Posted by Dinah on September 8, 2007, at 9:08:06
In reply to Re: Frustrated and unhappy with T » Dinah, posted by girlnterrupted78 on September 8, 2007, at 2:07:07
Unfortunately I'm no where near New York. But if you found a therapist before who suited you, I'm sure you can find another.
Her approach sounds pretty standard to some schools of therapy. I don't think that in itself what you describe would be unethical. She may or may not be very skilled. And more importantly, that may or may not be the right approach for you. There have been any number of people here who have found great benefit with therapists who wouldn't suit me at all. I may not understand it, but I recognize that the style is helpful to them.
I've walked away from a fair number of adjunct therapists and pdocs who didn't suit me. Did that say something about me? Sure. What suits me says a lot about me. What I can't tolerate says a lot about me. My interpretations of what's happening in a relationship says a lot about me. And they often throw light on experiences I have in the rest of my life as well. I've explored it with my therapist, who suits me nicely, but I haven't continued seeing the others.
I think other posters have posted some interesting thoughts along those lines. And you might want to explore them with a therapist you can feel comfortable with.
Wittgenstein's post told you about some different types of therapy. And if you want to go into your next therapy search with enough knowledge to be an informed consumer (I was obsessive about it - control issues on my part), you might want to do an internet search on types of therapy or schools of therapy or something along those lines.
Or perhaps posters could give you some insights if you start a thread asking about the types of therapy they're in. I know we have posters doing schema therapy, rational emotive therapy (not sure if I got that right), analysis of one type or another, and CBT or DBT.
My therapist was trained in CBT, which is the most common sort of therapy in the US right now, since insurance companies tend to like it. I found the approach helpful, but over time he moderated his approach to one I found even more helpful because his main therapy idea is that what you do or say isn't important if you aren't doing it in a way that a client can hear and embrace. I'm not sure I've ever heard a CBT therapist say that they're going to try the approach further along in therapy. I've heard that with EMDR and EFT (not sure if I got that right either), but most CBT therapists seem to start right off with that approach. There is lots of homework based on changing behaviors and identifying and challenging "distorted" (I prefer "unhelpful") ways of thinking. It's very directive and hands on, and tends to be focused on symptom relief and results.
But that won't tell you all you need to know about a therapist. Some are very wed to their own schools of therapy and rigid about deviations. Others tend to use what they find helpful for that client. Fit is at least as important as school of therapy, and fit is something that takes some trial and error.
I have some books somewhere in my psychology book section. I'll see if I can shove aside the stacks of stuff in my closet to get some titles.
poster:Dinah
thread:781352
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20070904/msgs/781583.html