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Howdy, there, fellow ACONs.
I took a break for a while after May. There just wasn't much to say, and I sometimes find that when I'm more involved in reading other ACON blogs and writing my own posts, that I think about my mother too much and get bogged down in it, which isn't good. I also mentioned a knee injury a couple of posts back - that injury had me flat on my back for almost 10 days, and then I had four weeks of physical therapy. During the recovery period, I had to take a break from my daily workouts, which was really frustrating. I've never liked exercise at all, was suddenly ENJOYING running and working hard and sweating - how awful to be sidelined just when I had discovered the joy of it! I've been back to it for three weeks now, but I'm only going three days a week, so that I don't mess up my knee again. Hopefully with time I'll be able to do more stuff, more often. I lost 5% of my body fat during my induction phase (which had the six-weeks-off-for-injury in the middle of it, and only going twice a week at the end of it, so not too shabby!). My running time even with a still-slightly-gimpy knee is way, way better than it was before. Hooray for physical fitness! I'm looking forward to getting stronger and leaner and fitter.
On the mental-health side of things, I find summer to be schlumpy. It is way easier for me to stay motivated and active when the kids are in school and when it isn't 105 degrees outside. Anybody else?
Regarding the new therapist - I decided to stop going to her. There were a few red flags in the first session. She talked a LOT. She asked me for advice based on my profession and got off on a tangent about her planned vacation for almost twenty minutes! And at the end of that session, she called me a "Chatty Cathy." What?!?! I decided to chalk it up to first-time getting-to-know-you stuff and give her another go. Session two was still not great. She didn't seem to ask terribly insightful questions and spent more time telling me how great I am than challenging me to go deeper, work harder. I had said something about wanting to have a therapeutic relationship with somebody so that when I'm in a time of crisis, there is somebody who is already familiar with me. She responded that I shouldn't think of our relationship as "therapeutic," but that we're more like "friends." Um, no. I mean, I want to be friendly with a therapist. I want to be comfortable and able to chat. But I'm not paying you for us to have coffee and gossip. I'm paying for you to root around in my psyche and help me to figure my shit out. We are not friends.
So...yeah. No therapist at the moment. I would still like to have somebody I can go to when I'm having a hard time, who is already somebody that I know and trust and like, who already knows my story. But the thought of having to go through therapist after therapist to find this person is daunting, especially when I don't really need help right this moment.
Then there's this subversive thought of mine that keeps nagging me. The accepted wisdom out there in the world is that therapy is good for anybody. Every one can benefit from a little talk therapy, right? Well, I'm not so sure. It's a little ridiculous to think that every person on the face of the earth would benefit from the same narrow array of therapeutic solutions. I've come a long, long, long way in the last 15 years, and none of it had anything to do with a therapist. I don't regret not having a therapist through any of it. I thought hard, challenged the status quo, read lots and lots of books and articles, found other people who have had similar experiences, muddled my way through. Do I really need a therapist?
What do you think?
Can everybody benefit from talk therapy?
Are emotional coping and healing like diet and exercise, where different people may have different dietary needs and sensitivities, and build muscle tone and endurance in different ways?
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ReplyDeleteUm, this sounds like a troll...
DeleteAgreed. Removed!
DeleteActually I think the troll is the person calling "troll". The post is about the usefulness of therapy. The comment is about the usefulness of therapy.
DeleteCould the troll-patroller be a therapist looking to protect their industry?
I am so floored and upset when I hear about so many crappy therapists out there doing damage at worst and serving their own neediness at best.
ReplyDeleteI do think everyone can benefit from talk therapy, but there is a big IF all over that -- IF the therapist is worth the paper their license is printed on. Sadly, this seems like a bigger IF than it ought to be.
I've been lucky enough to have three terrific therapists. I've had a couple that were "meh" that I didn't stick with long enough to discover why they gave me bad vibes.
But I think that at a minimum, a therapist should be like the bestest of best friends -- unjudgmental, allowing you the space to understand yourself with the appropriate level of guidance, someone who is unequivocally on your side (even if "on your side" may not mean what you want it to, it should be what you really need).
