# does a therapist really help you?



## Taylor8524 (Nov 14, 2010)

I have always considered getting a therapist but I never knew if it would do me any good. Does it help some of you who have one? Im really nervous about opening up to a stranger that for all I know is just in it for the money and couldnt give a damn about me. I don't need one just for my SA all I remember in life is people hurting me and im constantly in pain. I feel like im worthless and not smart enough to ever go back to school to make something out of myself. How can therapy heal what I have?


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## yelda (Jun 12, 2010)

I tried many therapists. they were all useless for me.
I havent met anyone who got benefit from therapy.
then I came to conclusion that psychiatric disorders were all organic brain disorders and non-drug therapy was impossible.


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## ozkr (Dec 2, 2005)

yelda said:


> I tried many therapists. they were all useless for me.
> *I havent met anyone who got benefit from therapy.*
> then I came to conclusion that psychiatric disorders were all organic brain disorders and non-drug therapy was impossible.


That is not to say there aren't people who benefit from therapy. 
That being said, I think it's wrong to reach a conclusion like yours based only on such limited and subjective criteria.


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## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

I did have one pretty helpful CBT therapist for a while. In general I found her both good at what she did and very understanding, nice and sympathetic. Unfortunately as it was through the NHS, I was only allocated a limited number of sessions. Which was about 12. For me this wasn't enough at the time. I could really have done with the help on a longer basis. (though unfortunately I wasn't in the position to know this until I'd already stopped seeing her past the 12th session and tried to go back to work for a while). So for this reason I didn't get as much benefit out of seeing her as I'd hoped to. But still, the time I was able to spend seeing her was still highly worth the time in alot of ways for me. It taught me that my anxiety problems are pretty common and am far from alone in experiencing them. (beforehand I had a pretty different dark view about this). It helped give me alot of insight as to what had led up to me developing my social anxiety/ocd problems. And was my introduction to CBT techniques and how they worked - as well as to a few pretty useful CBT self help books which provided additional advice my therapist didn't cover. From this experience I did eventually develop the ability to work on quite a few things on my own without additional therapist help - although I can't say that this development process was quick or easy. It was one which personally took me months (which might not have been the case if I could have carried on seeing the therapist for longer than I did or could have gone back to her for further sessions later - which didn't turn out to be possible when I tried unfortunately). As a result there's been a huge improvement in my agoraphobia symptoms. And I am now at the stage (with a little extra help from a condition management programme I did earlier in the year) where I am starting to regularly face situations that set off my social anxiety - though right now I'm having to stick to small steps. While this isn't ideally where I'd like to be right now (I'd rather be much further along recovery wise so I would feel up to going back to work), without a doubt seeing the CBT therapist I did significantly helped me come a much further way progress wise than if I'd kept trying to struggle on alone in the long run. I'd definitely recommend giving it a try.  You do get good and bad therapists, and sometimes it can take seeing a few different people before you find one you feel is the right kind of fit for you. But once you have, imo it really is worth it.


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## percyblueraincoat (Jun 2, 2009)

*hmm*



Taylor8524 said:


> I have always considered getting a therapist but I never knew if it would do me any good. Does it help some of you who have one? Im really nervous about opening up to a stranger that for all I know is just in it for the money and couldnt give a damn about me. I don't need one just for my SA all I remember in life is people hurting me and im constantly in pain. I feel like im worthless and not smart enough to ever go back to school to make something out of myself. How can therapy heal what I have?


A therapist has to eat and it would help us to have some sort of roof over our heads but by and large, therapists are not in it for the money.

Well, the healing process within you has already begun. That's natural and what happens to us human beings. But it may well help to safeguard such a healing process by taking it into a place where professional therapists can guide the development of such a healing process. Therapy cannot automatically cure and I'd personally be very suspicious of anyone who claims they can "cure" this or that using this or that therapy. I can be struck off as a trainee for suggesting I can "cure" anything. Therapy doesn't cure or heal so much as you heal and cure through therapy.

The development of the relationships and establishment of trust of course takes time and that's natural and fine. We all heal at different paces and in different ways. Some therapy approaches will be right for you and some won't so it's fine if you give something a go and it doesn't work the way you want it to at first. There's a lot of trust involved in therapy but not so much in terms of trusting your therapist. No, trusting yourself is the biggest thing in therapy. Trusting that change happens and will happen, that positive steps can be taken and made even when the cognitive part of the mind has evidence that they can't be....trusting the wider mind and trusting that the person is not the problem and is beyond the comprehension of the problem.

It's not our darkness that scares us so much as it is our light and so many people have a fear of change....how on earth are they going to handle the full expression and illustration of their brilliance? How are they going to handle being confident in social and romantic situations? It is a process that takes time, trust and love and you find those in therapy.

It's not therapy or drugs. It's a combined healing approached dedicated to what the individual needs and what the individual needs are.


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## droen (Jul 27, 2010)

I don't know your situation, but as someone who didn't have a soul to talk to about my issues before going into therapy it helped out a lot. Not directly, but I believe it paved the way to where I am now. If I hadn't gone, I probably would never have opened up to my parents about what's going with me. I never would have the close relationship I have with my good friend. I have not overcome SA and I still have a long road ahead of me, but I can confidently say that I'm in a much better place than I was before therapy.

I asked my therapist once, "How do you deal with having to listen to so many people's problems everyday". She told me something along the lines of being trained not to let the patients problem also affect them. But she did tell me that sometimes it does get to her, though she didn't get specific about the certain instances that got to. Therapist are human and imperfect like the rest of us. They are capable of getting personally invested in a patient and they don't have all the answers.


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## senrab (Apr 23, 2006)

Yes it does help me. If nothing else, it helps me to get out of my house and hold down a job.


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