(Name changed for privacy.)
Aibu to expect something other than this?
Owing to much trauma in my life, leaving me anxious and depressed, I have been referred for counselling. I am on my 8th session of 10.
Never had counselling before so I don't know if this is what it is supposed to consist of.
I tell the counsellor what I am thinking and feeling and she just repeats it back to me: "I hear that you are telling me that you are feeling XYZ." Then she falls silent, I say some more, and she repeats that back at me as well. She never says anything else other than that she "hears me" saying the thing I have just said.
The counsellor seems to have done a three-year university degree course and got letters after her name, but I cannot understand what she was doing for that three years. Because surely any unqualified person can just repeat what a client just said.
By telling her about the things that have traumatised me in the past, I re-live them and end up shaking and weeping, then she says "Time's up" and disconnects from the video chat, leaving me sitting all alone, feeling much worse, empty inside and feeling burdered with uncomfortable feelings that have nowhere to go.
I was too polite to ask at first but after a few weeks of this I plucked up the courage to ask: "What good is me just talking, and you saying you hear me supposed to do?" And her reply was, "I hear you asking what good your talking to me is doing." I pressed her for an answer but she just said the same thing.
I'm getting worried now that there are only two sessions left and all I have done for the first eight is describe my feelings. Nothing has been solved or resolved. I might as well have just talked to my dog.
Aibu to expect something other than this? Shall I cancel the remaining sessions and stop wasting the counsellor's time?