Psychodynamic Therapy

[Data]

I have been having psychotherapy (mentalization based treatment) for many months now. I pay privately for it (£35 a session).

How do you know when to stop?

I am not sure if the therapy is doing me any good. But I am shit scared of ending it. I am terrified of what I will do if I lose my T.

I share lots of insights. I am articulate, honest and expressive. I tell him how I feel. He is very psychodynamic and indirect. He rarely tells me to do things, he just asks questions and nods.

On the last session he said "so it sounds like you need to do something about your drinking". The thing is, I haven't. And he mentioned my overeating and I've not stopped that.

I am shit scared that he is going to end the sessions.

I am shit scared he will get more and more direct with me and try to push me to change. And I won't change. And he will get frustrated and judge me like my past counsellors have done.

If I bring this up with him, he will deny it.

Thats the thing, I am honest, open, say how I feel. I thought being like this, and talking, was meant to make you heal. But I am not getting better.

[jessicarabbit]

hey data

i dont know when you know when enough is enough with therapy, i too would be anxious about stopping it, i guess talking to your therapist about that would be good

(ps i dont know why your reputation was voted down for this post thats pretty wrong)

[Kittyclaws]

I voted down because he thinks that just being honest and not doing what the counsellor says like weight and drinking mean he will just get better.Kitty.

[Shellybelly]

kitty i think you need to just ignore data post from now on

he is asking for help here and has said nothing wrong

i have been watching you and you and another memeber on here vote down nearly all data post

we get it data gets it you dont like him or his post

so just drop the vendetta you have against him

oh yeah and dont forget to vote down all my post too from now on

[Data]

If Kitty hates me thats fine, at least I know where I stand. I have no opinion about her, I don't know her one way or the other.

[Kittyclaws]

I am not marking your post shellybelly

[Kittyclaws]

Im answering to below posts ok i know i been a bitch tonight sorry data and everyone.Kitty

[guntarded]

Kittyclaws,

I will mention this to you. People know I don't get along with data, probably on most days but we can be civil to each other if we are alone in a chat room, or if not I can ignore his posts/his chat comments.

I know you have major issues with him, and for whatever reason they are I don't want to discuss, its just you are a peer support member. To provide some form of support to your peers here, to offer advice because your deemed to have some experience that you can help others with.

It does nto reflect well on you to just keep on and on, bullying data which this amounts to, and frankly why I am saying this here. Enough is enough kitty, because its not something I want to happen to anyone on here, so please for the sake of the community leave him alone

[Dustbinbabe]

Kitty your gettin carried away...you need to just take people's advice and leave Data's posts alone...putting that picture up just makes things worse for yourself and gives Data ammunition to use against you!!!

You knew that the pic wasn't going to go down well and think about how you would feel if someone put that on one of your topics!!!

[Kittyclaws]

sorry i will stop.Kitty.

[Shellybelly]

its not us you should be saying sorry to its data

as you have been bullying him for weeks

i think your a nice person on the forum to other memebers

and in your other posts

its just whatever issue you have with data

[notawallflower]

keep up the therapy

I doubt he will terminate

[Dani]

Data i think you have been honest so far with him so talk to him about your concerns.

i know sometimes it feels we are not getting better but we just dont notice till we are ctually there.

Kitty im glad other members have brought this to your attention.Marking him down and having a go at any chance is not helpful for anyone and uncalled for.

[hummm_mabbe]

Hi data

I think you have felt like this many times in therapy before, and written about it. I can see that your frustration is rising, and it may be that you will not like what I am going to say.

The things that you most want to avoid and are convinced cannot happen, are the things that most need to happen. Whats changed is you are realising the reality of this, and are being thrown into a state of panic. You are being forced to look into the abyss, and seeing that talking alone, and insight alone, do not change you. I know I have said that time and again, and its not what you want to hear - but its true. The talking and insight do not change your feelings. What they do is give you a new platform and understanding to begin making those changes.

I know that your therapy includes some elements of attachment theory, so maybe see it this way. Therapy is the 'secure base'. Just as children rely on their parents for soothing and guidance, it is still them that has to wander off and explore, bump their knees and come back for reassurance. But is the actual EXPERIECNES the child has, combined with the feedback, belief and support of the parent, that lead to new confidence and new beliefs about themselves and the world. No amount of talking will do that, and they will feel anxiety and pain during their early attempts.

