Finally, your loved ones nagged you into visiting a psychotherapist....(long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

So finally, your loved ones nagged you into visiting a psychotherapist. How did it work out? (kinda long)

I firmly believe a very close and dear friend, “Peter”, could benefit a lot from psychotherapy. Peter is extremely hard on himself and, IMHO, that brings with it a lot of unnecessary guilt, anger etc.
For definitions sake, I’m talking official psychotherapy here, administered by an experienced psychiatrist or psychologist.
My guess is not totally uneducated, as I’ve got a masters degree in psychology, myself. (And yes, I am aware of the danger that just because I’ve studied hammering, I’m likely to see every problem as a nail.)

Whenever it seemed appropriate in the last months, I’ve discussed with Peter my belief and his idea’s on shrinks. Some of his former idea’s (“all shrinks are crazy” ) he has come to regard as prejudices. He has read a few good books on REBT. REBT stands for Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, a kind of therapy well suited for irational ideas, such as “I must be perfect”. He has also looked into good sites such as this one on what psychotherapy is and isn’t.

Peter himself grudgingly welcomes my attempts. “I know I could use some help” he says. But now that he has seriously considered psychotherapy, (instead of just dismissing it) he has come to face his real barriers.
He says: “I don’t trust them or really believe in therapy. I think, for the most part, it replaces one false idea with another, when it does anything at all. There might be worthwhile therapists, and there might even be one that would be right for me. But the odds of finding that one are astronomical.”
“Psychotherapy would mean having to talk about my innermost feelings with someone I don’t know and, therefore, wouldn’t trust. At the same time, I know that if I *don’t * talk honestly with them, therapists can’t help me.”
“I guess there’s also the fear of someone finding out just how lousy a human being I really am, inside. I sure don’t approve of me, so why should anyone else? And, if they don’t why would they want to help me, or feel they should honor my trust?”
“There’s also the stigma of needing psychiatric help, even if it’s only in my mind. A strong double standard, probably. I don’t see anything wrong with anyone else going to a shrink, but I have a deep-seated belief that if I do, it means I’ve failed, utterly.”

That concludes Peter on the subject. (For those who are wondering, he is okay with me quoting him on this). I think he’s summed up very honestly the reasons why people, especially men, who might benefit from help, don’t seek it.

At at this point, I feel I can argue with Peter untill I’m blue in the face, that these reasons are irrational. But I can’t prove my point anymore then he can prove his, without him just giving psychotherapy a try.
That’s why I hope some stories of people who have “walked in his shoes” will do more good.

That’s why I turn to you (former) macho men and macha women among my fellow-Dopers. To the ones who have faced their fears and sat down on the therapists “couch”. I ask you, what were your ideas on psychotherapy beforehand? What caused you to go, in the end? Was the therapy anything like you expected? What, if anything, did you get out of it?

Your stories are most, most welcome !

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I was going through a period of relatively mild depression (for specific reasons - it wasn’t random), and a friend of mine believed it was much worse than it actually was. After much pestering from her I went to see a psychiatrist. After one session he gave me a clean bill of health and told me I really didn’t need psychiatric help.

I was mildly perturbed with this, as I’m certain I’m completely and utterly nuts. :slight_smile: However he certainly was correct that I didn’t need any counselling for depression.

I wasn’t, and still am not, terribly keen on the idea of going to see a psychiatrist. I prefer to sort my problems out on my own or with the help of friends. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with psychiatry as such, it’s just not for me.

3

Peter’s thought patterns remind me of my own - extremely, irrationally self critical, and possessed of a destructive double standard. I wonder if you have asked him directly if he feel that these particular quotes of his are part of the problem, or part of the solution.

Me, I sought help because of a serious crisis situation, whereby it was absolutely bloody obvious that things were NOT AT ALL RIGHT. The unhealthy defences and denials I’d built came crashing down in a big way, and as it was patently and visibly obvious to everyone who cared to look what a complete fuckup I was, I had nothing to lose by seeking help.

I have found that a little retuning of my attitudes has allowed me to be more natural and easy, which has in turn made me more productive - self-loathing wastes an awful lot of time which can be better spent on achieving things, and achievement can makes us less likely to berate ourselves for failing to achieve.

