Posted by mair on April 29, 2003, at 21:20:07
In reply to Re: Forever therapy » noa, posted by Dinah on April 28, 2003, at 20:13:27
Dinah, those are all good questions. I'm frequently baffled by my inability to really quantify the benefits of therapy - other than the obvious benefit of having someone who sees that I'm slipping into a deeper depression far sooner than I do and who is there when I'm pretty much falling apart.
Most of the other benefits are those recognized in retrospect. Something routinely traumatic will happen and I'll realize that I haven't reacted as badly as I would before. We've spent alot of time hashing through work issues and while all of those issues are still there, I just seem to be able to distance myself from office turmoil better than I used to.
But of course the benefits are obscured by periodic episodes of depression, and by the difficulty I still have opening up to my therapist on all sorts of fronts. The relationship issues which seem to be interconnected to my very low self esteem are still troublesome, and since I'm so reluctant to really tackle these in therapy, I continually think it's just beyond my ability to progress as far as I need to.
I've also wondered about the "fit." I like my therapist alot and think she's very competent, but I'm rarely blown away by her insight or her intuitiveness. It's been a struggle for me to form a bond or connection to her. But I think all that says more about me than it does her, and more about why she wants me there twice a week. Lacking all that, what keeps me going, I guess, is her incredible patience and unending optimism that we can get where I want to go.
Mair
PS: I too, have no clue what hard work is. I've told her before that I frequently feel that she is the only one of the 2 of us who is actually working. She seems mystified that I could feel this way since therapy is often just very difficult for me. But i don't equate hard work with being very uncomfortable. The fact that I spend an inordinate amount of time in many sessions staring at the clock or figuring out how I can get out of there as soon as possible, (a trapped animal comes to mind), doesn't mean I'm working hard but rather that I'm trying to avoid working.
poster:mair
thread:220332
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20030407/msgs/223269.html