Agreed. I know therapy left me with a feeling of, “Your problems aren’t that bad, you just aren’t trying hard enough to fix them! Shame on you.” Of course, a lot of that was because the therapist wasn’t a particularly good one (for me, at least), but all it takes is one mediocre therapist to put you off the idea of therapy entirely.
It’s very important to find a therapist who can help you and be able to leave those who can’t help you behind. There is good help, but for the most part therapist skill and personality conflicts can derail therapy and render it useless. I guess what I was trying to convey in this strip was the feeling that progress, if any, was so insignificant that I didn’t feel therapy was practical. It sucks that the therapist made you feel that way, that’s not going to help you and only make the problem worse.
From my POV, short-term therapy that changes our mental habits is better for depression than endless sessions that go back into our past and expose all of the ways that life has betrayed us or that we have defeated ourselves. I’ve had therapy that really helped, but more often I feel that I am paying for the therapist’s Lexus and I will never make any progress. Clear goals and methods to get there help me a lot more. It’s like having a GPS for a destination instead of just wandering all over with no map.
I feel reality would be more like the therapist giving the patient the hammer & chisel for the patient to break off pieces of the patient’s depression. I can’t remember where or how I learned it, but the therapist or whatever can’t “cure” the patient but rather help the patient “cure” themselves (which is entirely possible). Even the therapists have to have special training to help understand that they can only do so much, to keep the therapists (who are people too) themselves from getting depressed when they work with patients for long periods of time where no “progress” is seen. Then again. . . I’m the type of person who blames themselves too much so it is perhaps a little too easy for me to see myself (a patient) not working hard enough and anybody else (like a therapist) completely blameless.
I’m not so sure about this one. Whenever I tried talking with someone about it, it seemed more like they were hitting me with the hammer instead.
Agreed. I know therapy left me with a feeling of, “Your problems aren’t that bad, you just aren’t trying hard enough to fix them! Shame on you.” Of course, a lot of that was because the therapist wasn’t a particularly good one (for me, at least), but all it takes is one mediocre therapist to put you off the idea of therapy entirely.
It’s very important to find a therapist who can help you and be able to leave those who can’t help you behind. There is good help, but for the most part therapist skill and personality conflicts can derail therapy and render it useless. I guess what I was trying to convey in this strip was the feeling that progress, if any, was so insignificant that I didn’t feel therapy was practical. It sucks that the therapist made you feel that way, that’s not going to help you and only make the problem worse.
From my POV, short-term therapy that changes our mental habits is better for depression than endless sessions that go back into our past and expose all of the ways that life has betrayed us or that we have defeated ourselves. I’ve had therapy that really helped, but more often I feel that I am paying for the therapist’s Lexus and I will never make any progress. Clear goals and methods to get there help me a lot more. It’s like having a GPS for a destination instead of just wandering all over with no map.
I feel reality would be more like the therapist giving the patient the hammer & chisel for the patient to break off pieces of the patient’s depression. I can’t remember where or how I learned it, but the therapist or whatever can’t “cure” the patient but rather help the patient “cure” themselves (which is entirely possible). Even the therapists have to have special training to help understand that they can only do so much, to keep the therapists (who are people too) themselves from getting depressed when they work with patients for long periods of time where no “progress” is seen. Then again. . . I’m the type of person who blames themselves too much so it is perhaps a little too easy for me to see myself (a patient) not working hard enough and anybody else (like a therapist) completely blameless.
It’s a loooooooooooooooooong way, fellas. http://t.co/xCu5kns78H via @depressioncomix