My ongoing therapy dilemma

[Daniel E.]

When I was a caregiver, we sometimes had clients who were non verbal. And even at minimum wage, it was our job to understand what they were trying to communicate. We could usually figure it out pretty quick for a number of different things, especially after knowing the person for a while.

 

[Daniel E.]

I still worry that you blame yourself for the miscommunication when in reality it's pretty clear that there are problems with how he communicates (or doesn't) as well.

That sort of thing can be interactive. I am generally considered to be someone who listens well and communicates quite clearly but I have known people in my life where miscommunication happened more than just occasionally. I don't think I'm communicating any differently and the other other person feels the same but something in our communication styles just ends up colliding or being confusing. One of those people is in my own family.

I think this happens more with sensitive or Highly Sensitive people, with introverts, with those with obsessive or OCD tendencies, or with people who lack self-confidence.

And I think the key is to try to be more direct when what the other person is saying is unclear or ambiguous. Just saying, "Sorry I didn't understand what you said just now" (and don't worry about interrupting - just say it) can often go a long way to clarifying in these situations.

I can relive imperfect conversations even years later It's a feature of my OCD.

But it is true that, as people get older, they tend to care less and less what other people may think about them.

 

[gooblax]

It's hard not to pin the communication issues on myself. He's meant to be the professional at talking to people. Whereas I'm the person who:

• In grade 1, stopped hanging out with a group of friends because I wasn't being included and it wasn't fun.
• Had more fun playing by myself, building little stick/leaf/seed-pod/bark towns for the ants, beetles and lizards to shelter in.
• In grade 2&3 had a best friend, who I later stopped being friends with because my mum said I needed friends who were girls. So I just ran away from him at lunch time instead of explaining why we couldn't be friends anymore (because how on earth do you explain to your best friend that your mum says you're not allowed to be friends with him because he's a boy... even if years later when I asked her about it, she said she didn't mean I had to stop being friends with him, just that I should also have friends who were girls. I was 7 years old, I didn't get that distinction.).
• In grade 4 realised that I had to hide my interests from anyone at school because they were "too boyish" (according to my mum, plus it's not like any of the girls would say that they liked those things). And began my journey of being half a person outside of home, where I then had very little in common to talk about with friends so I could only really be friends with people who didn't need too much from me conversation-wise.
• By grade 11 I wouldn't even tell people what sort of music I liked because then they'd expect me to explain myself and I didn't want to be judged, I just liked what I liked and they weren't going to understand (hello, Hamsterdance).
• Hung out with people who would speak Cantonese throughout lunch time. It was preferable to hanging out with people who spoke English, because at least I wasn't expected to join in on a conversation about things I have no interest/knowledge about if it was in Cantonese.
• Was just as bad at talking when I was at uni.
• Only actually started feeling like I could reveal things about myself once I got to full time work and relaxed a bit around certain colleagues.

There's never been a point in my life where conversations have been comfortable. Last week was the first time I've faced being in a car with a single person for over an hour and not been freaked out about the prospect of trying to talk to them during that time (luckily it was one of my best work-friends). If it's a small group it's fine, but 1:1 is usually terrifying.

So of course it's >50% my fault. With that history, how could it not be?

 

[David Baxter PhD]

You said it yourself: he’s supposed to be the professional who communicates with people, yet he seems oblivious to the fact that he doesn’t leave you much room to talk.

Additionally, why is it easier for you to talk to the EAP counselor?

 

[gooblax]

He is trying to get me to talk though, just in ways that apparently are confusing to me and don't really work.

With the EAP counselor she had nothing else to go on. She needed me to come in, say what the problem was that I wanted to discuss, and then we discussed the problem and what I wanted to do about it. She operates under a short-duration model so we were both clear on needing to focus on the one thing. It doesn't matter what else is happening because that's the one thing I've selected to work on with the allocated time.
I had selected the problem, knowing that it was a well defined problem and acknowledging it as a problem for me that I'm allowed to ask for help with. None of the "well I don't deserve help, this shouldn't be a problem" stuff that I get into with most of my other things, which means I was able to be very up front about all the information. None of the "I can't say ___ because it makes me seem ____" stuff. And I had prepared for everything I was going to discuss.

Just like I had no difficulty telling my therapist what I needed to say last session, aside from the physical difficulty of talking while crying.

 

[Daniel E.]

He is trying to get me to talk though, just in ways that apparently are confusing to me and don't really work.

Well, there you go, eh?

It would be different if you were only a few sessions in, though many people bail after a few sessions for various reasons, including lack of fit.

(My new pet peeve are therapists who treat everything like an addiction, including anxiety. That is instant goodbye. Even addictions don't have to be treated as addictions since there are underlying issues.)

 

[gooblax]

I dunno what I want to say to the counselor tomorrow. I stopped feeling so consistently sad as soon as I thought of a way to maybe get my regular therapist to like me and show him that I'm not always "not easy to talk to". I don't want to swap to the new guy, I just want to believe that my regular therapist likes and cares about me as a client.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I dunno what I want to say to the counselor tomorrow. I stopped feeling so consistently sad as soon as I thought of a way to maybe get my regular therapist to like me and show him that I'm not always "not easy to talk to".

Isn't the fact that you are "not always easy to talk to" one of the main reasons you are seeing this therapist? It sounds like you are willing to pretend you don't have any problems in order to stay in therapy with this guy. Surely you will agree that it is his job to help you find solutions to your problems and to help you acquire new skills to assist you in reaching those goals. And still after all this time he is evidently unable to do that.

I don't want to swap to the new guy, I just want to believe that my regular therapist likes and cares about me as a client.

And yet it seems to me that he has repeatedly demonstrated that he is indifferent to you as a client, even telling you on that one occasion that you are "not his favorite client" or whatever words he uses.

