Posted by Pfinstegg on April 5, 2003, at 14:06:29
In reply to I'm depressed., posted by Dinah on April 5, 2003, at 11:40:41
Hi Dinah.. I am once again struck by the combination of strength and vulnerability which you have. The strengths are so clear here on the board- in how you understand other people so well, and relate so well to such a range of people. And it sounds as though you have a sound marriage to a man you love, and a fine son as well. What you have done with your own life seems a tremendous order of magnitude better than what happened with your parents when you were a child. But those horrible experiences have obviously left you excessively vulnerable to becoming anxious and depressed- probably from minimal stressors.
I'm going to take a chance, and guess that you may not have as good a therapist as you need. I think the most effective therapists working today are using techniques derived from attachment theory and its disorders. They work, at first almost entirely, on "containment"-to use a current term- meaning that they want the patient to develop the capacity to feel completely safe in the therapist's presence, even when their most terrifying feelings and memories are brought into that space between patient and therapist. Effective treatment should mean that after a year or two, a patient should be able to carry that sense of safety with her/him even when separate, and use it to modify those extreme emotional reactions.
To relate my own experience, after sucessful TMS in January, i decided to try to find a therapist who was skilled in these new techniques, as I felt that I would probably relapse if I didn't keep trying to address the consequences of the severe PTSD which I have. It was hard to find one (and I didn't know exactly who I was trying to find), but after a month of interviewing and asking, I found an absolutely wonderful therapist. He is a psychoanalyst, but I see him twice a week, sitting up. What matters is that he really knows what he is doing! I feel I am already (after 6 weeks of therapy) making real progress in truly understanding and modifying the overpowering, instantaneous shifts into anxiety and depression which have always occurred.
I found this therapist by starting with a Psychoanalytic Institute, and making it clear that I wanted a modern therapist, skilled in relational techniques- and NOT an old=fashioned Freudian analyst. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that many psychoanalysts feel that their profession has been transformed in the last 10-15 years, and that it is not hard to find the newly-trained kind.
I know you have been with your current therapist for a number of years, and that my suggestion may seem very inappropriate and unwelcome. But, in the spirit of maintaining freedom of speech and inquiry on PB, I'm going to make it anyway! There seems to already be such a big part of you that's strong and healthy, that I think you can get really WELL, Dinah!
Pfinstegg
poster:Pfinstegg
thread:216444
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20030401/msgs/216469.html