Discussion Therapy

[ropeburns&migranes]

Does therapy actually work? I've only ever been to mandatory short-term therapy after my discharge from the hospital after my attempt and free counselor sessions from my university. Neither of which I'm doing anymore because they don't help me at all. Maybe it's because their words aren't getting through my thick skull but no matter what they say or how they try to help... or maybe I need long-term therapy? One of them suggested CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and DBT (dialectic behavioral therapy) I've searched a bit about it and it pretty much means you get treated like a child which will just make my suicidal ideation worse because part of the reason why I want to kill myself is my inability to be a functioning adult. I've seen a psychiatrist twice, the first one diagnosed me with anxiety, and the second told me he doesn't understand why I'm suicidal and that I'm "treatment resistant".
What do I do to make it better? When will it get better? Will it get better? How do I get therapy to work?

 

[alltoomuch2]

Does therapy actually work? I've only ever been to mandatory short-term therapy after my discharge from the hospital after my attempt and free counselor sessions from my university. Neither of which I'm doing anymore because they don't help me at all. Maybe it's because their words aren't getting through my thick skull but no matter what they say or how they try to help... or maybe I need long-term therapy? One of them suggested CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) and DBT (dialectic behavioral therapy) I've searched a bit about it and it pretty much means you get treated like a child which will just make my suicidal ideation worse because part of the reason why I want to kill myself is my inability to be a functioning adult. I've seen a psychiatrist twice, the first one diagnosed me with anxiety, and the second told me he doesn't understand why I'm suicidal and that I'm "treatment resistant".
What do I do to make it better? When will it get better? Will it get better? How do I get therapy to work?

I'm doing DBT at the moment. I find it's very hard work, but when I manage to use the techniques it does help to get me thru the awful mood swings and stop me doing impulsive stupid things. Its very early days yet (only 4 sessions in but I don't feel like I'm being treated like a child and each session gives me new tools to deal with my emotional overwhelm and extreme mood swings. So far, I'm a big fan of DBT. I've always found the tye of counselling where you just tell someone what happened etc pretty useless other than a very short term effect of getting things off your chest and I think that sort of counselling is probably more for the worried well. CBT and DBT are more to solve a problem.

 

[GuessWhosBack]

For therapy to work, a few things have to align. I'm not saying you haven't done these.

First of all you have to be honest, because therapists cannot read minds. Best to just be upfront than waste sessions. You must get along well with the therapist or otherwise you will feel coerced or pressured to behave a certain way, 'masking'. Therapists usually expect the patient to be upfront with them after the first few sessions, and they usually take account of your history in the first two or three sessions first. For this, I bring them a prewritten chronological testament. They will refuse to read it, insisting on just talking it through. Then, I disagree, they read it, and they understand why. So consider writing a summary of your history to give your therapist some help.

Then, you have to be reasonable. A good therapist will try to figure out why you're there and how to help you, and offer you strategies to alleviate your pain. Which is why it's so important to be honest. Different underlying factors can result in similar surface level representations, so it can be hard for a therapist to figure out exactly what you're going through unless you're blunt and to the point. You want to treat the factors, not the representation. Furthermore, they cannot do the actual work for you.

Depending on the severity of your case you might need more sessions than usual. By the way, therapy doesn't help everyone. You have to do some digging to figure out what would fix you. Consider even discussing with your therapist what you think could fix you.

 

[Nikitatos]

I've seen like 20 of them. They're all useless. If they couldn't prescribe drugs, the whole field would shrivel up and die.

That being said, I've know a few rich people with very smart therapists that actually helped them. Keep in mind, that if they cure you, they no longer get your money.

 

[alltoomuch2]

For therapy to work, a few things have to align. I'm not saying you haven't done these.

First of all you have to be honest, because therapists cannot read minds. Best to just be upfront than waste sessions. You must get along well with the therapist or otherwise you will feel coerced or pressured to behave a certain way, 'masking'. Therapists usually expect the patient to be upfront with them after the first few sessions, and they usually take account of your history in the first two or three sessions first. For this, I bring them a prewritten chronological testament. They will refuse to read it, insisting on just talking it through. Then, I disagree, they read it, and they understand why. So consider writing a summary of your history to give your therapist some help.

Then, you have to be reasonable. A good therapist will try to figure out why you're there and how to help you, and offer you strategies to alleviate your pain. Which is why it's so important to be honest. Different underlying factors can result in similar surface level representations, so it can be hard for a therapist to figure out exactly what you're going through unless you're blunt and to the point. You want to treat the factors, not the representation. Furthermore, they cannot do the actual work for you.

Depending on the severity of your case you might need more sessions than usual. By the way, therapy doesn't help everyone. You have to do some digging to figure out what would fix you.

Definitely agree that you have to be honest and also you have to tell them everything. Otherwise how are they supposed to know what's going on? My therapist knows I have everything I need to ctb and that when I'm impulsive I'm very close to using it. But they never ask me to get rid of it or threaten hospitalisation. Mind you I'm in the UK so there are no hospital beds.