I think for a therapist to be truly good at his or her job, she has to have a solid understanding of his own hangups and issues so as to not bring them into the treatment. I think this is a big task for a lot of people, one that a good school and licensing program should address. Sadly, it seems it isn't often the case, so we are left with therapists who are in more need of treatment than many of their patients. As my therapist used to say, it's often the ones who need it most that avoid seeking therapy. I don't doubt that many therapists think they've got a lock on psych issues and think they don't need to self-reflect. That's just terrible thinking.
I'm glad you knew when to cut and run when the therapist was wrong for you (and probably for almost anyone) It's hard, when we are so vulnerable at the point of seeking therapy, to know when we can trust our instincts.
But, geez O Pete, run! Run! RUN! if your therapist says you should consider her a friend.
Thanks for the validation of my decision! I'm not sure whether or not I should have given her the second chance. At the very least, though, the second session made me feel much more certain that the first session was a fair representation of what she's like as a therapist, and not a fluke.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in college, I saw a therapist for three sessions when my mom and I were butting heads during my wedding planning (ok, that puts it mildly - it wasn't butting heads, it was my mother gaslighting me and being a horrible, controlling jerk, and me getting upset with her and allowing her to bait me into fights). THAT therapist was awesome and said some things that lined up my own thoughts in a very different way than I had thought them through before. I wish she were in my current hometown!
Claire, I had a wonderful therapist twenty-five years ago, saw her for two years before I had to move to another state for a job. I saw two different therapists over the next decade, and neither gave me quite the same "fit." I think finding the "right" therapist is like making a real friend or finding someone to love. Something of a crap shoot. Interpersonal chemistry is required. I can tell you definitively that asking for your professional advice on something, and talking for twenty minutes about herself during your session is inexcusable. You were right to pack it in with her. I do think that if the fit is a good one, if the therapist is not also a narc and has authentic compassion, it can be very helpful. But even with my first therapist (who later become a well-known animal rights activist and author), it still took me decades to really start my climb out of the FOG. Therapists should not say she is your friend until/unless you have been in therapy with her for at least two years, and maybe not ever!
ReplyDelete"Every one can benefit from a little talk therapy, right? Well, I'm not so sure. It's a little ridiculous to think that every person on the face of the earth would benefit from the same narrow array of therapeutic solutions."
ReplyDeleteI agree. Everybody can benefit from a little talk therapy, right? No. That's what therapists say. Absolutely untrue and it is ridiculous that therapists think they can "help" everybody because they have the magical power of psychoanalysis and know what's right and wrong for you. Bullshit. They have no authority. You are always your own authority.
No, you don't need a therapist.
Lisa, is it possible to address this topic without speaking in absolutes? All therapists have "no authority"? Many don't even use psychoanalysis as an approach. How can you categorically tell someone "No you don't need a therapist?" What gives YOU the authority? Not calling you to the carpet, just curious.
DeleteAs the deleted comment said, most people get by without therapy. They always have. It's only ever been a tiny fraction of people who get therapy and the jury is still VERY much out on whether it has any value.
DeleteI don't agree that there's any "jury." The people who can tell you if therapy works are those who it has helped. It is a "customer" judgement, not a "jury" decision. There are many for whom therapy is a lifeline. There are many for whom it does nothing. If you are a narcissist, therapy will be a complete waste of time because narcissists are notorious for feeling "smarter" than their therapists, and for wanting to "present" as normals. Let's resist universalizing about entire professions. For the record, I am NOT a therapist. But I and many people I know have been massively helped by having a safe, nonjudgemental "holding" environment in which to explore their thoughts.
Deleteps. "Most people" get by without electricity and running water. In the US, "most people" get by without a college education (that's right. At least 65% of American adults have no college). So generalizations such as this do nothing, say nothing.
DeleteBwaa, one last knock. If more than a "tiny fraction" of people got therapy, maybe there wouldn't be an epidemic of ACONS. The Boomer generation is the first group of people for whom therapy was a viable option, and of that group, only those who a) could afford it and b) were brave enough to admit something was terribly wrong. People in the generation over 65 or 70 still mostly adhered to the values of their own parents re: child-rearing. Mostly, but not universally. We should about universalizing.
Delete"the jury is still out" is an expression commonly used to indicate that something is unknown or unanswerable. No one claimed there is an actual therapy jury. But anyway, there are plenty of customers out there who have judged therapy and found it useless, even worse than useless. Their blogs are all over the internet.
