#16 How do people know if their therapist is helping them? / Is it me or my therapist?
DEAR ABBY: How do people know if their therapist is really helping them or taking their money? Mine does not talk much or give any advice. What kind of progress should I expect in recovering from depression and anxiety attacks, and how do you evaluate yourself and the doctor to determine if healing is taking just a slow process or if it’s time to find a better-suited professional. THANKS FROM OHIO
DEAR OHIO: Discuss your concerns with your therapist. Do not feel guilty for questioning your progress. You have the right to do so. Therapy can sometimes be painful, but you must be completely honest or it won’t work. That said, sometimes it takes a little shopping to find a good fit, so don’t be too embarrassed about wanting a second opinion. —ABBY
Gabby's Reply
Hi Ohio: You are right to be asking. I’d recommend that you look for another therapist. Therapists know that you don’t know the right questions to ask. They know that at first you don’t think in terms of measuring your success. They know that you are intimidated to ask them the kinds of questions that clarify and create certainty and eliminate doubt, worry and confusion. They know these things as they know the back of their hand. For you to be having such concerns after goodness knows how many sessions is unconscionable. Such things are covered in the first session and restated every session thereafter so as to keep you on track.
If you are looking for advice it would work to find a counselor and ask up front, can you give me advice when I ask for it? Therapists are not in the advice-giving profession. Patients seldom act upon it and when they do they quite often make sure it doesn’t work, so addicted are most clients to blame and sabotage.
Now, on to the stuff that will be of value. Most people who go to therapists don't know that they have no intention of healing. They "try" a few sessions, just so that they can say how hard they tried and how ineffectual the therapist was. This is where you have been coming from. The evidence is in your rhetorical questions. A person intent on healing would write, "How do I know… if my therapist… is helping me or taking my money? And "how do I evaluate myself…"
You have yet to formulate the intention to heal, to be healthy. You are stuck in trying so that you don’t have to do what it will take to heal. In short you've been running your con on your therapist. The con is, you selected an ineffectual therapist so as to get to this letter.
It would work to inform your new therapist about what happened (your pattern) and that you’d like support in completing your addiction to blame and sabotage and your fear of telling the truth. We don’t know to what extent your health problem (anxiety) is a consequence of a lifetime of lies, blaming and thwarting others. You write, "mine does not talk…" This is a blame statement. I don’t know what to say or what to ask would be a responsible statement. Worse yet, here you are badmouthing your therapist behind his/her back, intimating what a poor therapist they are without telling him/her to their face, that you don’t like the fact that they don’t talk much. Were they to read your letter they would not feel good. How can your therapist put in correction if you don’t say what’s on your mind? This is called covert sabotage. You have found a covert way of sabotaging your therapist, to ensure he/she fails, by not telling them the truth. This pattern has undesirable effects with your sex life.
Many will see themselves in your letter. Thank you, Gabby