Problems with therapist

[therapistquestion]

I'm having psychodynamic therapy and an having problems with my therapist.

I'm not sure what to do, she keeps coming out with things that I find upsetting. I bring them up with her and the she says something else. We started off on the wrong foot because her style of therapy is to say hello and then remain silent for the whole session while I talk.

I told her that although I appreciate that's her process, I need at least some feedback to show I'm being heard. She seems to have taken that on board but the feedback she's giving doesn't make me feel heard at all, just misunderstood.

One of our biggest problems is incongruence. I've suffered a lot of trauma both as a child and an adult and find it difficult to be vulnerable with someone I barely know and to show them that vulnerability. She keeps telling me that it sound as though I'm telling her stories. I'm not sure how to interpret that. The week before she told me that it was like I had an agenda because I wanted to talk about issues raised in the last session.

I find talking about these incidents upsetting and traumatic and feel as though that trauma is not being empathised with but misinterpreted. I am bringing these problems back into every therapy session but then something happens again that I'm finding upsetting. I feel judged. Like I should be acting in a certain way and because I'm not on the floor sobbing, I'm strange.

The examined life by Grosz (I think) might be a helpful book for you to read. See if this is what you want to sign up for.

I’m a therapist in training but not psychodynamic kind. It’s been quite a eye popping read and I can’t decide if this is all shockingly damaging or a Machiavellian plan which will eventually heal you.

My guess and it’s only a guess, is the ‘telling of stories’ without the anger and associated emotion is what she’s trying to get to the root of. Is she purposefully goading you to get you in touch with anger and help you stop suppressing it? Is she trying to help you along the road to perceiving yourself differently so that you might be less of a target for bullying?

If you are having an issue with congruence maybe experiment and show your feelings as you feel them in the session, including during the silence. It’s ok to be angry, shout and cry and during therapy. There’s a difference between anger and actual aggression. Maybe when she says... you are just looking for an argument... she isn’t trying to silence you but for you to say yes I am! I suppose what’s important is for you to say what is right for you in the moment. If you aren’t at that point yet the it won’t work because you wouldn’t be being congruent.

It sounds like very hard work. Well done for sticking at it.

Ok update on this. My therapy is being drawn to a close. I spoke to the consultant who put me forward for this therapy, and my therapist was really, really annoyed and started firing questions at me about it.

Even though she spoke a lot about our relationship being really important, she never took responsibility for her part in our relationship. When I tried to talk about it, she started telling me I was aggressive or angry in order to close the discussion down.

So to cut a long story short, we spoke today about having a couple more sessions and bringing it to an end. We had a long talk about that today spent most of the session on it.

She says I'm projecting. Honestly, it's been like dealing with a wet bar of soap. I'm not trying to blame her, just explained that I didn't feel as though trust had been built, that we had no rapport and it was difficult to hear nothing but negativity and criticism every week. That I hadn't heard her say anything positive about me at all in any of our sessions. She didn't try to deny that.

She asked me what I was getting out of the therapy and why I kept having it, she's also missed a lot of sessions.

She said that the reason she didn't change my chair was because she's not meant to do anything "concrete" and it's about talking. That makes no sense!!!

Absolute nightmare. It's feels like a huge relief to bring it to a close.

Reading your posts, OP, I'm not sure you're in the right place for this kind of therapy. You were wanting to feel better and you've entered a sort of open heart surgery where you'll possibly feel very disoriented and destabilised. Do you have a support system in place? If you really weren't prepared for this and want something more cognitive, overtly empathic and problem solving, eg cognitively looking for patterns in your choices and responses, it's ok to want that.

This thing you're doing now will take ages but I think you'll get really really frustrated and feel extremely vulnerable, and I'm doubtful that you and a trainee are prepared.

But it could be more helpful in the long run, I don't know!

Sorry OP, didn't realise.

Having read your update, I'm so glad you didn't proceed. I think you should make a complaint. Bringing her own anger into your lesson?! Disgraceful.

session

@myfriendsgivebadadvice

Having read your update, I'm so glad you didn't proceed. I think you should make a complaint. Bringing her own anger into your lesson?! Disgraceful.

She's been gaslighting me as well. Saying something one week and denying she's said it the next.

Yes she was really, really annoyed with me for having discussed the therapy with the consultant and had written a list of questions that she fired at me in the session. Accusing me of things. It's was very strange behaviour.

That's awful. Can you make a complaint through PALS? She needs to be held accountable at this stage in her career or she'll be an absolute nightmare to others, not that it's your responsibility .

Having read through your posts I don't think the problem is with the style of therapy but just that your therapist is absolutely awful.

You should ask if you can have another therapist. I am having therapy through public funds (not the NHS) and when I didn't like my first therapist and told the therapy manager I was given a new, a much better one.
I can't see anyway that this therapy is going to help you. It seems to make you worse. You must ask to see if you can see someone else. Personally I would rather no therapy that harmful therapy.

I can't get another therapist. I spoke to the consultant about the therapy and said I wasn't happy with it. I explained what was going on and asked for another therapist. She said no, that perhaps the type of therapy wasn't suitable for me. We agreed to bring it to a close. There is going to be a break and then some kind of trauma based therapy, but I need to look into that as my therapist said today that it may not be with that place.

The consultant would not accept that there was any fault with the therapist and said that those training were very carefully selected and the fault does not lie with them. Okaaaaayyy. I explained that I had had this type of therapy before and had not experienced these kinds of problems but apparently that was different.

It seems I'm the problem here. I'll see what happens and am going to contact PALS for a chat because they seem to be giving me the brush off.