I have tried therapy on and off for a while now. People would always get frustrated with me and tell me to “get therapy,” but I never knew what I was actually supposed to be there for. And I tried a service like BetterHelp before (can’t remember what this one was called), but it just sucked ass and I’m not sure if the people on there were even licensed professionals.
I finally started going consistently with this one therapist, but I frequently get frustrated with her for not giving me actual coping skills or techniques. One of her favorite things to ask me is “how can you deal with X?” And I get frustrated and say “I don’t know.” Because if I fucking knew I wouldn’t be in therapy. She seems to do a more meandering talk therapy style thing with vague ideas of DBT and CBT thrown in there. She’s not giving me enough skills to not get fired at work. She helped me go through a difficult time, but now that that’s over, I’m back to square one.
So I found a therapist who specifically states she does DBT. Over time I have learned that my core issue is emotional dysregulation which is treated by DBT. She told me she follows this one workbook. I got the book. It’s great! It gives you a zillion and one coping skills. But after having several sessions with her, I notice that she spends the entire time just going “in chapter 4, this happens. Then in chapter 8, this happens” while my eyes just glaze over. Today the session ended 35 minutes early because she only vaguely contributed to me talking about a problem I had today.
I have been seeing both therapists concurrently until my deductible resets in January.
I just am so endlessly frustrated with the entire mental health industry. I’ve seen so many different therapists. I’ve really tried to do any exercises that they have given me. I’ve tried multiple different psych meds (trying a new one now actually!).
Nothing works. Nothing has changed about me. I’m the same person with the same problems. And nothing I seem to try makes a lick of difference. I try so hard. I try a zillion different things…exercise, getting good sleep, eating right, therapy, meds…nothing changes me. Nothing helps me.
What in the everliving fuck am I missing? Do I have to go through 30 different therapists before I can find one that can help me? Am I just doing therapy “wrong”??? What am I supposed to be doing here?
Through all this, I’ve found that telling someone to “go to therapy” is almost offensive…it just absolves others from caring about you and makes it sound like you’re not willing to do the base effort in bettering yourself.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for taking the time to read.
Usually “get therapy” from an acquaintance means “I am completely in over my head and am unqualified to help with this”. The tricky thing is that not only does not all types of therapy mesh with the same person but there are also a lot of shit therapists out there to muddy the waters even more. Some brainstormed ideas are: maybe find an actual phd psychologist and see if they are any better, look into group therapy (which was my first kind of therapy and my brother swears by it), and maybe take a basic psychology course to better understand what options there are out there.
It’s difficult to offer specific ideas, as we don’t know what country you from. Based on the notion of ‘insurance’ I’m assuming the U.S.
I’m hearing a lot of frustration in your therapy journey, and there may be some confusion on the role of a therapist.
A licensed and trained therapist will have been trained in a method (Modality). This particular therapist seems to have a grounding in something that’s person-centered adjacent. The theory in person-centered (outlined by Carl Rogers) is that it is the client who is best placed to know their own solutions.
The process works by exploring the world from a client’s perspective, and helping them see and articulate solutions that will work for them. This type of therapy is useful for the broadest category of people when done well. It is not useful for everyone.
Emotional Disregulation, as you have described, has two primary sources.
- Medical: a client cannot, on their own regularly their emotions due to issues with hormone production. This requires a doctor or a psychologist to diagnose.
- Developmental Trauma: a client has been disempowered with emotional regulation during key development stages. It may be compounded by adverse experiences when showing emotion.
However, it can also be a mix of both, and one could be feeding the other.
A therapist is going to seek to help you explore your own self-understanding, to see which areas are a struggle, and help support a client towards readiness to change, and change itself.
You say in your writing that your looking at support in your job, I wonder if there’s some anxiety there.
You also ask about tips on dealing with things. Those kind of responses are better supported with a more practical modality, CBT, DBT for example. These require practice, and repetition. Lots of repetition. It is no suprise, therefore, that your therapist revisits the same sections of a book.
I wonder, however, if the mixed use of person-centered and practical therapies is not functioning here in a useful way. I wonder if it would help to approach different therapy sessions seeking different outcomes. Exploring CBT/DBT with one, then to explore if there is anything underlying with another.
Generally, a client should only with with one therapist at a time, however.
I hear your frustration with the process, and the desire to moved forward. From your writing you’ve already taken the biggest step in finding therapy. Hopefully you can find a therapist that works for you.
Ah so let me clarify some things.
I did a lot of research and found that DBT therapy is supposed to be the “gold standard” for this sort of thing. My current/old therapist does use some of those concepts but in too vague of a way for me to be able to find it more than incredibly mildly useful. She doesn’t use a book. She does talk about the trauma thing like you said which I find interesting and I guess does look at more of the root of the problems which might be useful in its own way in the long run.
I researched and found a therapist who does specifically does DBT. She told me about the workbook and it is basically just a zillion different skills to practice! Which is great! But I noticed that in practicing these skills all the time I just don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere. The intensity of what I feel is the same and under extreme reactions my brain shuts off and I have difficulty accessing the skills. It actually is useful for mild scenarios. The thing is that DBT therapist doesn’t actually do anything during the sessions like my current therapist does. She is just like “I like this chapter in the book. I like this concept in the book.”. I have tried to talk a little bit about a specific issue I had and tie it back to how I succeeded or struggled to use said methods, but she just doesn’t have anything to really say in response and we just end up staring at each other.
My new plan is to see the old therapist for conceptual things and work through the workbook on my own.
I just wish there was some way to make my emotions less intense because nothing helps me with that. It’s why I started therapy in the first place and also why I’ve been trying various psych meds. Idk.
Yes I have workplace trauma tho even lol.
