Once I said to my therapist "I'm sure you hear this kind of thing all the time", and she said "No, this is like top 5".
I was describing my insane in-laws for the record.
Was telling what I thought was a common story of my upbringing. She burst into tears.
Therapist here. I’ve had clients say this “I’m sure you hear this all the time” line to me before. It’s always a little surprising to me, because while, yes, we do hear a lot of the same type of traumatic stories, we’re trained to regard every single patient as unique. And that’s because they are. No one’s story is like any other’s. There may be similar elements, but they’re ultimately all very different due to the details. Just as you regard everyone you know as highly different, we see our patients the same way.
Don’t ever be afraid that your therapist sees you as “just another X-type person.” And if you get the sense they do, get a different therapist.
Honestly the only time I’ve said this it was a relief to know that the answer was yes, because while it sucks others are hurting it made me feel far less alone and obscure.
The suffering of others is very comforting.
One of my first sessions with my therapist, I said something that made them crack and go "WHAT". They apologized almost immediately for losing their composure but I've been chasing that high ever since.
Is it like correcting your kindergarten teacher, and being right?
When I used to smoke, I started bumping into this therapist in D.C. outside my building on a busy street downtown. She had actively tried to get on some Bachelor-esque reality show (it may have actually been The Bachelor). Eventually, she told me about the time she pissed in a boss's coffee mug. Or my favorite: the time she did blood magic to prevent rain from ruining her and her friends' beach weekend. She eventually said she needed to stop meeting me for smoke breaks, because she was dating someone, and if we kept it up, "she would take what she wanted." Therapists, man. Definitely very stable.
...and that is how I quit smoking.
That's probably the healthy mindset that leads to better relationships. If I'm being honest, I lean a bit more toward, "...good times, I should take up smoking again..."
Holy shit!
My therapist is a nice young mom, and I coincidentally know her dad a little bit and they're nice people as far as I have seen. Maybe she has a closet full of medieval torture devices for all I know though.
Anyone that has gone to college with a psych major know that they're not stable, that's why they're in the major. They're either psychopaths trying to learn how to be better psychopaths or have issues.
Psychology was the most popular social science major at my university. It was considered the business degree but for decent folks, like a generic or liberal arts degree.
The idea that a psych major is unstable or unique in any way is absolutely foreign to me. There were a lot of white people, though.
Yeah it's honestly one of the most believable aspects of the Harley Quinn character
People aren't even pretending to post memes anymore...
I await the "hurr durr everything's a meme" comments.
Be the change you want to see grumpy person!
I briefly went to a therapist 30 years ago. Like many people who go, I was worried that they wouldn't think I was actually depressed and wouldn't give me anything or do anything for me. I needn't have worried, as the guy hadn't listened to me for more than two minutes before he said "we need to get you on Prozac." He had me meet with their staff psychiatrist who turned out to be a 70-year-old Cuban. This guy just rambled for an hour without ever asking me any questions; at one point he actually said "back in Cuba, we had a lot of problems with the blacks - you call them n*****s here" which was pretty eye-opening (keep in mind this was a counseling service run by the state university I was attending at the time - and this was the 1990s, not the Jim Crow era). After I got my prescription I mentioned this comment to the therapist and he just rolled his eyes. It was obvious that they kept this guy around for his ability to prescribe drugs and for no other reason.
I didn't know Hulk Hogan was a Therapist
Unfortunately, the ethical implications of this would be troubling. Refunds would have the effect of reinforcing whatever the patient did that session. If doing or making up wild stuff is what gets you a free session, some people are going to realize that. If other patients catch wind of one person getting a refund, they may end up doing and saying wilder things, too. Patients' best interests would take a backseat to the entertainment of the therapist, and that's pretty messed up if you think about it.
Yeah, ethical therapy person gotta ruin the fun. Sorry guys. But there is potential in a refund model. It could go far if it's used to reward positive things, like putting the most effort into working out an issue, or making the most personal growth over a period of time.
