there to talk to you for a few minutes once or twice between sessions both to give you some immediate coping strategies and to perhaps help you understand better what's going on and why you're feeling the way you do. You can definintely ask for what you need, and you definitely should tell her how shitty you're feeling between sessions... she may suggest going more slowly and processing the individual pieces more completely... and you can also ask her about her theoretical orientation and approach, as that will help you better understand what's going on. Depending on the orientation, there can be a "less is more" approach where the therapists talks very little at the outset, simply to encourage the client to get these things out (word vomit is a good way of describing it, actually.) I've seen, done, and participated in interventions where very, very little was said by the therapist that elicited very powerful breakthroughs by the client, so don't discount what she's doing... she may well be sly as a fox. All of that said... this has to be something you are engaged in, or you're wasting your time. It sounds like, in spite of your contempt for it, you're actually engaging, and it sounds to me like it is actually working phenomenally well, even though to you it feels miserable. I'd suggest some open conversation, perhaps some check-ins in between sessions, but my sense is, she is probably exactly what you need right now, provided that you can manage the feelings that are coming up so that you can get this stuff out and start to feel better.
Before starting therapy, I thought I was ok and all my issues were resolved once I came out to myself. I was SOOOOO wrong! Therapy stings! It stings as if a wasp was attacking! But as Chip says, in retrospect, it means the therapist is doing a great job. I got to a point where I actually liked to be challenged. The more I was challenged, the more I learned about myself. The more I learned about myself, the more progress I made. I was due a session about a week ago. I actually called my therapist the morning of and told him we should postpone. I actually was at a lack of things to discuss. Its taken quite some time to get here, and I know my therapist is there to the extent I need him. And I am sure I still have more to learn, as the journey never ends. But stay with it. I hate to be so cliche, but pain today is gain tomorrow!
Chip, that's all very good information. Couple of things: My reasons for distrusting social workers is because I grew up around them and I always found them to be pompous, Marxist-thinking liberally hive-minded assholes and I felt little more than dissonance for them until I was touched in a highly inappropriate manner by a female social worker when I was 12. Since then all I've felt is hatred for them and have largely avoided therapy since then. As for my new therapist recording sessions, I say that because there's a medium sized audio microphone hooked to the monitor of her computer coupled with the fact that she doesn't take any physical notes. I've been out of the therapy scene a long time, long enough for the world to change in subtle ways and I'm only guessing that this is one of them. I've never seen a recording program open on her desktop computer, I assume it's in a window obscured by her spreadsheets or whatever medical chart the monitor is displaying but I've said too much now for her to remember in her head so I'm making a powerful assumption by saying she records the sessions. I'd ask her, but that somehow seems inappropriate. I've flat out told her about my issues with my sexuality. I told her how I believe my sexuality was formed and I'm a little concerned in that she said she'd never heard anybody else come to the conclusion of their sexuality the way I have (it's a long story, one I won't tell here) so that made me feel kind of alone, but what really upset me in the last session was that we were talking about my mother (who I have a strange relationship with) and after I said all these things about my Mom that I could never actually say to my Mom myself I got in the car with my brother and just broke down the rest of the day, turned in at 5PM to try and 'sleep it off,' but woke up again at 1AM and considered committing myself at the local psyche ward because I was going to murder myself but my brother managed to talk me down due to the temporary nature of the session's hold on me. It's scary, and I don't like change. I go to a sort of all in one clinic now where I see my psychiatrist, therapist and my primary care physician. Provided the government doesn't cut off my healthcare as well, I'd like to keep it this way. I'm in the middle of several psychiatric medical adjustments so I'm even more unpredictable lately, surprising myself. I'm less anxious but more depressed. There seems to be no happy medium in my life and that last therapy session felt like a goddamn slap across the mouth.
