Posted by Dinah on March 24, 2011, at 7:58:01
In reply to Re: I withdraw my previous post, posted by Tabitha on March 24, 2011, at 1:29:31
I have two immediate impressions.
The first is that you might be in a similar state of therapy to where I am, where what's been helpful in the past might be ceasing to be helpful because that work is done and incorporated. To some extent, you seem to be saying that growth comes from just doing life rather than thinking about it. But I think the ability to just do life isn't there for all people at all times of their lives. When it isn't possible to put feelings of distress aside and do what needs to be done. Yes, certainly that is ideal. But in general people seek out therapy because their life isn't working when it comes to doing what needs to be done.
The second is that a lot of what you wrote describes your therapist's method of doing therapy, and her thoughts on therapy. Which is perfectly reasonable given your long therapeutic relationship. But a lot of what you describe as no longer believing are things my therapist probably never believed and never said to me. You are thinking that your therapist's approach to therapy is "the" approach to therapy, when really there are a good number of therapists who would say to you just what you are saying.
So maybe you are right about therapy, but not completely and all-encompassingly right (if I remember my logic correctly). That what you are saying is true, but it doesn't encompass the entire truth about all therapy. It's true for you right now, and it may have been true for you for some time. What you say may be true for many people much of the time.
Maybe therapy doesn't need to be a creed, so much as a tool. Or a group of tools since there is so much variation within therapy. At any time, you might not be needing a tool at all, and using that tool might slow you down and make you awkward. (I've used a lot of tools like that - ones I've tossed away in disgust and just dug my bare hands in and did the darn work.) And at any time a particular tool might not be right for the job, even if it's been the right tool in the past. And even though you're used to that tool, and it fits so easily in your hand, it really might make the work much faster to try another one, if you also find that tossing the tool aside and just digging in with your hands doesn't accomplish the job. I was that way with Lotus 1-2-3. I clung to it long after it quit production, and long after it ceased to be cutting edge, because I was used to the look and the feel of the program. I didn't want to move on to nasty old shiny Excel. But once I got used to it, I can do so much more so much more quickly with what was, at that point, the most effective tool for the job. Even though at one time the most effective tool for the job *was* Lotus, and I was perfectly right in loving it. Maybe just not loving it as long as I did.
Good grief. I seem to be admitting the fact that it *is* possible to stay too long at the party. Though I'll never concede that a therapist has the right to point say that even when it is true, and certainly not when it isn't true.
Of course this may reflect one of my therapist's pet therapeutic points. He's not as big on feelings as your therapist seems to be. But he is big on balance and avoiding extremes. So that he'd probably point out that therapy is neither good nor bad entirely. Therapy is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and sometimes neither.
It's funny. Over time I find myself thinking of things the way my therapist would have approached them with me over the years. No wonder he often thinks I'm right about things these days. And I find those helpful ways to view the world, and helpful ways to function. Ways I probably wouldn't have found myself, because it wasn't the way I thought until he molded me to think that way. Like a good parent should.
It's even more funny that he often doesn't think the same way about his own life. Just mine. He's as silly as anyone about his own life. Strange that. The pupil learned to apply the lessons better than the teacher. It was like that with my mother. What she taught me growing up became part of who I am. Yet over and over again she does things and thinks things that she taught me better than to do or say.
Did your therapist do any of that sort of molding with you?
So maybe instead of thinking that you wasted $200-300k with your therapist, you could think that you wasted $100k or $50k or $150k.
Or as the comedian teams say "My marriage has been the best five years of my life." "But we've been married fifteen years."
Or not. Just my thoughts.
poster:Dinah
thread:980953
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20110324/msgs/981042.html