Psychologist - confused and disapointed

[AnxiousCarer]

Ok so about 3-4 months ago I started really struggling with anxiety, poor concentration and urges to self harm. I care for my DH who has MH problems and have access to a CPN from his team for carer support, so I started seeing them again and also a councellor through work and my GP started me on antidepressants, both CPN and councellor told me they thought I had PTSD and the councellor refered me to a psychologist through work. The work psychologist comes highly recommend by a number of collegues as well as the councellor.

I've now had 4 sessions with him and am left feeling confused and disapointed. The 1st session was assessment, the second went through some mindfullness techneques, the third dealt with the traumatic incident and he thought that we had made progress, however it triggered a lot of flashbacks and I ended up feeling rubish over the Christmas period until my session yesterday. He asked me loads of questions which I found really hard to answer and then said that he wasn't sure that he could help me, that he felt like now wasn't the right time for me to be seeing him, whilst DH and I are also doing work with CPNS from DHs team arround relapse prevention, and that he felt that continuing to see him was likely to make things a lot worse before I found any improvement. (He did warn me things would probably get worse before they got better at the first session). He also said that he thought I was doing all the right things and that there wasn't anything wrongvwith me the problem was the situation I'm in and the external pressures on me.. To be honest the session yesterday was quite overwhelming and confusing I felt like my head was spinning and didn't know how to respond, I think he may have thought this was lack of engagement on my part. Now I've had a chance to sleep on it and put things together in my head I feel like I could answer his questions. I have another appointment next week, I'm just wondering if it is normal to feel this way. I'm disapointed that this does not seem to be the answer I was looking for and wondering if I should persevere if it might just make things worse at his own admission.

I haven't seen a psychologist but know of somebody who has.She went for help with PTSD.She found it hard going and emotionally challenging,I know that it stirred up many things which she found quite distressing to deal with.She did however stick it out and felt that she did benefit long term.
If I were you I would attend the next session & then take it from there.

I think you should definitely discuss these feelings and worries at your next appointment.

I think I need to write things down to take with me, once he starts asking questions my head feels like its in a spin cycle and I can't hold a train of thought (not sure if thats how it should be) then he asks if I have any questions, but I can't think straight enough to formulate any. DH thinks the reason it's not working is because I'm stubborn and won't change the way I think, there may be some truth in it, but I truely am trying to participate.

That's a great idea; I've done that before too, as otherwise the moment I walk in I forget everything I wanted to bring up, only to have it all flood back on the way home

You may well be stubborn Anxious but aren't we all really illness aside?I think that yes a few bullet points may well be useful for the next session.I know that you are kind enough to post for others & I think that you have also posted on my other threads so I really do hope that this works out well for you. [ smile]

Thanks guys

Hi anxious - I think it's totally normal what you describe. It's hard to know how to respond straight away to new topics/ questions- I e mail my psychologist with reflections a few days later when I have made sense of the session , read it through a few times and then we can discuss it again. Is this an option- if not just reflect, print it off and take it next time . Hope you are feeling better now :) x

I've written some questions. I had a read up and found a paper in a psychology journal that found that 30-50% of people do not improve with psychology input an 10% get worse. There was another article suggesting that if its difficult circumstances causing the problem its not always appropriate to work with someone if those circumstances are hard to change or changing them might leave you in a worse situation.

I've booked a private nlp therapy session for this morning as thats been the only thing that has helped. Feeling like I maybe should have waited now as feeling a bit better but was feeling pretty desperate for something to help.

Nlp session went really well, worked through my anxiety from present day back to infancy. No anxiety at present and feeling exhausted but positive, very different from psychology sessions. And he doesn't think I will need any follow up so will see how things go :-)