Social workers who work in CPS and clinical social workers are apples and oranges. While some clinicians (including one of our board members and clinical Expert, BlairSW) started in CPS, the environments, training, and just about everything else is as different as can be. There are a lot of really well meaning, but very burned out social workers in CPS, a byproduct of a broken system that piles way too much responsibility on too few people. They are, as a rule, open minded and social-justice oriented, which means that they tend to lean liberal, but certainly most social workers aren't Marxists. From what you describe, I can say with near 100% certainty that she is not recording your sessions. For one thing, it would be a gross ethical violation to record your sessions without your consent. I assumed that she had asked for and received your consent to record. Since she has not, it's all but inconceivable that she'd do so without telling you. As for notes... some therapists take them during sessions, others make notes after the session, between clients. And some simply have really good memories of their clients. My therapist some years ago never took notes, but could remember all of my friends, family, their relationships to me, and lots of other detail, without ever taking any notes. You may have found yourself someone really special. That was probably an empathy failure on her part. Most every therapist has occasional misfires like that. Without knowing the details, I can only surmise that what you proposed probably seemed unlikely and perhaps took her by surprise, and so the response she was searching for was likely more along the lines of "While that's certainly a possibility, I've never come across that in my clinical experience, so it's something we'll need to discuss further." But it isn't always possible to catch all of those situations on the fly... any therapist is human, and affected by whatever they're told. I'm sure that was terrifying. A good session with the right therapist can drill right through denial into the core issues, and what you describe is what happens when core issues come to light after having been bottled up for a long time. As miserable as it feels, it is one of the strongest signs that therapy is working, because that toxic shit that's coming out is what's keeping you so stuck. The key is going to be finding a way to bring it up and work through it without having you be too far down in the dumps. Hopefully she will work with your psychiatrist and ensure that your meds are well in balance, as in this circumstance, that may be helpful. I'm sure that's exactly what it felt like. And for someone who doesn't like change... that was a lot of it at once. I do think it is positive change, though... even though it doesn't seem like that right now. Share what you've shared here with your therapist. Share the thread if you think the responses might be beneficial. It will help her better understand you, and perhaps help her tailor her approach to what you need. And keep us in the loop.
Yeah, man, I went again today and I asked her if she recorded the sessions, which she said she doesn't, she just takes notes after and says her memory's fine for it. I don't feel nearly as shitty afterwards today as I did last time. She asked me what I want out of therapy, I said I don't really know, as I've never had satisfactory therapy experience before. The question really took me off guard, since all my therapists I've had I've never stayed with for more than say, six or seven months tops. I honestly don't know what I'm expecting to get out of this. That said, I read a book by William S. Burroughs (the cartoon avatar I have is a caricature of him, he's one of the most famous gay authors of all time) called Junky and in the beginning of the book he says he did it (attended psychotherapy) for two years early in his long life and it seemed to help him, so I figure that if it's good enough for Burroughs, it's probably good enough for me.
I think one of the huge factors in my depression, lately is that my psychiatrist took me off of Prozac, because she thinks I need 'less pills,' a philosophy that's lost on me. Right now and the last couple of weeks since I've been off of it, I've found my depression attacking me the way my anxiety typically would: physically, putting me in a terrible mood and even making me suicidal. Like today's Mother's Day and anybody who knows me knows I have a strange relationship with my Mom; my Mom is very passive-aggressive and tends to make fun of my symptoms. So today's no different. Right now I feel like absolute sludge, but it's a goddamn Sunday and all the offices are closed so I have nobody I can call. I hate Sundays, they make me feel trapped. The only good thing about them is that there's no mail on Sundays and I have a stigma about the mail-- I wait for it compulsively and tend to panic as soon as I pick it out of the mailbox, thumbing through it thinking there's going to be horrible news. But that's the only good thing about Sundays: no mail to panic over. But I also can't call anybody to set up appointments or to talk me down; I have to have my brother talk me down and he's one of the few people who's beaten depression in a bizarre manner I can't even begin to describe. So I still feel like I'm being dangled in between God and Satan's eternal Backgammon game, being torn apart by forces all around me I don't even want to put into words. I tell all this to my therapist and she just nods, amazed (or feigning amazement, I don't know) and asks how that makes me feel? How does that make me feel? It makes me feel like the gods are toying with me, that I racked up so much negative karma in a previous life that I'm paying for it in this one. I feel like I'm infested with what Burroughs would call 'the Ugly Spirit,' I'm in a bad way, sorry to ramble. I was told to keep you posted so I am. I need to go lie down.
