Does therapy sometimes just not work?

[onthebrink8]

Had about 8-10 sessions but not consistently. I feel fine once I'm sitting talking to my therapist and letting it all out, but feel absolutely dreadful in the days that follow. So much worse in fact that the pain just consumes me and I can't think or do anything. I was so much better when I just did what I do best : keeping super busy, training hard and focusing on other things that distract me and keeping a positive mind. I feel in therapy, it's just dark and negative. I'm very much in the mind of I can't change what happened, and I can't change the shitty culture of our society, so what's the point in even talking about it?

Should I continue with therapy or bin it off?

I would think maybe try a different therapist/ counsellor who is good with the sort of thing you need help with. I get the feeling worse because you are addressing it but don't you feel comforted the counsellor at all?

8 to 10 sessions is nothing, though, especially if they’ve not been close together in time. You sound as if you’re generally successfully repressing a trauma, and therapy is making you unable to repress it? Yet something drove you to therapy in the first place? What do you want to achieve from it?

It is common for it to feel worse before it gets better.

That having been said some therapy doesn't work for some people.

You need to think which one you think it is.

I would encourage you to tell your therapist what you have written in your op. They won't be offended. If you have felt like you are connecting with them in your sessions then I think it would be useful.

I agree with others that it can sometimes feel bad between sessions. It is a bit like when you decide to clear out "that" cupboard. You get to the point where there is stuff everywhere, you aren't sure what you want to keep or chuck and you think " why did you start this".

You feel worse before better. I went from functioning to a mess when I began therapy. Because my functioning was survival and therapy stripped that away.
It was hellish but I’m the other side now and my life is transformed. Therapy is hard and most of the work is done outside of the room. What you bring up isn’t going to stay int he room, you will really feel it after. It requires recovery from it.

But you do need to give it a proper go before dismissing it, and it doesn’t sound to me as if the OP has. Some people on here seem to think it’s about having someone sympathise while you talk, when in fact doing therapy well, and working hard at it, can be brutal. I have to schedule mine for a time when I don’t have anything significant on at work afterwards, I’m so tired.

I think that the first six weeks or so (if you're not going regularly it'll take longer) of therapy are when the therapist is listening and you're letting it all out, so it's normal for it to be like that at first for some people.

If you believe nothing can change, a therapist might prompt you to explore not just why you think that, but how it serves you to remain believing that. You might of course be correct about society/the world/things not changing, but that's not so relevant to therapy as how you cope with that, what it means to you, and whether you formed such a belief at a particular point in life — sometimes finding that point can help because you might be able to look back and see things in a different perspective, which might not change anything externally but could lessen some feelings you were carrying without realising it or applying to other areas of life.

Good post, @Chipsintheair. Therapy is such hard work at times because it challenges deeply-held beliefs about ourselves, and asks the very difficult question ‘What is benefiting you in your current belief about yourself?’

I think one of the reasons I was doing well was my work took me away from the area where the trauma occurred (travel) so I really wasn't thinking about it and was focused and felt I was doing alright. I have had to stay in the same area where the trauma happened for a couple of months and so it's been more challenging, plus lots of background noise still dealing with the police etc so that always evokes anxiety/frustration/pain etc.

I've never tried therapy before and thought I had nothing to lose. I actually had no idea what to expect. I just sit there and talk and my therapist asks me some questions. That's it. I guess I wanted to feel better from it, and wanted it to disappear from my mind, my thoughts, my nightmares. I feel therapy has just exasperated it all, as it's led to me feeling more depressed about a situation I cannot change.

I think part of the benefit of therapy is that we begin to accept what we cannot change.
For me it was accepting the horrible bits and being able to set them aside and think what is within my control and how can I make myself feel better in healthy ways.
Good luck OP, its not easy but hopefully you will start to feel some benefit soon. Otherwise like PPs have said don't feel bad about changing therapists.

How often do you go though? I had to go twice a week and then when I was through the worst, once a week. You shouldn't be left feeling desperate though, but should have thoughts you need to reconcile and work through outside of therapy.

For me it was like unpacking layers, examining each layer and dealing with it, before moving on to the next layer. It was harder the deeper it went, but I was more able to cope as I had already processed the earlier things IYSWIM.

Trauma therapy does involve confronting and then processing the trauma so it's stored in the brain as something that's understood to be in the past.

Everything you've written about how you managed it before - distraction, not thinking about it etc is part of an avoidance strategy which can be one of the hallmarks of PTSD.

This strategy can work fine for years although often comes with emotional numbing and avoidance of emotional expression.

