Discussion When is therapy actually helpful?

[sireb_b]

I've heard from a great number of people that therapy hasn't really worked for them.

Personally, I've never seen a therapist and I have been wondering if it could help me. I'm kinda stuck in life right now and, despite being very self aware and knowing myself really well, I don't really know what's the next step to take in my recovery journey.

So how was the therapy experience for those who went through it? Why do you think it worked/didn't work for you? And who would you recommend it to the most?

 

[isthisthingon]

My brain doesn't work well. I could never get over the fact that they're collecting a paycheck. It always felt so superficial and I've had a number of therapists. Maybe it's a Bipolar thing.

 

[tonicer]

I went to multiple psychologists when i was a kid and i doubt it did anything but make me feel even more weird. They have knowledge from books which is useless IMHO. I would be a much better therapist because i stood at the edge but the edge is calling to me on bad days.

 

[thelostautistic]

I've worked with a few therapists and I generally did find it helpful to speak to someone every week. But I don't always feel like the type of treatment I was receiving was what I needed. That's not to say I didn't benefit from it because there were things I took away. I only worked with my last therapist for 4 months and she provided me with something that no other professional fully had. And that was emotional safety. I'm autistic and I was allowed to be myself in that room and I didn't feel judged. That alone helped me so much and I'll never forget it. We couldn't make huge changes in that short time but that safety was enough.

I would like to work with a trauma therapist who understands Autism in the future. I think that would benefit me a lot more than the work I've previously done. The long term therapy I was in was very present focused so I didn't feel able to discuss my past much which is what I need to do now.

My advice is to try different things. There's so many specialists out there with different approaches. Some might suck but others might help a lot.

 

[spacefreightergirl]

I've had quite a disbelief in therapists by now. Most of them are barely equipped with the ability to help someone whose grandfather just died, or who's going through a rough bump in a mostly normal life. But they can't handle (as professionals or as people) someone who's been going through years of depression, or any mental illness, and isn't able to pinpoint the cause.

And god forbid you are undiagnosed with something like autism or ADHD because they'll refuse to acknowledge it most of the time and result to implying that you might have 10 different disorders. In general I think they don't know what to do with patients that have chronic/reoccurring/"unfixable" issues.

The only exception I can think of is highly trained ones that have done a lot of research on specific topics, but even then their work is going to be limited to whatever they've done or have been told to do. I'm trying just now a new therapist (mostly because other people in my life insisted to give it a chance) and they have done a lot of research in the problems I am dealing with, so it feels like a decent match, and she seems to understand a lot better what I'm dealing with and gives more helpful advice. But back when I was young and my family was picking the therapists for me I was going absolutely nowhere, and I have figured in retrospective it's because those people were simply not trained to deal with someone like me.

 

[Celerity]

I had to start with trauma-informed therapy to get anywhere. For me, the biggest stumbling block was the belief that I was inherently defective and beyond saving. This meant that I could not take constructive criticism or reform my behavior without spiraling into self-hatred. If you find a trauma-informed therapist, I would also suggest picking up some group therapy where the discussion is in a similar vein. I went through ACoA. It is important to reinforce to yourself that you aren't alone in your struggles/uniquely bad. Group therapy, IMO, accomplishes this in a way that one-on-one talk therapy just can't. No matter how good your rapport with a therapist, you know deep down that they will never be 100% honest with you.