Stopping drinking and overeating will mean facing pain. At the moment, you may feel that pain is unbearable. Your experiecne tells you it is. Stopping yourself doing these things will feel panful, and if you see therapy as something that is meant to take away pain, you will feel very resentful that you have to go through this. This is why how you view therapy is so important. Therapy does not directly take pain away or change you through some unexplainable process. What changes you is the change in what you do, the new observations that your insight allows you to bing to those situations, and the constant cycle of feedback and the change in relation to others. Rather than aiming for some image of how you think you should be, work with an attitude of acceptance of what is, whilst taking the actions you feel are important despite discomfort.

There are many layers to that, and its nowhere near as straightforward as Ive made it sound, but I know you dislike long posts and this is already long enough. Somehow you have to come to terms with the fact that you ARE going to have to change behaviours and the things you do, and face pain on its terms. Start small and build up, use the relationship to help you through. Maybe you need to reach the point of total exasperation before you will truly believe that you cannot, and no one else can, 'make' feelings change. But it will be a positive choice, because it will lead to a place where emotions begin to change organically, by themselves - as opposed to you doing anything to them.

Ross

[hummm_mabbe]

Just to add

I went through exactly these feelings too, and became very angry with my T, myself, the world. But when i realised it was possible to act despite the feelings that flooded my body, I genuinely did experiecne changes. Yes i felt anxiety, and a lot of the painful thoughts and feelings flooded in, but being able to step back and use the insight I had gained, as well as being able to accept feeling as suggestion or remnant from the past, rather than a fact about 'now', I started to see things in others I had previously missed. I actually started to feel differently about things. This has lead to more periods of feeling good, and my motivation is changing. The good feelings make me want to do more.

I still experience periods of depression, anger or anxiety, especially in the mornings - but these relate to areas I am yet to tackle. There is still a long way to go, but I just wanted you to know that the 'doing' phase is arguably the most impactful, though absolutely the hardest to begin.

Ross

[Data]

I think the problem is I feel alone and empty inside and I feel like the whole if life is just a pointless game, where I am regularly punished and suffer. I can't think of anything that I can do that will change that. If I lose weight, stop drinking etc, it will not change how I feel inside.

And its ok for me to want to change now. But what happens when the next crisis comes along? I won't believe that the change means anything. I won't believe in distraction. I won't believe in anything.

[hummm_mabbe]

Don;t forget that right now, your thoughts about the future are coming from a place of what you currently think and believe. That is why you almost have to abandon yourself to process, rather than having this sense that you can control it or know what will happen. Its a bad example, but its a little like looking at a rollercoaster and feeling afraid, and choosing not to go onto it because that scared feeling convinces you it will be horrible. Its only by getting on it, and finding out that the experiecne is not what you thought - perhaps half scary, half good - that your belief about it will change.

Also acceptance again - you will have failures, you will have crises. But each one teaches you something new - your insight allows you to understand why it happened. It lets you know what else you need to focus on, and that focus could come from one of many different areas. But experience, whether good or bad, is the raw material you need to feed into the 'therapy machine'. Without it, without riding the rollercoaster, you will just stay standing in the queue with that horrible sensation in your stomach.

Please dont think I am saying any of this is easy. I am going through it, and have been going through it for a while. Progress is glacial and frustrating - but slowly things start to brighten. ESPECIALLY if you can learn to accept there will be pain and failures, then paradoxically they do not bowl you over so much when they arise. Personally, mindfulness really helps me with this, but you may wish to find some other way of getting to that place. Acceptance is not giving up - its actually the first step in real change, in this case accepting that talking and insight alone will not change you, and that you are going to have to somehow face pain. In your first post, you were talking about 'things your therapist was expecting you to do', so i presumed you had some action in mind. But remember that often, you wont know exactly what action to take to change a particular feeling - again its this idea that you cannot know, or control an outcome. You try something that feels important, and you see what happens. Your T helps you decide what those things are, because they are unique to you as a person.

