Posted by deborah anne lott on July 29, 2005, at 14:56:46
In reply to Re: Lott: Orientation, posted by messadivoce on July 28, 2005, at 23:29:05
Wow. It's possible that maybe the CBT therapist you had just wasn't very good and that none of us should draw general conclusions about CBT. But then again, the training doesn't really focus on probing deeply into the past or working too much with the current therapist-client relationship. Your story points out one of the ironies of therapy: sometimes if you don't feel anything for the therapist you don't get very far but if you feel too much it can be so painful.
And could it be that a lot of therapists are better at taking us apart than at putting us back together afterwards?? Thanks for sharing your very fascinating experiences.
> When I was 16 I went to a therapist who I recognize now was a CBT. She really wasn't very helpful, short term OR long term. I didn't develop any feelings for her, and she didn't encourage them or talk about our relationship. We made lists of the things in my life that were bad and then re-wrote them so they did't seem so bad. The problem was, things were still bad after therapy. She didn't give me any "tools" to deal with my circumstances.
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> I think with a few well placed questions, she could have discovered a lot and worked with me on deeper issues that my psychodynamic therapist later found. She didn't even communicate to me about my therapy ending. It just kind of ended. I wasn't sad about it because I didn't have any feelings for her either way. She actually expressed annoyance over things I said and did, like when I expressed embarrassment over meeting someone I knew in her waiting room. She could have dug deeper and asked WHY was I embarrassed? What did that mean about people's perceptions of me? And so on.
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> So I'm not a fan of CBT...but psychodynamic therapy just seems too scary right now since I had such a hard termination with my therapist of that orientation. I'm afraid of getting taken apart and then left with the pieces.
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poster:deborah anne lott
thread:534691
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20050725/msgs/535332.html