Posted by baseball55 on April 29, 2013, at 19:56:27
In reply to Re: You and I, we just don't want to get better, posted by Meatwood_Flack on April 28, 2013, at 23:25:20
I don't think a good therapist needs to have experienced depression anymore than a good doctor needs to have experienced diabetes. They are clinicians. They see multiple patients over many years and, if they are empathic as they must be to do this kind of work, they come to know how depression looks, feels, responds. I think any experienced clinician can empathize and work with mental illness without having experienced it themselves. just as any good gp can work with diabetic patients without having diabetes themselves and any good oncologist can work with cancer patients without having had cancer themselves.
You may have had bad experiences with clinicians but I have had nothing but good experiences.
> I think part of the shortcomings of mental health care is that it is carried out by people who don't truly understand what it's like to need mental health care. The same could be said of cancer patients. I've had three different therapists and, of those, only one who was selfless enough to try to question our way down to the roots. The other two were basically cheerleaders. "Do what you love" and that sort of thing, even if you've told them a dozen times that you don't love anything anymore. Before my depressive episode hit 15 months ago, I spent 2-3 hours a night making music only to wake up one morning to find that didn't work anymore.How could I expect anyone assigned to me to understand that? I think we are so used to the idea that there is, or should be, order in the universe that we expect anyone with a master's degree in psychology to be able to provide it. But one thing I've learned from my own dark night of the soul is that the brain is too powerful to be understood, let alone mastered. Sometimes medication helps. For me, I have yet to see such a benefit. So the idea of someone without the benefit of my experience being able to help me navigate through it just seems preposterous, although well intentioned. I don't blame them for their lack of understanding, anymore than I would blame a doctor treating me for cancer for their lack of understanding of the experience of a cancer patient. I've become accustomed to being misunderstood. But I also came to grips with the reality that therapy is nothing more than two people trying to understand each other. My depression is an experience I could have never imagined had I not gone through it. The fact that my therapists do not understand only makes sense, a fact that makes it harder to trust a new therapist. After all, what do they know about how you feel? It's a very individual experience. Very tough waters to navigate, both for us and for those we seek out for guidance.
poster:baseball55
thread:1042805
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20130409/msgs/1042919.html