It could be anything - trying a different response to someone. Reaching out for something you wouldnt normally do. Changing a reaction to anger or the sense of invalidation, maybe 'looking at' the feeling rather than simply reacting. Interrupt the normal flow of events, observe what happens. Feel it and understand it, then feed that back to your T or just to yourself. Figure out what you want to change, try to make that change - and if it fails, understand why. What stood in your way? If its drinking, what makes it so hard to NOT drink? What is your emotional experience when you physically stop yourself drinking? Pain? Anger? Some indefinable discomfort? How long can you 'be with' that? What needs to happen for you to tolerate the discomfort? What needs to happen to change whatever it was that caused you to want to drink? These are all questions that relate to action, and emotions that only arise as a result of 'doing'. Then you feed them back into the process.

Ross

[*Summer*]

I don't think that it is right that people are going on at Kitty just because she gave Data a minus point,she said that she was sorry and people still reply and going on at her

Data,Good luck with whatever you do as you deserve to be happy.xxxxx

[Shellybelly]

lady gaga people arent just on about in this post

and certain post of kittys have been changed since we posted

she has been minusing all data post and picking on him

[*Summer*]

lady gaga people arent just on about in this post

and certain post of kittys have been changed since we posted

she has been minusing all data post and picking on him

I don't think that she is the only that gives him minus points if i am being honest,I have seen it with my own eyes,I am guilty of this myself at times.xxxx

[Data]

Its not just Kittyclaws. I seem to have developed a bad reputation on here. I think perhaps I am too honest and I don't always fit in on here. I have also been a little naive in the way I have dealt with people in the past.

If Kittyclaws is going to play nice, I am willing to forgive her and to try to put behind us what has happened.

[Shellybelly]

that ok lady gaga

i have noticed other people doing it too

i am a person that hates to see people been bullied

i know data isnt always the easiest to get along with

but i believe it due to his health probs and cause he was never thought how

i would hope we could be understanding and help him learn

when you get to know him he isnt all bad no one is

i admit i was pissed off bout something else last time when i pulled kitty on this

but it has been going on long enough

i hope other constantly putting negitive on him stop too

and just learn to ignore him if they cant be nice

as i was always told if you have nothing nice to say say nothing at all :)

[*Summer*]

Its not just Kittyclaws. I seem to have developed a bad reputation on here. I think perhaps I am too honest and I don't always fit in on here. I have also been a little naive in the way I have dealt with people in the past.

If Kittyclaws is going to play nice, I am willing to forgive her and to try to put behind us what has happened.

I think people will not always get along and i don't really know why or what happened in that past here,but i am glad that you are being honest Data and i hope Kitty will be nice to you.xxxxx

[Data]

:)

[roxy222]

I have been having psychotherapy (mentalization based treatment) for many months now. I pay privately for it (£35 a session).

How do you know when to stop?

I am not sure if the therapy is doing me any good. But I am shit scared of ending it. I am terrified of what I will do if I lose my T.

I share lots of insights. I am articulate, honest and expressive. I tell him how I feel. He is very psychodynamic and indirect. He rarely tells me to do things, he just asks questions and nods.

On the last session he said "so it sounds like you need to do something about your drinking". The thing is, I haven't. And he mentioned my overeating and I've not stopped that.

I am shit scared that he is going to end the sessions.

I am shit scared he will get more and more direct with me and try to push me to change. And I won't change. And he will get frustrated and judge me like my past counsellors have done.

If I bring this up with him, he will deny it.

Thats the thing, I am honest, open, say how I feel. I thought being like this, and talking, was meant to make you heal. But I am not getting better.

hey

i had short term psychodynamic t, although he said straight off that he didnt use set types of t and delt more with emotions. my time was dictated by his already plannin to leave so we only dealt with very specific issues, and it was v helpful for them. the underlying stuff is still there, but for me i allways feel this is for me to heal not t.

i think you shd give yourself more time. and then sm more. i think the changes only genuinely happen when you accept things as they are and stop 'needing' yourself to change. i know that sounds lieka strange concept, but i think somewhere along the line you ahve to find the unconditional love and acceptance you shd have got as a kid, i think t is v helpful for some in facilitating that but that this type of acceptance and self support/compassion has t organicly develope in yourself, and pressure only pushes it further away. i know that doenst make logical staright forward sence but it works well on an emotional level. give yourself a break, non of this is easyxx