Once you start to get intrusions of the trauma (nightmares etc) that's a sign that avoidance isn't working as well for you as it used to.

It's also not surprising you feel worse if you're surrounded by triggers. Has your therapist done any stage 1 trauma work with you? Noticing triggers, sensations in the body, employing strategies like grounding and breathing techniques to calm your fight or flight response?

The first stage of trauma therapy should be helping the client to find safety in the here and now, trauma processing (talking about what happened) should only happen once the client is able to use strategies to make themselves feel safe when triggered.

Trauma also disrupts our world view so it's not at all uncommon while going though trauma therapy to have an altered view of the world but this does get better as the trauma gets reprocessed as something in the past rather than feeling like it's happening now.

I'm sorry you went through something so difficult btw 🌺

@unsync . I go once a week as that's all I can afford (I pay privately). I have been consistent with it for about 5 weeks now. I told my therapist that I had made peace with an outcome which I expected to be made shortly regarding my perpetrator and she said "it sounds like you've been forced to make peace with it". Probably true - but I was trying to be positive about something and make it right in my own mind but feel it's switches to a negative. That's why I think I'm finding it so difficult. Just seems dark and negative...although sometimes my therapist does interpret my feelings and thoughts very well in a way I'm unable to.

@timeaftertome . We've done no trauma work. We just talk about my feelings and how they have impacted me. At my worst TRIGGER WARNING I would harm myself. Never done anything like that before. It started to become a coping mechanism, but I pulled myself together and told myself not to be so damn pathetic. I haven't done anything like that again. I was just in such a shit place due to the system I had no where to turn.

She has advised that I move house and away from the area, which I plan on doing next year. I do have PTSD so perhaps I need to find a therapist that deals specifically with this.

Her job isn’t to cheer you up, though, or to reinforce the avoidant ‘trying to be positive’ mental strategies you’re using. (And I honestly sympathise, because I’ve used those all my life. You do run out of road with them, though.) Her job is to help you understand your own coping strategies (which you should be proud of yourself for, as they’ve kept you alive and functioning till now), and find ways to live well after a trauma you’ve managed to process and put into the ‘past’ part of your mind, so you’re not continually upset by triggers or nightmares. I agree with @timeaftertome that some grounding/body work would be helpful. EMDR works well for PSTD for some people.

I'm sorry, reading your further posts I realise you've experienced a quite recent trauma. I agree with the previous comment about helping you manage with triggers and find a sense of safety in the present.

It can be really hard work OP. I recall experiencing some very strong emotions when I had counselling. I was able to talk openly with my therapist about the emotions that were coming up for me and I found her reassuring that what I was experiencing was normal. I had about 20+ sessions in the end and I feel I'm in a much better place now. If you can, I'd suggest talking to your therapist about how you're feeling about the process. A good therapist will welcome this input and may either reassure you or make adjustments to the therapy to suit your needs. I agree with others about the importance of grounding work and/or other strategies to calm your nervous system. My therapist did specialise in trauma and she always made a point of checking in with how I was physically experiencing our sessions. At first I thought, what was the point of this but after a few weeks I started to recognise how my body was reacting to triggers - it was a massive breakthrough for me because I hadn't recognised how my body was holding onto trauma. I wish you well OP and hope you can find some peace.

Yes, exactly. I realised I’d become someone totally disconnected from her body, and was unable to recognise, not just how my body was holding onto trauma, but how my body felt anything at all, because I had got used to suppressing feelings, sensations and saying ‘They don’t matter. I’m able to ignore them.’ I’m in my early 50s and only starting to learn how to listen to my body, and to recognise the connection between my trauma (SA in childhood) and things like teeth grinding in my sleep, disordered eating, a total lack of trust in my body etc.

Best wishes with it all, OP.

Thank you for your replies. I do appreciate them all. I will continue with it for another six weeks and see how I feel.

Look into someone who does solution focused brief therapy or solution focused hypnotherapy (depending on what the issue is one or the other might be more appropriate).

It depends what brought you to therapy. When I did it, I truly needed to say aloud all the stuff I’d never said so I could make sense of it all and find some closure.

For a lot of people though, they want to move towards a future when they don’t have those problems constantly occupying their thoughts. Talking about them over and over without making concrete plans for how life is going to improve isn’t helpful. Solution focused therapeutic approaches are very much about making small improvements to life and being supported as you do them so you can reach a goal (not feeling depressed or anxious, not having a phobia, not being stuck in a doom cycle about something, etc). And that can be really effective for a lot of people.