More threads by rainbowcolours

Someone on another forum adviced me to go here and ask me this question, so here I go. I have been seeing my therapist for about a year now. There have been things I have problems with, and I would like to hear other people's opinion on this, as I don't know anymore if it's just me seeing and feeling problems that are not there and that I merely overreact. I'm sorry if it is a lot all at once or if it's fuzzy... please ask if you want to have things cleared up more, but at the moment I can't get my head straight around this.

I have been having an eating disorder and she knows this. Not so long ago had my doubts on myself and about showing up in a bathing suit on my holiday. I had told her my thoughts on myself and when I was finished, she looked at me and said: "well, in my opinion you HAVE become a bit fatter than when you started." Then she went on that if I still gained weight, that would mean I was eating too much etc. I could lose weight by eating less or exercising more...
After this session I have written her a letter with my complaints about this, which she did pick up and I left it behind me. I mean: anyone can make a wrong remark, right?

But slowly things seem to be getting wrong all the time. It's like we talk different languages.
I have had times where I just wanted to give up, not wanting to live anymore. When I brought this up with her, she told me that was just a mere feeling. Period, nothing more, nothing less, no deepening of why I felt that way or anything.
I asked her what to do if I felt so bad, that I felt like calling someone and she wasn't there (she only works two days a week). She then told me that I just had to find a way to get through it and when whe's be there and I felt the need for it still: I could give her a call.
"Just find a way to get through it" were her exact words.

After a few months of doubts I decided to quit seeing her, at least I told her this last time. Then she told me that she thought that was one more example of my problems in 'real life'; running away when things get tough.
After this I have written her a letter, because I was not happy with some of the things she told me.
I got a reply last week and I have copied a topic from another board, with her reaction to it and my thoughts and feelings about it.
Hopefully it's understandable.

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My therapist... what makes me mad is that I have written her a 5-paged letter. Her reply was a mere repetition of the last session, saying we should focus on The Big Picture instead of details that she didn't think we should argue about. Right now... and once I want to look into that Big Picture.. then we could see where I experience difficulties.
Funny. As I thought I had done just that with my letter.

For the first time I have told her what I am looking for in a therapist. And she keeps rambling on about looking further than small difficulties. Well sorry... but those difficulties are what prevent me from trusting her enough.

It has taken me so long to have enough confidence in me and someone else to be able to bring up things that have hurt me or that I am questioning. I have always kept my mouth shut: "it's just me being oversensitive. Who am I to say something about this? "
The last session she said it was important that I kept saying out loud if I had problems with something.

But then when I do: details. Unimportant details. A 5-paged letter with things that don't matter when you look at this Big Picture (whose BP it is, I don't know, I don't even know how I'm diagnosed, something which I should question next time maybe...)

What makes me mad as well is that when I say something she denies having said, she goes into it,.But when I want to clear up something she says I have said... she thinks discussion is trivial and should not be happening.

What makes me most mad in all this is that one of our working items was my overall feeling of that I don't matter, that what I think is not important, that I have no right to say what I think and feel... That was something I had to 'challenge'.
And then when I do... her way of handling things only confirms it all. Of course that is MY interpretation, but one that I think is not all that weird, all things of the last few months considered.


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I know that what I have written here sounds very strongly. Yet, when I talk to her, I have the feeling that it IS me making it all fail, creating problems, not cooperating.
I just would like to hear what others think of this and her reactions towards me.

Thanks in advance.
 

David Baxter PhD

Late Founder
Hi, rainbowcolours.

The relationship you have with your therapist, good or bad, is one of the best predictors of whether therapy with that person will help you. What I hear you saying is that you don't trust your therapist and that you feel she is insensitive and aggravates your problems rather than helping them get better.

Whatever it is that your therapist is trying to do I can't say -- maybe she has some plan in mind, maybe she is trying to challenge you with some of her statements to you, or maybe she just doesn't know what she's doing. The comment about your weight seems at best insensitive and possibly incompetent or unethical.

But none of that really matters: The bottom line is that if you can't trust her she can't help you.

I'd say you're probably right, rainbow: Look for another therapist...
 
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