4

I have a dear friend that has a LOT of problems (overbearing needy mom, severe prolonged child abuse, recently discovered that her dad wasn’t her dad, etc) who finally started therapy recently.

She seems to be doing much better… getting to the perfectionistic roots of her problems and such.

Plus, I don’t get crying calls every few months. :slight_smile: It was starting to put a strain on our relationship because I didn’t have the faculties to deal with her major psychological problems, and she didn’t have anywhere else to turn.

I can’t speak directly for someone in therapy, of course, but she seems to be doing much better.

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Therapy definitely worked for me. It’s not a science, though. Therapy is not like putting a band-aid on a cut, or even repairing a broken leg. People can’t expect to go into a random therapist’s office and after a set period of time come out “well.”

Some therapists are very good at what they do. Some aren’t. I had to search around until I found one that worked for me. I do notice that more and more therapists seem to be effective. I think it’s because the “therapist” community has pretty much abandoned the old-style Freudian-Jungian models.

Another real breakthrough has been medications that treat the physiological aspects of mental illness. Therapy is damn hard to do if you’re spending most of your waking hours just trying to survive!

I’m 50; I have severe chronic depression which I treat with medication and therapy. Left untreated, I’d probably be dead. I came close many times.

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Thank you for your stories, people! Actually, I was a bit relieved that no-one told me to mind my own business and leave poor Peter in peace. My own dilemma in this is that while I very much want to help Peter, and I know the right therapist would do him worlds of good, I also don’t want to place a burden on our friendship. And it feels like a burden to try to “pester” him into seeking therapy. Peter feels, at some level, that I tell him he’s “defective”. And that is so ironic, because if anyone knows (if not from my own experience, fortunately) how much balls it takes to seek help, it is me. Especially for perfectionists.
Kitarak, how did you feel about your friend pestering you, as you said? How did *she * seem to feel when your therapist gave you a clean bill of health?

FilmGeek, I hope your friend will continue to do better. I know from experience (not with Peter, but with another friend of mine) how hard it is to find the right distance and the right attitude to be a friend for friends with chronic depression. Especially after months of crying spells and many hours of comforting, and *still * being powerless to relieve your friends anguish for longer then one hour at best. It is like carrying water to the sea.

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**Tansu, ** You do indeed sound like Peter. You ask if I have told him how irrational the views in his quotes were? You bet! The problem is, Peter knows that as well as I do. He *knows * such thinking is silly and destructive. But he feels that way, just the same. :sigh:

Wow. Yes, that sounds like severe chronic depression. It’s a bastard of a disease. :mad:

633squadron and Tansu, I would really like to know more about what finally made you seek help, after years of not searching it. Did you at one day just disgustedly grab the yellow pages and picked a therapist? Did someone else make an appointment for you?

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I’ve enterd therapy 3 times in my life. Two were prompted by a drug problem and one was precipitated by a relationship with someone who suddenly became violent after living with him for 1 1/2 years.

The therapy for the drug problems was used as an adjunct to traditional treatment and 12-step groups. It helped to have that one-on-one support during the depressing phase of early recovery when I didn’t have enough self-esteem to burden unpaid friends and program members with my constant blues. I didn’t mind burdening someone who was paid to listen and he helped me develop trust. I became convinced that he would always respect me and work only for my benefit no matter how much pathology I exhibited. Very caring individual.

The other problem (with the violent boyfriend) gave me a chance to work through my feelings about living alone again and my whole focus was on disentangling myself from an unhealthy relationsip. I’m sure it facilitated my departure from this guy and sped up the process considerably. The therapist saw my boyfriend also and one day he told me that he felt my life was in danger because this guy was having homocidal fantasies about me. He assured me that this was not my fault and dated back to pathology with his mother. He advised me to leave immediately which I did. Therapists only breach another patient’s confidentiality like that if they think your life or someone else’s is in danger. He probably saved my life. From the start of therapy to romantic break-up was about two months. It was worth every penny.

If your friend doesn’t go into therapy, he will probably rely on you to fill that role. You should refuse to play into that. It would change the whole dynamic of your friendship which would quickly become unsatisfying for you. Let him know that you value your friendship too much to watch him suffer or insult him by trying to fix him. Make an appeal for his treatment in the name of your friendship.

Best of luck.

