Posted by Elizabeth on November 12, 1999, at 14:05:16
In reply to Re: Psychotherapy sites, posted by Adam on November 10, 1999, at 17:35:31
> Perhaps this is best continued in another thread, but I'll pose the question here: What have been the benefits you have derived
> from psychodymanic therapy?The benefits one could expect from talk therapy in general, without the problems I found with cognitive-behavioral-interpersonal therapy. Bear in mind, too, that what I'm doing now is not "pure" psychoanalytic psychotherapy...it's also informed by other schools of thought, including the biological one (my therapist is an MD).
I suffer from chronic demoralization - I've lost my self-confidence after all the setbacks I've had in life because of my depression. CBT/IPT were too ambitious; they actually tried to treat my depression. I think this didn't (couldn't) work because I have melancholic depressions, the salient feature of which is non-reactive mood, and certainly I wasn't about to "cheer up" just because someone argued with me about it (that's oversimplifying, but you know what I mean). Then, once I was no longer depressed, none of it seemed relevant anymore - I was just being told things that I already knew (and it still didn't touch the demoralization). I don't think that the two cognitive-oriented therapists I've had were bad or incompetent; I just think it's the wrong type of therapy for me.
> For myself, I found psychodynamic therapy of no
> help whatsoever, but that may be because A) I had a poor therapist and B) the nature of my illness (comorbid depression and
> anxiety disorder) indicated something else.Could you elaborate some on (B)? That is precisely what I have (depression + anxiety).
> At any rate, I'm interested still in this approach, and would welcome the insight
> you and others who have found it helpful could give.At the outset, it helped me to figure out just what the problem is, something that's impossible for therapies that don't look for a cause (or that implicitly assume a particular cause, which I think CBT does). It wasn't at all obvious, and I've gotten more than my share of misdiagnoses. As I understand better what has happened to me, I find myself becoming less paralyzed.
> I have personally found all forms of therapy that I have tried lacking in some respect or another,
> and have been intrigued by an integrative form of therapy called (I hate this name) Lifetrap Therapy, which is founded on the
> principles of Beck, but takes into account the refractory nature of some disorders (involving "schemas") and borrows heavily from
> other kinds of therapy when appropriate.
...
>For those who do not feel childhood traumas or destructive
> patterns of behavior characterize their depression, this form of therapy may not be for you.I've read about that, but I was under the impression that schema therapy was primarily for personality disorders. (Then again, I also don't see how CBT could be useful for depression outside of a personality disorder, either.)
poster:Elizabeth
thread:14804
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991108/msgs/15087.html