Therapist who's 'been there'?

[Mentalray]

Has anyone tried therapy and just felt like the therapist doesn't really understand, because in order to understand they would have to have had a hard life and judging by their reactions to things they probably haven't?

Recently tried again a few months of therapy (couple times a month). For PTSD and depression for having a recent major setback / failure in my life.

Mentioned to the therapist at one point something along the lines of 'you know how people look like when they are going to punch you or want to punch you' and she said she didn't know what that looked like. Not sure if I have had a very violent life but I couldn't believe she hadn't once felt someone was going to hit her and see it in their face? Do most people go through life without experiencing that?

I don't know how someone can help with PTSD if they have never experienced anything like it?

I am tired of talking to therapists who have no idea what I am talking about. I currently stopped going, Didn't feel her waving her finger in front of my face while I thought good thoughts helped much either (supposedly PTSD therapy).

Any one else had similar thoughts or just me?

God I am so depressed : (

Do most people go through life without experiencing that?

Fortunately, yes . Maybe she was trying to convey that to you, because I think it’s important to understand that kind of violence isn’t normal or acceptable.

I would say that in my experience no one trains to be a therapist if they haven’t at some point had some kind of issue themselves - there are whole books written on that topic! But many, perhaps most, of them won’t have faced threats of physical violence.

Was it EMDR?

If you find the right therapist it will feel like they are hearing you describe your experience. The way you experienced certain situations won’t be the same as the way everyone else does, and it that sense it can be easier for the therapist to really listen to your experience without superimposing their own, if they haven’t been in the situation.

It’s natural to assume that everyone would react in roughly the same way and so would understand a certain experience the same way. But that’s not the case and often the work in therapy is understanding what you have made of an experience and why. Think about it like lots of the threads on here. There can be wildly different opinions, including opinions you would never have thought of yourself.

Have you felt able to say to a therapist that you don’t feel like they are understanding or getting it?

My therapist had suffered from anxiety so it did kind of help in that he understood what I meant when I was talking about things like my own mind was resisting me.

Had one therapist and she made me much worse and made me feel pretty awful .
Later I found another who was fantastic . I just wish I could afford her more .

I think it's a case of finding someone who clicks with you .