And double pay for lazy depressed people!
/sj
I actually did have a therapist offer to refund me once. I found her incredibly rude and she said things to me I found that were like negging and patronizing almost? I came away from each session feeling like she didn't like me at all, and that we hadn't done anything at all, like I was speaking into a void to someone who offered me exactly one piece of advice the whole time. I drove myself crazy trying to figure out if I just wasn't getting something or was I just the asshole or what, and in the final session when I finally burst into tears because I felt so belittled and like she disliked me, I told her I could not continue with her because of this, that she had said almost NOTHING to me save for one sentence that I considered anything like therapy, and that I could not continue throwing a lot of money at this when I felt completely unsupported and unsafe, and I left. (Whether I was wrong or not we weren't getting anywhere or jiving so there was no point). She left me a very patronizing voice mail where she snarkily apologized and offered to refund or refer me elsewhere. I did not return her call. Maybe it was a me problem, to this day I don't know, but I had two therapists after that (one retired) and we got along just fine and made plenty of progress. I really don't know. I am not going to not pay someone for their work regardless of what I think of the job they did as that's not ethical, but that was several hundred dollars wasted.
I did have the faintest sense that the senior therapist in that practice didn't think a lot of her either, as she walked into one of my sessions as we just had sat down to begin and said kind of coldly "May I talk to you?" to my therapist and they took off and talked for a bit, and she didn't seem awfully happy when she returned (and she deducted that time from my session which amazed me). She isn't there anymore according to their website. I really don't know. I still feel awful when I think of her.
Just because people have a job, doesn’t mean they are good at that job.
For sure you need to have rapport with your therapist or it just isn’t gonna work. And sometimes people can just rub you the wrong way.
I'm sorry you had that experience, but glad that you continued trying and had better ones. There are definitely bad therapists, and more often it's just a bad fit. The same way you're not going to be friends with everyone, not every therapist can really work for you. It can take a few tries to find one that really clicks. I've met too many people who just gave up after one try, some after literally one session. Most were not anywhere near as bad as your experience. So give yourself a lot of credit that you kept trying even after that!
I wrote this out partially for anyone else who may be earlier in their mental health journey. If it's not a good fit after a few sessions, you can ask for a referral or just stop and find someone else. A professional will not take offense. It's pretty normal and an expected part of their job.
That's terrible. That therapist needs therapy
Rewarding people with the most positive behavior might still backfire, as the point of therapy (at least for me) was to stop comparing myself to others all the time. Even a small improvement for someone should be applauded, especially if you're already struggling with the small things.
That's a great point.
Either would encourage lying. Therapy cannot happen if the client is not completely honest.
Besides that, it ignores how therapists get paid. Imagine if your boss just decided to refund a few hours of your time each week. Just take it right out of your paycheck, and hand it back. It's fucked.
Not to mention the "most entertaining" part, like "your ex painted the DOG for revenge? Ahahah that's wild, this goes in the list"
whenever someone suggests therapy, i think about how little i already trust regular doctors and all the horror stories about therapists
You mistrust doctors because they're not educated in psychology. The horror stories are 1. stories and 2. even the ones describing real events are flushed into your feed because they're outrageous. Nobody will upvote a boring story about a therapist doing their job and slowly getting to the bottom of some hyper-specific unresolved issue some random person has.
I've cried at my psychologist place multiple times but each time was not because of her. It was welling up of deep, un-addressed feelings, or a sense of relief of some kind, or sometimes pure catharsis.
Sessions were often exhausting but because of being emotionally engaging and being about things that were deeply emotional to me. I apologized several times for becoming overwhelmed, feeling weird as a chubby grown man breaking down, but she always reassured in a way that made me feel safe, un-judged.
Her goal was always to help me work through last traumas and keep improving living on my own. And she helped tremendously.
