Seeking Therapy Stories

[rachelmanija]

For my own benefit, I am looking for stories of two types of therapy moments:

1. Things a therapist did right.

2. Things a therapist did wrong.

In both cases, I'm looking for things that weren't obvious.

For "wrong things," I'm not thinking of clearly, extremely terrible things that I would never do in a million years, like having sex with a client, telling a client their abuse was their own fault, telling a client not to be gay, etc. I'm looking for mistakes that were more subtle than that - things a well-meaning but inexperienced therapist might do. For example, it was not beneficial to me (as a client) to let me sit there and recount lengthy abuse stories, and then have the therapist immediately start delving deeper into the abuse. But that's not an obvious mistake on the level of "It was all your fault it happened."

For right things, also, I'm looking for moments that went beyond the obvious "She was very empathetic," "He told me it wasn't my fault," or "She helped me see the connections between my childhood and my adult relationships." I am particularly interested in any times in which a therapist managed to do a good job with identity issues (gender, culture, etc), whether or not the therapist had the same identity as the client.

I realize that everyone is different, and what's right for one person may be wrong for another. I'm not looking for a rule book, but rather for inspiration and food for thought.

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Comments

[nextian]

The therapist I was assigned to in Chicago was of the "how does that make you feel?"/"mhm" school. This probably works perfectly well on many people. On me, it made me feel like he didn't believe anything I was saying. It gradually became clear that his theory was that I'd talk myself out of my own paranoia and the nadir of depression I was in. I don't know why he thought that'd be effective, or what I needed then. What I needed was someone to tell me that I'd be okay, to give me help before I asked for it, which I'd basically exhausted my ability to do just by making the appointment. It was better than not having anyone to talk to--many of my problems were ephemeral and self-constructed and I did talk myself out of a few--but it didn't help me claw my way out of the hole. I stopped going and neither he nor the health center followed up.

On the good side, the therapist I had afterwards--actually a study skills specialist, but with therapy as a side bonus--explained to me that there's no value in saying that you "should" do something if every time you say "I should do this" you don't do it. The idea that "do or do not there is no try" was actually applicable to my daily life has helped me more than like, any other concept, ever.

[nextian]

Oh, you know, one thing that dude really did right was identity based. He was a straight guy and I was eaten up with worry about how people were dealing with my bisexuality. It was the one time he actually engaged or did mirroring statements or anything; he leaned forward when I told him why I was paranoid about it, what had happened in my dorm, and said something like, "Wow. In some ways that can be worse than outright bigotry, because you're never going to be able to say for sure whether or not it's happening, so you get stuck in a 'you're just being paranoid' loop." I was floored to hear this from someone outside my brain.

[vass]

The therapist I was assigned to in Chicago was of the "how does that make you feel?"/"mhm" school.

Oh God yes, the mmhmms. I remember one person (not a therapist, but clearly trained to do it, along with the fucking empathic paraphase and I statements) who mmhmmed so vehemently that I started wondering whether someone under her desk was performing oral sex on her.

[pauraque]

Haha! Oh jeez, I knew a social worker who was just like that. The mhms didn't stop even when she was speaking to peers. O_o