I am
having a difficult time, opening up with my psychotherapist, and I have been
there for six months now. I have been through physical and sexual abuse as
a child, and I am just now starting to talk about it, but the psychotherapist
I have is extremely pushy, and sometimes she says things to me that are very
confusing. One week she said “I know you don’t come to psychotherapy
to hear this but maybe you need to go find someone to take care of you”
and she also claimed that I “wasn’t capable of holding down
a job.” We even discussed her talking to me that way the following week
and she said I was right, and that’s exactly what she meant! Now I have
all these emotions and nowhere safe to take them because I [expletive
deleted] sure don’t want to talk to her after belittling me. I am
just confused. It seems most of the shrinks and psychotherapists are way
out in left field and I’m just stuck with my garbage! Any
suggestions?
As I say throughout this website, many—but not
“most”—so-called “therapists” are out in
left field. You have had the misfortune to encounter the classic mistake
of having your symptoms thrown in your face while being blamed for
them.
Now, the truth
is that you
do—unconsciously—want
someone to take care of you. And because of that unconscious desire you probably
can’t hold down a job. The point of psychotherapy, though, is to help
you recognize and understand your desire to be taken care of so that you
can overcome the unconscious block that prevents you from taking care of
yourself. Blaming you for what you can’t do—yet—serves no
purpose except to push you away. And that’s what incompetent
psychotherapists do: they push away all the clients they don’t know
how to help.
Therefore, you
might really benefit from someone who knows how to conduct proper psychotherapy.
In return, lest you remain stuck in your garbage forever, you must make one
crucial commitment: to do anything it takes, and at any cost, to change
your behavior. As long as you show a willingness to learn, no
one—including yourself—can fault you for not having learned something
yet. As long as you come to psychotherapy to “here” this—that
is, to bring your symptoms directly and
honestly into
the here-and-now of the
psychotherapeutic
relationship—you have the opportunity to learn how to take good
and proper care of yourself.
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
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If
this website has helped you, then