9

I entered therapy for the first time because I had read that was I was suffering (severe depression) was supposed to be treated with therapy. I, too, was a perfectionist, very hard on myself, and thought I suffered because I was a loser.

However, because I was very dependent on being “logical” and disparaged anything “emotional” I went in because, logically, if the solution to my problem is therapy, then it is therapy I will do. (Oddly, I think I read this in Cosmo.)

That first time got me out of my immediate crisis, but I came to realize years later that I was still very much, chronically, depressed. That time, I had to wrestle with many fears before I could go and really make the process work.

I was afraid that therapy would make me a Shiny Happy Person, when I prefered to be sarcastic and cynical. I thought I would be sort of brainwashed into being someone that I didn’t want to be. I feared because of that, I would lose my sense of humor, which I liked very much.

I feared I would start crying and never be able to stop. I feared that by acknowleding my demons, I would no longer be able to fend them off. I also had the sense that I was a hopeless case, and I didn’t want that confirmed in therapy.

But, I went anyway (logical, and all).

What I found is that, in the hands of a qualified therapist who’s style and personality meshed with mine, I’ve been able to grow beyond my fears and become more and more the person I was supposed to be.

I can see where your friend might be terrified of the unknown (“Yeah, I might get better, but what if I don’t? I know this evil. There is *comfort * in this evil. On the other hand, I have no way of knowing what the future will be like after therapy.”)

I could go further into how the process changed me and how my fears were not realized, and how the process was the best thing I have ever done for myself (and how many times I had to just make myself go when I didn’t want to, even though I knew - again, logically! - that I always felt better after.) But that doesn’t seem like what you’re after here.

Perhaps he’d be willing to go for a short period, say six weeks? And then evaluate his experience? Do you know someone in the community that you feel would mesh with him particularly well? (Can’t emphasize this enough. Lord knows, there are some crappy so-called therapists out there. I know from experience. And if they were the only ones I judged my experience by, I’d have never kept at it.)

Lastly, I don’t recommend a psychiatrist at all. I’ve only had one good one, in my experience. Psychiatrists - some of them - are good for meds, but really sh*tty for actually working with human beings in a therapeutic setting.

And another thing (so much for "lastly… "), I very happy to say that a good friend has now entered therapy and is doing so much better and actually enjoys what she gets out of it. This after many, many years of the same kind of arguements your friend has. She hated the thought of it and thought all therapists were quacks, she was weak if she went, etc. (And she has a bachelors in psychology and interned in mental health!) I found that talking about my experience in a positive way, specifically about how I was changing and loving myself more, was more effective than trying to rationally argue about why it’s a good thing.

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I don’t see this as an “irrational” reason for avoiding therapy. Some people are just intensely private.

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When I was going through some severe stress and a divorce I went through psychotherapy. It was a very rewarding, but difficult experience. Rewarding because my therapist helped me find the tools within myself to deal with my situation and other situations that may come up in the future. And that’s the whole point - the tools are already within you, a therapist is just someone who has training and experience in helping you find your own tools and get comfortable using them. Difficult because it is hard work. You have to face things about yourself that may not be so nice, things that are doing you no good but which are easier to avoid than face.

I’d recommend psychotherapy to anyone - and as my wife is a psychotherapist, I can recommend a very good one. :wink:

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Also, I’d like to point out that there is a difference between psychotherapy and psychiatry . Psychotherapists are generally not medical doctors and cannot prescribe medication. Psychiatrists are medical doctors who can prescribe medication and have much more training in the physical and chemical causes of mental illness.

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Thanks again, Dopers, for your experiences. :cool:

Especially **niblet_head ** for describing even more of the fears that prevent people who need counseling from seeking it. Some of those Peter has also mentioned. I’m glad you were proved wrong :slight_smile: Very useful post.
If I may be so bold to ask, how could a friend have influenced at the time you werein doubt as to seek help? Would you have welcomed some “nagging” by a friend, or would that just have antagonized you? Would you have welcomed “help” such as making an appointment?

And yes, as has been mentioned, psychiatrists, with a few exceptions, do not have the time and therefore the experience for counseling. Psychological counseling is a psychologist’s job. Psychiatrists (who are after all MD’s, medical doctors) are trained to diagnose, if a psychological complaint has a physical basis, and if medication is in order.