DeleteRe: your "most people get by without electricity, running water and college". It's true! Human beings don't actually need those things either, we survived for millenia without them, and it's easy to argue that they don't make life better. Electricity: hydroelectric dams, coal, nuclear, wind - all are fraught with serious drawbacks. Running water: wastewater (e.g. toilets flushing), destruction of natural habitat, energy used to filter. College: student debt.
As for this comment, "But I and many people I know have been massively helped by having a safe, nonjudgemental "holding" environment in which to explore their thoughts" - fair enough but who says you can only get that from a therapist? Why not from someone who cares about you, who doesn't make you pay for it?
A good point, the last one, IF you have people for whom it is not a burden to listen to all this stuff. If your family of origin IS the problem, then you cannot turn to them. Friends and spouses can only be expected to bear part of the burden. Therapy is WORK, for both patient and therapist. As for "blogs all over the internet" about therapy being "worse than useless," there are white supremacy blogs and alien visitor UFO blogs too all over the internet. Such a statement proves nothing. My only point was that you cannot dismiss an entire profession because some people find it unhelpful. And you cannot dismiss somehting because many people do without it.
DeleteWait, so first you say that the customer is the judge of value of therapy, but when some of those customers say therapy is useless, their opinions don't count? Those blogs are equivalent to UFO blogs? WOW.
DeleteWhy are you so invested in defending therapy? It sounds like a Stockholm Syndrome thing.
And BABY BOOMERS is your example of the value of therapy? The train wreck of a generation that threw their kids under the bus and bled the planet dry of resources? Yikes.
DeleteWhat about all the people in the world, who ever lived? All the indigenous cultures, all the non-Western cultures? They had emotional difficulties too and still managed WITHOUT therapy. It hadn't even been invented yet. They quite possibly had better methods and better emotional health than therapy clients. Maybe we should be learning from them, eh? Or is therapy the best and final answer?
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DeleteNow it's hard to know WHO the troll(s) are! I don't think Anon said that the opinions of those who therapy hadn't helped "don't count." I think the point was that you cannot make universal claims. I'd add to this discussion that non-western cultures don't really have the best answers either. Infibulation? Foot-binding? Bride-burning? Stoning to death daughters who "dishonor" their parents? Jeeeeeeez. Therapy has got to be better than that!
DeleteRight, because ALL the non-Western cultures do foot-binding and bride-burning and stoning, so there is NOTHING we can learn from them. And therefore, therapy is only ever good!
DeleteWho said it's either therapy or infibulation anyway? Even the people who do it don't say it's a replacement for therapy.
Every one can benefit from root canals. Or so says my dentist.
ReplyDeleteWhat is with all the freakout over people criticizing therapy when the blog post ends with big questions (in big letters, no less!) about the benefits of therapy? Some people are saying no. What's wrong with that?
ReplyDeleteI don't see where you read what Anon said as "therapy OR infibulation." I think he or she just meant that therapy is helpful for some and not for others. I don't see any freakout here.
ReplyDeleteIt's right here:
Delete"I'd add to this discussion that non-western cultures don't really have the best answers either. Infibulation? Foot-binding? Bride-burning? Stoning to death daughters who "dishonor" their parents? Jeeeeeeez. Therapy has got to be better than that!"
This is straw man argument (or some type of logical fallacy). It's intellectually very weak. Flip it over and see how ridiculous it sounds. "Americans really believe in therapy, maybe we should look into it", "but Americans kill innocents with drones and have the most people in jail of any country!"
Actually that last bit just makes therapy look dumber.
Hey, guys, let's avoid namecalling and mockery, ok?
ReplyDeleteI'm not averse to debate, but a website titled "Therapy is a Con" doesn't seem like an even-handed source of information, and the original message still feels a bit like spam to me, so it will remain removed. People can look it up if they wish.
A request of anonymous posters - if you use the name/url option, you can give yourself a fake name. That would make it much easier to follow a discussion like this, in which we have multiple "Anonymous" commenters. Thanks. - C
I found the therapist's comments on the narcissistic mother wanting everything for herself...the best part of the blog. My mother, about whom, thinly veiled, I just wrote a novel titled FROZEN, was deeply acquisitive. The other good part of the therapist's blog was about the mother's exquisite self-care. My mother had a car detailer and a manicurist etc. etc. weekly visiting her home. -signed, Carla Tomaso
ReplyDelete