Thinking of giving up seeing my psychologist.

[Sophiedotty]

Over 20 years I have seen numerous counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists & 2 psychiatrists.
I had a traumatic childhood with abuse & everyday it still affects me. I suffer with severe depression but I am stable on my meds.
I either don't 'gel' with who I see or get nothing out of the sessions. It starts off ok, I tell them everything, get upset then seem to hit a brick wall. No one tells me how to deal with my feelings. My latest one just says the reason you feel like this is because of this or that. It usually just ends up a chat session.
I think it's time I just give up now. My psychiatrist said he wouldn't recommend that I have CBT.
I have tried reike & hypnotherapy but all just a waste of money.
I'm not sure where to go from here. I am not in the UK.

What would you like to get out of the sessions?

I think how to do with the feelings, how I can move forward & for it not to affect my daily life. I find once I tell them everything it's like they don't know how to help me. I've never been given any coping strategies. They always seem to go off on a tangent, end up talking about themselves or just general chit chat.

I could be wrong but I think that is what CBT does. Perhaps you could find out where you are if that is what it is, before you invest time abd effort into it.

Also, I wonder whether there are any support groups for what you have been through. Dont know if they would help you at all?

My psychiatrist was adamant that that therapy wouldn't suit me. He said it just deals with the here & now & not the past.
My psychologist I see at the moment is free as I get funding for it from an organisation. Anyone else would be really expensive for me to see as they are all private. I can't afford to pay to see anyone else.
I think I have exhausted all there is to say & just go round in circles.
I am seeing her next week so I will say that I don't think there is any more she can do to help me.

It sounds like you've talked about the past until you are blue in the face but now you want to deal with how it's still holding you back. If you feel you've faced up to the things that happened to you in your childhood and affect you today, then learning to deal with the here and now with CBT should help. Can you tell your psychiatrist you would like to TRY cbt to see if it CAN help you.

I suffer with depression and understand that feeling of having delved into my past deeply, and have understood why I feel certain ways, but knowing how to change my reactions to things and how I think about myself and others is what I also want to change and that is more of a cbt therapy.

If you want to try some cbt you can join some great online ones now. Moodgym is one. If you google it you'll find it. You can work at your own pace and it saves your details. Cbt does take a bit of commitment but it does work if you keep it up. Also a good book is 'feeling good'. Hope you can try something new soon. And that it helps.

Thanks I will look into what has been suggested.

Sophiedotty, here and now the past has a stranglehold on you. Here and now the past is present.

I was also abused. Alcoholic home, significant neglect, physical abuse and some sexual abuse by childminders' teen son.

I have had 25 sessions of CBT. We have talked about the past in so far as the past has developed my core beliefs about how the world works that contribute to my suffering. Things like I must be perfect or I will lose all approval, anger is an unacceptable emotion, I must put others needs' first etc, if I can act to prevent harm I must act and if I don't any harm that arises is my fault and my fault alone.

The past, to be blunt, is actually gone. No matter how bad etc. What you are left with is thoughts, feelings an behaviours in the here and now. I know that I have struggled to learn to drive because we had so many near misses in my father's car when he was drunk that were petrifying. Understandable etc. Yet does that knowledge help me on a cold winter's morning when yet again I have to commute nearly two hours when I could drive it in 40 mins? When it's logistically unfeasible to do an evening class via public transport but it would be ten minutes away by car? When I can't apply for a job I want because I need a license? When I want to move home to rural Ireland and know I can't because I would be isolated and dependent as a nondriver out of the city? Mostly knowing the past affects you is totally pointless. It's what you can do about now that matters.CBT and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy Tec have actual tools for dealing with now.

Thanks working9while5. I'll see what my psychologist says this week.