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Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

Great mindsets as an approach to counselling.

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

@MoonGal , I put the quote marks on it, and every other "pearl" of his has been a quote.. I could have been clearer. 😛

I think, too, at the start, I'm typically energised and wildly optimistic/naive - about the abilities of the psych as well as my ability to be able to follow through. Like a New Year's resolution. I have a lifelong health issue that makes me chronically tired and chronically in pain - my mother's physio once told me it took me 3 to 5 times as much energy just to stand as others do - I think this was a statistic, because we didn't do that kind of testing. When stuff gets tough, I can't manage my 'ouch' as well, which only adds to the toughness of my overall situation. I still find it hard to disclose and explain my 'ouch' to people in charge, which means I end up crashing and they don't understand. This has implications for a hypothetical new psych because I might bite off more than I can chew and then crash, and have the new psych, like the old psych, interpret that crash as being "willful" or me "not trying hard enough".

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

Reading about your insights into past therapeutic experiences give me good grist for the mill.  @CannonSalt

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

So, I'm having a thought.  (Alert the media! 😄 )

 

My thought is that I don't necessarily need to be 'over' ex-psych and his sweep-the-problem-under-the-rug colleague to see someone new.

 

I just need to be aware of when I'm 'stuck' on the past problem with them rather than looking at my life now, my needs, and looking towards that wierd place known as the future. 

 

I also need to be aware of whether I'm seeing my hypothetical new psych for themselves, and not gleefully tarring them with my tarbrush, or trusting them too much, taking what they say as gospel. 

 

Is this a rational kind of a thought? 

 

Also - @Appleblossom and @MoonGal - what are your thoughts on 'it gets worse before it gets better' when you do psych work?  I've heard that chestnut more than once. 

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

CannonSalt - You said "what are your thoughts on 'it gets worse before it gets better' when you do psych work?  I've heard that chestnut more than once."

I always end up going through the wringer whenever i attend psychotheraputic appointments. Usu. I end up there when I am travelling really rough and my life has fallen apart (again). I feel flayed, like all my skin has been peeled off when I start working with a new practitioner, having to go over the 'story'. I used to often say "No pain, no gain" but I have backed off from that assertion in past year or so, its like a self-fulfilling prophecy that one!

However, I am pretty clear about (like I wrote in the response on this discussion 30 Oct at 7.19) the steps I take before an appointment, trying to clear my fuzzled head, note down what the actual problems are (or what I perceive them to be at least as a starting point), what I hope to achieve. The most useful approach for me so far has been those practitioners who work within the framework of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). I suspect though truly good practitioners have a whole toolkit of skills and approaches and adapt and fit to suit each individual.

Yes, it almost always gets worse before it gets better, as I dig in the mud and muck and face/confront some terrible life's experiences that happened to me, the damage they have done, the *mistaken learning I have come away with from those things. This is one reason I usually only do one round of mental health appointments (6) per year. I would just be a jelly mess if I did it continuously. I want to grab life with both hands and live the best I can as often as I can - so out the other side of therapy I try mainly to just 'live' and concentrate on home, hearth, loved ones. I am not keen on psychotherapy for its own sake, and sucidal ideation is invariably a feature that rears its ugly head as I go into and though therapy.

In my last round of sessions I disclosed something I had never old anyone in 50+ years that happened to me when I was 17 years old. I thought my throat/heart would break saying it, it was a very hard story to tell, and once I did, the freedom from the holding tight of that incident was immense. I got 'unstuck" on that one.

I do though wonder how practitioners cope with hearing such terrible things. I feel for them too. Listening to the hardest, vilest things humanity does to each other. I am not suprised some end up doing the job by rote just to protect themselves.

*Re: mistaken learning - I identify things that I learned through my life, usually as a child - where given my innocence, naitivety and lack of life's experience I have 'learned the wrong lesson'.
For instance - that I am "bad, or powerless"  the real lesson (which no child can learn because of lack of experience) is that the perpetrator is the problem, not my reposnse to them. How could I have KNOWN to say no. How could I have known to seek help. Too young. So I walked through the rest of my life with this mistaken learning "you don't say no, or you don't 'tell" or "you don't stand up for yourself" or "you must never question authority" because... it just brings worse pain and monstering. Mistaken learning. Counselling has definately helped me identify where I have learned something by mistake and helped me into correct understandings.

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

Yes you can get a new psych without having processed everything with the old. Yes I think it is VERY rational to be aware of you/WE as clients/consumers/patients/peeple project onto our counsellors but also to be aware of how they project onto us.

 

Re the old chestnut of things being hard before they get easy ... it could be true .... depends on context and person ... or it could be that a counsellor is uncomfortable with the depth of pain you are feeling and unable to witness it

(therefore he/she needs to do more work on themself before charging money to be present when others have the courage to unveil themselves).

 

Your image of the tar brush was vivid!

 

Yes there is often WORK to do in therapy ... but it should be in line with YOUR values and goals.

 

I quetly smiled when I read "that weird place in the future".  It is a good sign to have a sense of future ... and until recently I did not have a sense of a future ... I survived mainly by enrolling in educational institutions which gave me deadlines ... now at last with over 5 decades under my belt ...I do feel I have a future I hope one opens up for you too.

 

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

I'm also beginning to wonder 'why go at all? Would it actually help me? am I better off as I am?'

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

Do I hear the calm strains of self acceptance in you last post. @CannonSalt

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

I have no idea - isn't self-acceptance for people who aren't depressed, @Appleblossom ? 🙂

Re: What to do before first appt with new psych? (hypothetical)

Dunno ... maybe it depends on if you believe Scott Peck in The Road Less travelled. @CannonSalt

 

Most people by my age have some experience of deppression .. I have just had a "richer" dose of it.

 

At least acceptance of one's own unique process and style of working through life challenges....

 

Not necessarily accepting yukky feelings or thoughts as permanent parts of one's being??