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First therapy session not sure?

4 replies

somethingmissing · 18/09/2017 14:08

I recently had my first therapy session , based around a psychodynamic approach.
I found it made me feel like I have a lot wrong with me and due to my long history of experiences/abuse I don't know if I can ever be better.
I also left feeling a bit regretful, as if I opened up too much and thought I must have come over a bit childish, stupid even. I found it hard to articulate myself.
I am not sure how I should feel with the therapist but I'm not sure if I feel 100% ok with it all. Should there be a rapport straight away, or is it ok to be feeling doubts and press on with it?
I don't know how to decide if this is the right therapist or if it's just me.
Please has anyone got any advice for this at all?

OP posts:
NolongerAnxiousCarer · 18/09/2017 21:57

1 session in is very early to know if it's going to be the right thing for you. It's common with therapy to feel worse before you get better. I would discuss your feelings with your therapist in your next session.

Having said that I had one therapist who I just didn't click with who made things worse. I saw him for a few months though before deciding to change therapist.

Janni65 · 18/09/2017 22:29

You can feel very vulnerable in therapy as you're the one opening up and you can have a fantasy that the therapist is completely 'sorted' and is sitting there judging you negatively. In a first session, the therapist can also feel quite nervous and wonder if they're doing a good job.

Therapists tend to like someone who talks freely, rather than someone they have to drag things out of, so it's likely the therapist thought the first session went quite well. It would be really good if you could say, at the start of your next session, that you felt quite vulnerable and unsure after your first session.

By the way, there are therapies which don't subscribe to the belief that you have to feel worse before you feel better, or that digging around in your past is the best way to help you feel better in the present. There are alternatives to the psychodynamic approach if, after a few sessions, you feel this is not the right approach for you.

I write as someone who has had a fair bit of therapy and, also, as someone who has had considerable therapeutic training. I am not a practising therapist though.

Bumpsadaisie · 18/09/2017 22:41

I would go next time and talk about how you felt (e.g. "regretful", "childish" and so on).

You're bound to feel unsure, it's totallly new and your relationship with this therapist is totally new.

I still feel dead nervous every time I go and I have all sorts of projections, yearnings and imaginings about my therapist. I imagine she's bored to tears with me or that she's going to force me into something I am not up for (not quite sure what!). I also imagine she might be gay and in love with me and heaven knows what else.

Of course it all says a lot about me and very little about the real her (who of course I don't know at all beyond some skeleton details, which is as it should be.)

NolongerAnxiousCarer · 18/09/2017 22:43

Maybe I should also say I didn't just change therapist, I changed type of therapy too.

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