[199/366] therapy

[cosmolinguist]

In today's appointment, my therapist still thinks I'm doing really well and I'm like I told you I've been depressed at least since I was 19 and probably had anxiety since kindergarten, all you're doing is telling me cutesy names for stuff I figured out myself through trial and error or skill-sharing with my mentalist friends and then explaining them to me as if they're Baby's First Coping Mechanism.

Next week is my last. I just hope she doesn't think I'm doing so well that she doesn't refer me for anything else.

Comments

[barakta]

Ugh, she sounds really fucking annoying.

Is there anyone who ever needs the baby's first coping mechanism stuff, explained in patronising cutesy ways?

Hope she will agree to refer you for something less-shit.

[cosmolinguist]

I've been asking myself that question a lot too, because I know my experience is the norm rather than an exception.

I guess maybe if you aren't queer/crip/poor/immigrant or otherwise having to DIY or go without a lot of health care, especially mental health care, if you're a basically-okay well-off person who's just struggling with one blip in a comfortable life, like you've lost a job or an elderly parent and it's hit you hard or something, maybe this would be useful and new?

But that's just miles away from the entire culture of my friends and me.

[barakta]

Also, you wouldn't have been asking for or accepting therapy for anything you could get from reading online or your friends. The whole purpose of this was a safer space with a ratcheted professional who could provide that extra therapeutic support.

I agree with Lilysea, disablism is rife in therapy stuff, especially with the "one-tune" brigade. It's clear she's so busy spewing she's NOT listening to you, or she'd have heard you say "I don't need larger text, I need electronic text" and done just that and been open to further feedback. and frustrating that you can't give critical feedback to her managers without risking your future access to support.

I never managed to do formal feedback on my dreadful counsellor, who I only had to see once. I am so sorry she is basically a spoon vampire that you have to engage with to try and get someone who doesn't suck a lot.

[lilysea]

I wonder if part of the problem is Ableism - that she expects Disabled people to be more Depressed than she would expect Abled people to be,

and there fore she discounts/dismisses a certain amount of your Depression?

[cosmolinguist]

That's an interesting theory. She doesn't seem to have internalized the information that I'm disabled very well at all, she goes on about the size of text in things she sends me even though I tell her that doesn't matter because it's all electronic and I have assistive software. But who knows what's going on in her head.

I think it's likely to be something like polyfrazzlemented mentions below: even if I can tell her and show her evidence that I understand and already use the things she's trying to tell me, she'll briefly say "oh that's great, you get it" but then go right back to what I can tell is a well-worn script.

[polyfrazzlemented]

we've found that a lot of therapists don't really know what to do if you've already read their books and know the techniques they would have taught you.

a lot of them will just act like you haven't read the books and proceed to reteach you anyway. it's like they only have one tune they can sing.

which is kind of hilarious because all the research says that the therapeutic relationship is the biggest factor in whether any good comes out of it, that specific techniques don't matter that much, and that most therapists don't actually source most of their interventions from the school of thought they claim to follow anyway.

renny

[cosmolinguist]

She only has one tune she can sing, that's exactly it.

[theandrewhickey]

Yeah, this was definitely my experience with CBT. Also, in my case, none of the therapists had any clue at all about autism, or about executive function issues (and this was before I knew myself what the term "executive function" meant, which would have been useful). One, I could see his brain breaking when I asked him what he actually meant by "motivation" and "willpower", like there was a divide by zero error there. (To give him credit, he did talk to colleagues later that week and see if any of them knew what they meant by it either, though it turned out none of them did...)

[redbird]

Oh dear. Much sympathy.

[miss_s_b]

Eurgh I'm sorry :(

[otter]

I'm not sure how things work there with referrals, but I'd personally insist that she refer you on to someone else. She doesn't get to decide when you're feeling things are manageable.

[silveradept]

I agree with the idea of figuring out how to get yourself referred on to someone competent, because this isn't doing anything for you.

[finding_helena]

That's frustrating. I've been through a lot of therapists who don't really get me. I finally lucked into a good one last year and she's been a big help to have around.