I have probably blocked out the vast majority of my dealings with therapy (because, frankly: fuck that noise - it was bad), but the one instance that springs immediately to mind in the 'bad' camp was:
Asking if I thought it would be beneficial to have a joint meeting with my father. (I said no, in the most clear and certain of ways. Possibly with profanity.)
She proceeded to call my father after I left and set up a joint meeting.
:) I tend to give real name/location & permission to cite as a matter of course, 'cause I don't know when or where it might come up, but I figure: better to save the trouble of tracking me down.
At the end of the last session, without any indication otherwise throughout the last couple of sessions, she just said that she thought I was doing well enough that I didn't need therapy anymore, which strikes me as WTF no really WTF. (I will also admit that I am really good at faking a state of Okay.)
A therapist I saw only once: "You live too much in your imagination. That's what causing your anxiety. We need to wean you from thinking about these imaginary people." (she of course immediately suggested I stop writing, and assured me that the people I was talking about were not real).
Current therapist understands that I need to talk about secondary worlds and secondary world people in therapy, and takes my private mythologies completely seriously.
I started the session by saying that I was looking for a therapist who would 1) help me with my anxiety/depression while 2) engaging with my private mythologies. She then went on to make these statements almost immediately.
For me, when someone says "stop thinking about the people inside your head and you will be less depressed/anxious," what I hear is "I think you will be less depressed/anxious if you chop off your arms and legs." After a certain traumatic experience in my late teens, I have been for years in a place where I could not go back into my worlds. I am not living like that again ever if I can help it, nor am I paying someone to destroy my lifeline for me.
How about the one-and-only time I went to a therapist? It was in grad school, in a department that had only 5 full-time professors and 2 or 3 part-timers. You'd think it would make the politics less, but isntead it just made them more concentrated. My advisor was fine at times, crazy at others and when I took an informal poll of the students in the museum studies program, all of whom had her as their advisor, 75% of us admitted to having visited the university's counseling center at least once during the past two years
( ... )
Good: not a "real" therapist, but one of the psychiatric nurses I saw for my follow-ups for the ADHD meds. We were in the middle of our session where we were talking and seeing if the meds seemed to be doing good and if they needed to be adjusted when another nurse knocked on the door, stuck her head around it, and said "[name], we need you right now." She excused herself and left. About ten minutes later she came back and said "Someone had a crisis. I apologize for interrupting your session, but you know I'd do the same for you if you needed it." That felt really comforting, even though I'd already sussed out that was probably what was happening, and I had a book with me to read. It also made me a lot more forgiving when I was called in late for my appointment, because it made me think that they were spending as much time as they needed with the patients and not just being disrepsectful of our time
( ... )
Oooh, I forgot something else the bad one did: I was also complaining about how I procrastinated so badly that I was starting papers -- in grad school -- the night before they were due, and such. She suggested "Maybe that's just the way you work." Well, as was diagnosed much, much later, no, it wasn't just the way I worked, it was rampaging ADHD causing me to be unable to perform except under extreme pressure.*
I think she wanted to make me feel better about it, but when I start a paper due at 8AM at 10PM the night before it's not just the way I work, there's something much worse going on there, and making me feel better about it is not helping the actual problem.
* It is a point of pride that I never turned a paper in late. I even once took my grad school roommate to the ER and sat in the waiting room typing away on my laptop and turned the paper in the next morning.
1. Did right: in my first session, I recounted my fairly lengthy list of traumas, family dysfunction, issues, and general blarg. She said, without being even a bit phased or shocked at my experiences, "ok, so why are you here? What do you want to achieve in therapy?" and from there we identified some specific goals. It was very helpful not to have to tackle the whole furball at once and also to kind of rank things in terms of clearing away obstacles between me and my goals, instead of starting with the most shocking traumas based on their shocking shockingness. I made more progress in 6 months with her than I'd ever made with any therapist prior to that
( ... )
Which might be useful for someone just starting out but I've been recovering from my youth for 20 years now
YES. I think it's really crucial for a therapist to ask up front what the client's past experiences with therapy have been, and to tailor approaches to that. I told my current therp up front that I basically wanted the grad school of therapy; I understand the basics just fine, thanks.
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Asking if I thought it would be beneficial to have a joint meeting with my father. (I said no, in the most clear and certain of ways. Possibly with profanity.)
She proceeded to call my father after I left and set up a joint meeting.
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On the upside, she never tried to seduce me.
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Did she give you any referral to anyone else at the end of the semester?
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At the end of the last session, without any indication otherwise throughout the last couple of sessions, she just said that she thought I was doing well enough that I didn't need therapy anymore, which strikes me as WTF no really WTF. (I will also admit that I am really good at faking a state of Okay.)
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Current therapist understands that I need to talk about secondary worlds and secondary world people in therapy, and takes my private mythologies completely seriously.
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(The comment has been removed)
I started the session by saying that I was looking for a therapist who would 1) help me with my anxiety/depression while 2) engaging with my private mythologies. She then went on to make these statements almost immediately.
For me, when someone says "stop thinking about the people inside your head and you will be less depressed/anxious," what I hear is "I think you will be less depressed/anxious if you chop off your arms and legs." After a certain traumatic experience in my late teens, I have been for years in a place where I could not go back into my worlds. I am not living like that again ever if I can help it, nor am I paying someone to destroy my lifeline for me.
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I think she wanted to make me feel better about it, but when I start a paper due at 8AM at 10PM the night before it's not just the way I work, there's something much worse going on there, and making me feel better about it is not helping the actual problem.
* It is a point of pride that I never turned a paper in late. I even once took my grad school roommate to the ER and sat in the waiting room typing away on my laptop and turned the paper in the next morning.
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YES. I think it's really crucial for a therapist to ask up front what the client's past experiences with therapy have been, and to tailor approaches to that. I told my current therp up front that I basically wanted the grad school of therapy; I understand the basics just fine, thanks.
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