If something requires you to convince yourself it is effective, then does it truly have efficacy in the first place? I think the lines we've been fed so often about how one must put work into therapy to get something out of it are self soothing affirmations to try and downplay the shortcomings of modern psychotherapy.
Therapists are merely human beings. It's not a science it's an art. If your therapist happens to be A human being with insight and wisdom and patience they might be helpful in talking through a problem or a challenge, offering some guidance.( I certainly could've use some of that in elementary school and junior high and high school and even college… Where I was depressed a lot of the time and flying blind… )
It's not like conventional medicine where certain procedures have predictable outcomes…
You don't have to sit and ponder at home about whether or not you're making progress. You don't have to read dozens of workbooks. You don't have to wonder if you're not trying hard enough during your training. The physical changes (or lack thereof) will speak for themselves.
Yes going to a physiotherapist, the outcomes are more predictable and self evident.
Do we blame ourselves if a drug doesn't work for us? No. Do we blame ourselves if we don't get the intended gains from physiotherapy? No. Why should we treat psychology any differently, if the field insists it should be on par with scientific disciplines
I don't think they ever claimed to be on par with other scientific disciplines.
? So don't blame yourself for some therapy not working, it just wasn't working for you.
My question for the OP is, do you disagree with a lot of the methods of current psychotherapy and do you think a lot of people end up being forced to turn to the profession because their issues are not well understood?
I have a lot of questions around the use of anti-depressants. I took antidepressants for 20 years but I don't think I ever made a serious attempt to understand specifically why I suffered from severe depression. Or how to address the depression and cure it if possible.My last therapist wanted to wean me off antidepressants and address the self-loathing that was at the core of my depression. But I was terrified of coming off antidepressants and the necessary multiple sessions a week would've cost a tremendous amount of money, The dark place it took me would've rendered me unable to work…
In retrospect it might've been useful. I've suffered from depression my whole life and I don't entirely understand where it comes from or how I could ever make it go away. Now it's too late. Oh well.
Do you ever speak out about issues like this to colleagues and how do they respond?
People like me, who cannot remember several traumatic events from early childhood, are always to go to therapy and "process the trauma." This is literally impossible when you have memory loss. Yet people keep telling me it's my fault my ptsd does not improve because I don't want to waste more time on therapy, when it was not benefiting me in any way (I often ended up having my physical illnesses, lack of family/friends and autism downplayed by therapists which only made it worse)
If Therapy was not working for you, Or even making your condition worse, I'm sorry to hear that… I think there's simply a lot of problems that therapist can't solve. They can't easily make our past trauma go away. They can't Magically fix horrible circumstances we happen to find ourselves in. They are somebody we pay a lot of money to so that they will actively listen to us and offer some guidance which hopefully is more helpful than friends or family.
All of that said, I can safely say my previous therapist did a massive amount of damage to my life. In the midst of this latest severe depression, I asked him if I should sell all my stocks since I wasn't thinking clearly -he said "sure you can always buy them back later. "
Coincidentally the next day the market was crashing and I sold everything at a tremendous loss. He should've told me "don't do anything when you're feeling like this." Don't get married. Don't quit a job. Don't sell your house. Don't shave your head. No major decisions when you're suffering from severe clinical depression. That was a huge professional error on his part and It wrecked my life. Financially anyway.
And in the end, none of it really matters- My life is totally fucked And beyond repair.
