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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    122

    Default The right therapist?

    I have been having CBT and hypnotherapy for a few weeks now. I must say i'm improving. LITTLE tiny bits. But the thing is, everyone always says it's about finding the right therapist?
    I don't know if I have...
    She is a trainee and doesn't seem too confident. Maybe i'm just worrying too much.. infact I know I am. Isn't it all about what I put into it? Not her?

    I have been like this for so long I feel I can never get better.
    But I am starting to.. I think?
    IT's hard to accept!

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Ohio
    Posts
    99

    Default Re: The right therapist?

    What kind of things make you think she is not confident?

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    122

    Default Re: The right therapist?

    I keep asking her if I can get completley better, better than I have ever been and she just sort of says "I can't gaurantee anything but CBT is meant to be the best therapy". Then she says things like "Would a good goal for you to be that you don't completley get rid of your phobia but your life is under control?" and I was like but surely if i don't get rid of it i'll just relapse again like i have done my whole life already and im only 17. She just doesn't seem to know how to calm me down or anything. She hasn't given me any tools....

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Aug 2010
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    1,135

    Default Re: The right therapist?

    Come on vee, we've been through this already! Your therapist can't tell you you're going to get better. I can't tell you you're going to get better. NOBODY can tell you you're going to get better, except YOURSELF.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    122

    Default Re: The right therapist?

    I know but i don't know what to do in CBT. We have been looking at pictures and they're not making me anxious at all really.. so now i feel my anxiety isn't to do with vomit at all. But when i feel sick i get so scared. I don't know how to proceed... she doesn't know either. We are going to do sounds next week but i don't know if they will make me anxious either... why cant things just be simple and i do a hierachy like everyone else. Start with writing the word... then pictures then gradually move up. But im not scared of writing the word or seeing pictures or even videos i dont think!!!!!

    ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh confusing
    i just want to get BETTER.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Gettysburg PA
    Posts
    279

    Default Re: The right therapist?

    They aren't making you anxious because you are improving, you have defined treatment success and claimed that it is evidence of treatment failure. If they did not make you anxious to begin with, then you are simply on the next level of the hierarchy.

    The reason that she wants to set the goal at "gain control" rather than "completely get over it" is because you want your goals to be easier to reach. They do that so that you don't get discouraged. If you are failing a class, your first goal should be to get a passing grade, not become the #1 student. That is setting yourself up for disappointment. Once you complete your first goal, you go on to a second goal. The "completely get over it" goal would make a great second or third goal, but it is a terrible first goal.

    Moving from writing it to seeing it to hearing it is a hierarchy. Since you don't know if hearing it will make you anxious or not, she can't say were you will fit in. YOU have to provide that information to them, she can't see what is going on in your head. She'd rather go too slowly and still have you make progress than throw you in the deep end and watch you drown.

    Unless you have good reason not to, trust her to do her job. Being new is not a reason not to trust her. The best psychologist in the world was new at one point. Also, I can almost guarantee that she has supervision, hence the phrase "trainee." You can't be a trainee without a trainer. Even if you don't personally see them, she likely has to report back to someone with detailed treatment plans and such. You need to focus more on doing YOUR job in the treatment program and less with finding excuses if it doesn't work.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Posts
    122

    Default Re: The right therapist?

    Cheers for the replies. They really help.
    One other question I have is, when she gives me the pictures to look at my anxiety never goes above 4 or 5 but she doesn't calm me down? She just moves onto the next one? What do i do to calm me down before moving on? Or is this the wrong thing to do?

    Anyone?
    I've read a few cbt posts and apparantley you're not meant to do relaxation techniques during the exposure sessions? So what ARE we meant to do?

    Helpppp

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Posts
    1

    Default Re: The right therapist?

    The point of an exposure exercise is not to calm down any more than the point of a weight-lifting exercise would be to feel at ease. Exposure works by allowing you to confront discomfort without engaging in compulsive behaviors so that your brain can bear witness to the fact that the anxiety will go down eventually anyway. It requires energy to be upset about something and you have a finite amount of energy. If you stick with the exposure, the anxiety goes down on its own in time and that's when you're brain starts making new connections; connections like "vomit does not always equal panic and I do not always have to be avoidant."

    So to answer the question of what you are meant to do, you are meant to experience the discomfort and ride it out. Hang in there!

    --

    Jon Hershfield, MA
    OCD Center of Los Angeles

 

 

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