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

[twtd]

Really like both my psychologist and my therapist right now, and I think it's for the same reason (though expressed in different ways): honesty. They're both willing to talk through their thought processes with me. CBT tends not to work for me because I know what, I can evaluate those thoughts, know that they aren't rational, and know the steps to take in response to them, but the steps often just don't work. I need to know the why of things, which is never an easy question to answer, and my psychologist is really good at admitting that he just doesn't know why, but that he's curious too. Plus he's awesome at empathy, which yes, is obvious, but I empathy tends to just make me feel weird. Really, he's good at doing empathy in a way that works for me, and always willing to say, "that fucking sucks." I appreciate his bluntness because it cuts through all of the social niceties that I often just don't have the patience for or don't understand the point of. I don't ever think he's told me how sorry he is that my dad died, which I never know how to respond to and just makes me feel awkward. "That fucking sucks." Three best therapy words ever (for me).

My therapist is much more verbal, which is also great. She's willing to tell me what she's thinking and why she's thinking it as we talk. "Maybe it's this..." or "go with me here and tell me if this sounds right...." It's much more of a dialogue than any of my past therapy sessions have been, and some sessions she might actually talk more than me, because she's really interested in making sure that she's understanding what I'm saying. The constant checking and rephrasing give me confidence that she isn't misinterpreting me (which has happened before). And she's willing to admit when she doesn't know if something will work or not, and tell me roughly what should be happening if it is working. "Let me do some research." Second best set of therapy words ever.