 

[gooblax]

Yeah, it's not a perfect plan.

 

[Daniel E.]

There is always uncertainty with a new therapist, but you know what you are getting (or not getting) with your "regular therapist."


"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek." ~ Joseph Campbell

 

[gooblax]

The session went well with the new guy, aside from his internet connection causing intermittent freezing (although not too bad, only a few sentences had to be repeated or fill-in-the-blank-ed... at first I wasn't sure whose internet issue it was but the application said the problem was on his side). He clearly follows the approach that I'd expected - I found him while looking on Dr. Jonice Webb's website about Childhood Emotional Neglect, so I wasn't surprised when he started talking about things in that framework. For bonus points he threw in a reference to Dr. Gabor Mate (who I haven't read much about but his stuff on trauma kind of makes sense to me, even though his framework around the cause of addiction seems too narrow). After the session he sent me a followup email summarising the things we'd spoken about.

We just discussed the issue I'm having with my current therapist, what extra meaning I might be lumping in with not being able to resolve things with him, and a bit about decision making (given that I have to decide what to do with the therapy stuff). I'm still undecided, but I did confirm with new guy that so far he doesn't think I'm "not easy to talk to".

 

[David Baxter PhD]

but I did confirm with new guy that so far he doesn't think I'm "not easy to talk to".

Excellent!

 

[gooblax]

I have a season with my regular therapist after work today. I haven't decided what to do. If it were anyone else in this situation I'd suggest that they bounce. But I still really want to be able to keep seeing him, and for him to care enough to go learn whatever skills he seems to be missing in order to be effective in treating me. It's hard to accept that that may never happen.

 

[Daniel E.]

and for him to care enough to go learn whatever skills he seems to be missing in order to be effective in treating me. It's hard to accept that that may never happen.

Sometimes even a book or author recommendation can help, at least with validating your current experience. But if he doesn't even have that...

Another way to manage some chronic mental health issues is to simply outgrow/outlive them. Which reminds me of Carl Rogers (again). In other words, you don't have to fix everything head on.

 

[gooblax]

The session was good.

I got to tell him my "entertaining story" that I'd wanted to tell, and later explained that I'm purposefully trying to show him my more likeable side because of thinking he doesn't like me. He said it was just an assumption on my part that he doesn't like me, that he doesn't dislike me (or else he'd have said that he'd have to refer me to someone else, as he's previously done with a small number of clients who he didn't like), and that he has to be cautious to avoid contributing to dependency. He clarified his "not easy to talk to" statement to be some of the time, not all of the time. And said my strategy was a bit of an "A+B=5" due to the assumption and because he wants to spend time in session on things that will be helpful rather than waste my time and money on things that aren't helpful.

He said that he's discussed my treatment in his supervision group, which to me is reassuring that he's actually trying to figure out how to sort things out and be helpful rather than just taking a paycheck and not caring what happens.

I asked about his fee because it was supposed to be going back up as of last week according to the info I was given when it was reduced. He didn't seem to appreciate my joke that he would've forgotten to tell me if I didn't ask But he said he's putting it back up for short term clients and not for longer term ones with a new fee structure and his practice manager will email the details.

I still kind of struggled a bit to get him on the same page with why I have such intense emotional reactions to things that go wrong between us. We eventually agreed that it could be described by me not having previously trusted many people, trying to trust him, and him doing things that erode my trust. He seems to think that despite the erosion problems he's been demonstrating that he's worthy of my trust, and that some of the problems come from being unclear (plus being slack with emails).

For the moment I think I'll keep seeing him, and keep seeing the counsellor to help me figure out what to do with the big feelings around stuff. Just need to sort out the scheduling of it.

 

[gooblax]

2nd session with counsellor today. Which is an activity that will take all morning with the 1hr15min travel time each way. I've chickened out of going to the hobby shop despite the extensive planning I did on what to buy.

I'm nervous about the appointment itself, especially since I'm always more anxious in-person. I have a couple of ideas for the session which I'll plan out a bit better on the bus.
Last night I re-upset myself thinking about my regular therapist, but it'd been awhile since last time I did that so that part's good at least.

It's disgustingly windy here which will be unpleasant. Yesterday wasn't quite so bad but the day before riding my bike into the headwind took an extra 10mins - doesn't sound like much but it's almost an extra 1/3 of my usual commute time. So I'm certainly glad I hadn't committed to cycling to the session today because much of that would be into the headwind then finishing up with a seemingly never ending hill.

 

[gooblax]

The session was OK but I didn't get to the main thing I wanted to talk about. We got bogged down in personal history stuff rather than "how to handle problems with my regular therapist" which was what I was hoping to get ideas for. So that's frustrating that I couldn't figure out how to bring that up.

Then after the session his eftpos machine asked me for my pin number which I haven't used on my card in so long that I forgot what it was, so he's going to have to send me the bill.
Then I missed the bus I was going to catch and had to take a different route home, so I can't even get lunch on the way home. While I was at the bus stop I remembered my pin.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Sounds like a frustrating day. [emoji45]

 

[gooblax]

I gave up on the bus and hopped off somewhere I was familiar with rather than head all the way to the city, wait for 40 mins, then come back out in almost the same direction.
Got a meat pie and started my 45 min walk.

The stuff from the session wasn't unusable but I'll have to figure out if there's a way to apply it to the psychologist problem.

 

[Daniel E.]

Of course, there is some insight from your first session as well:

We just discussed the issue I'm having with my current therapist, what extra meaning I might be lumping in with not being able to resolve things with him, and a bit about decision making (given that I have to decide what to do with the therapy stuff).

The latter point about decision making reminds me of this thread: Indecision & Anxiety.