There's definitely some crap therapists out there, and some who are great at some things but terrible with others. Then there's some who have studied thoroughly and keep up-to-date to help people, because even if it's taxing for them, their passion is in helping people.
Don't dismiss horror stories or the fear; dismissal isn't helpful. Guiding instead with positives, with some good to help ease the fears, is far more helpful.
Probably you hear more of those stories because if you have a bad experience you tell everyone, while if you have a good one you don't tell ot that much.
I had a good experience doing therapy. The psychologist was a professional that applied modern psychology techniques for my case and they worked within what's expected.
I can't believe the scientific community of Lemmy is unfamiliar with the literature behind therapy.
literature is boring, hearing crazy stories is more interesting That's a joke please don't downvote me too much
laughs in Lacan.
Dude just made shit up, it's a fever dream with three dollar words.
This would be a great setup for a dark comedy.
Or a straight-up horror film. Just think about the incentive this creates.
Can't leave is hanging we need to hear it too!
I do believe I was discussing how my extremely well off FIL loaned my BIL money to go back to school, when he had never given him a dime for anything education or otherwise ever in his life, simply so he didn't have to take on student loans a second time, and when he was not yet employed a month after finishing school took him to court to get all of the money back. Um, this is your kid, you are worth millions easy, you didn't do shit for him, and it was like 3-4K which is a drop in the bucket for you, which you really should have just given him, and if you were going to be like this in the end you should have just been up front and said no so he didn't have to go through this. I think I also discussed how he promised to pay for dinner the night after my wedding when my parents had stumped up for my wedding dinner (we got married in NYC), and then when the check came started adding up what everyone owed. Again, if you didn't want to, don't, but don't fucking leave everyone dangling, we didn't ask you to. I don't think I've ever seen my ex so upset, not because we had to pay, but because he did that.
There are other things too, like his mother's habit of weaponized eccentricity where she would give you literal garbage for Christmas presenta because she liked to pretend she was very poor even though she has more money than any of her kids, but she liked to see your face drop when you opened the gift which was trash to anyone else, and just a whole whack of other things. Narcissists are wild.
There are other things too, like his mother’s habit of weaponized eccentricity where she would give you literal garbage for Christmas presenta because she liked to pretend she was very poor even though she has more money than any of her kids, but she liked to see your face drop when you opened the gift which was trash to anyone else, and just a whole whack of other things. Narcissists are wild.
My significant other's parents gave me a used roll of duct tape one year. This actually makes so much fucking sense reading your comment.
A moth goes into a podiatrist's office...
For the uninitiated: https://youtu.be/jJN9mBRX3uo
RIP Norm
Ha ha me too
Going to therapy is like going to shaman or crystal-ball damme: you don't know why but sometimes it works. Near to "always" you waste your resources and time and reveal shameful secrets to an unknown person.
If you're honest about your shit, therapists are there to help you look at things from a different perspective.
If you're not going to be honest it's garbage in/garbage out.
You also need to find a therapist you vibe well with. If you don't believe in Jesus and they tell you to follow Jesus, that shit isn't going to work. Your first session should be you interviewing them while they ask you questions.
There's also ones that totally suck.
I don't think those are therapists you've been seeing...
No, I've had similar experiences. If your experiences/perspectives are considerably outside the norm, many "shrinks" - who likely are among "the norm" - just don't get it. Never mind there's always some who are just there for the money - my mother was quite happy with hers because he told her what she wanted to hear, which ultimately caused more harm than good.
EDIT: Political/religious leanings also often play into how things go.
I mean, maybe a bad therapist...Which I will fully admit there are A LOT of bad therapists out there.
Some of those crystal doms are real good, hot wax, rope, the whole bit. All my mommy issues were resolved in 6 sessions
I, personally, would ruin this method. I usually end up massaging my therapists and there really isn't a slot to explain that on the insurance forms.
Is it odd that a patient exists to assuage therapists?