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.

Anonymous comments are enabled but screened. If you comment anonymously, please let me know whether or not you'd like me to unscreen.

Comments

[jelazakazone]

Here via "network".

I probably have 20 billion thoughts about this that will all come out after I post this.

1. My most recent therapist was awesome. She did almost everything right. (She was very flaky and rescheduling with her would almost always result in her screwing that up, but she did actually recognize that it was a problem and worked to improve it.)

Perhaps M, my therapist, did narrative therapy, like you are talking about. She worked with themes and lots of metaphors. It worked brilliantly for me.

She established safety immediately. She was initially freaked out that a very good friend of mine had referred her, but we didn't talk about my friend J in sessions and it was fine.

She almost never revealed anything personal about herself. I sometimes felt a little unmoored by that, but in the end, I think it was very good. It was clear the focus was always on me.

She never let me weasel out of conversations that were necessary and she didn't let me whine. I am not sure how she managed the last.

She wanted to do an exit session (which has always made me nervous in the past), but when I told her that I was done, she was very open to it and I could see she wanted to be sure I felt secure and had systems in place to continue being healthy. That was incredibly reassuring. Sometimes I wonder if therapists want their patients to be ill so they have a continued source of revenue.

2. I only saw two other therapists. The first one was in college and it was so short, I'm not sure I could meaningfully comment. Also, I'm guessing that student health practitioners are so over-run, it's not even funny. I got put in a group for sex abuse survivors that was kind of inappropriate because while I'd been assaulted, I did not have horrible family stories and some of the stories being told were very traumatic for me to hear.

I saw an MSW a few years out of college and saw her for about six months. I don't feel like I got anything out of it. I am not even sure I got coping strategies from her. Also, I felt like, in the end, I was smarter than her and could evade the difficult topics that I should have been talking about.

Oh, I did see one other person for like three sessions. She was good for what I went for (strategies), but I think it's best if a therapist has more tools in their box.

M, the awesome therapist, could strategize with me if I really needed it, but that was not our primary focus.

As for identity issues, I am a twin and my therapist is not. Sometimes I felt like she would drag out that label a little too easily, but other times it was incredibly useful. I'd never had anyone understand that perspective before.

ETA: M, the awesome therapist, initially kept mentioning anti-depressants. I felt slightly badgered by that. It would have been one thing for her to ask once and then check in a month or six weeks later, but I seem to recall that she asked me the first three times I went. I feel like the first few sessions should be all about assessment and not trying to just throw drugs at problems, especially if someone comes in not wanting medication. (I tend to experience side effects to drugs, so I tend not to want to take them:))

[jelazakazone]

ETA: Someone else mentioned a therapist being interest in their interests. This was enormously helpful with M. We would talk about my quilting and I would bring things in from time to time and she told me that it was helpful to her to see my creative work. It helped her understand me better. That was enormously validating.