# What do you think your biggest barriers are for success with therapy?



## Drew (Jan 23, 2006)

As the title states, what do you think is getting in the way of your success with therapy? 
*(on its own or with medication)*

Some examples might be:
Don't think therapy will work (CBT or other therapy) 
Lack of therapists in your area
Lack of qualified therapists
Not comfortable trying to find therapist
Not comfortable asking for referral to therapist
Not comfortable going to see a therapist
Haven't found a therapist your comfortable with
Insurance won't cover therapy or CBT
CBT doesn't work for you
Having trouble adhering to CBT homework/exercises
Stopped going to therapist
Therapist didn't understand what I was going through
etc.

You can include as many reasons as you want in your reply!


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## sara01 (Feb 4, 2010)

If I'm really anxious on a certain day, I may not go to see my therapist. That has been one of my main issues...just making it to the appointment. Once I'm there it is usually ok though. 

I also get terrified of silence. I feel nervous about having an awkward silence during the session, and I get scared that the therapist will think I am weird. It really does sounds immature to me in writing but I guess I get really scared that the therapist won't like me. I think I have this fear because I have a close relative who is a psychiatrist, so I get to see their personal life firsthand. 

I'm working on these issues though! The good thing is that since starting to work on these fears, I am getting less anxious in several social situations outside of therapy


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## Drew (Jan 23, 2006)

sara01 said:


> I also get terrified of silence. I feel nervous about having an awkward silence during the session, and I get scared that the therapist will think I am weird. It really does sounds immature to me in writing but I guess I get really scared that the therapist won't like me.


Yeah, I definitely felt similarly before.

Thanks for sharing your experiences!


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## sara01 (Feb 4, 2010)

Actually I thought of another that is a bit embarrassing. I feel like I am always a bit late to everything in my life. It takes me so long to actually get out of the house, and it is usually for different reasons. So I think the majority of my missed sessions have been due to lacking time management skills. Once I realize I am late or going to be late, I become really anxious. Then, I feel too embarrassed to show up late. I would rather make up an excuse, and deal with it later than show up late. 

I have also been working on this though (little steps of course)! Instead of just not showing up, and not answering my phone, I have been making myself call and say that I will be running late (even if it is a half hour late). Of course I feel absolutely terrible about wasting the therapists time, but I am honestly working on this one for myself, and out of respect for the therapist's time. I recently started doing this with other types of appointments too just for the practice. It seems to be helping


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## Under17 (May 4, 2010)

Lying, trying to avoid things, not being able to say what I want to say. Benzos are good for helping with this.


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## hredtop (Aug 18, 2010)

Initially, when I started going, it was lack of trust that kept me from progressing faster.


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## odd_one_out (Aug 22, 2006)

The NHS ignoring statutory guidelines for having appropriate services and specialists in place in my local area (and in many areas across the country). It's so bad they're passing new legislation through Parliament that will make it easier to sue.


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## LostPancake (Apr 8, 2009)

Bad therapy experiences: 

1. guy seemed schizoid, very stiff, was first kind of condescending, then seemed afraid of me after getting my IQ score. didn't stay long there. 
2. woman who seemed to project her own issues onto my situation, wanted my mom to divorce my dad. felt like i was just wallowing in depression with her, made me feel worse. 
3. some guy who was just sort of neutral. not even sure what his approach was. quit after a few months. 
4. some woman who i thought disliked me or was afraid of me. though i told her i didn't want her to be too nice to me. didn't get anything out of it after a couple of months so quit. 

Good experiences: 

1. Someone who had been recommended as being really good. She did CBT though as I understand it now it was mostly behavioral with a just bit of cognitive, and a lot of cheerleading. I felt like she really liked me. That might have been the crucial point. I stayed with her a couple of years and made a lot of progress - went from being housebound to having a job and an apartment and a relationship. 

2. My current therapist - I spent a couple of months looking over therapist listings on the psychology today site, narrowing it down to people I felt a good reaction to (they have pictures also). I finally picked one and I do seem to have a good rapor with her. She's less a cheerleader than the other one, but I think it's more appropriate, as the cheerleading only helped as long as I was seeing her. She does CBT but with me has been doing psychodynamic. It's been slow going though, so I've been supplementing it with lots of self-help books lately. 

So, a lot of the experience depends on the therapist and how you get along with them and the approach they take. I'd recommend looking for someone who does CBT *specifically* for social anxiety, as the CBT is a bit different than from other problems. I've never done that kind of CBT - I wish I had known about it. I actually only read about it on here, with some of yeah_yeah_yeah's posts.


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## redtogo72 (Jun 7, 2008)

Therapists are too detached from their patient's problems and rely too much on their patient's account of what's wrong. Instead they should be observing and learning their patient's behavior and thought process while outside of the therapy room. If I have social anxiety, shouldn't I be outside with my therapist so she can help determine what's wrong and how we should go about fixing it? Even when I was doing CBT, I felt too confined to the therapists room.

Here's an article (you'll have to register to read it, but it's a really interesting read) about someone's personal experience with therapy. She had been in therapy off and on for four and a half decades. This scares me because I could see myself doing the same thing, and never really improving.


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## Lasair (Jan 25, 2010)

Physically not been able to say what is truly wrong with me out loud to someone....it's imposable.....


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## LostPancake (Apr 8, 2009)

redtogo72 said:


> Here's an article (you'll have to register to read it, but it's a really interesting read) about someone's personal experience with therapy. She had been in therapy off and on for four and a half decades. This scares me because I could see myself doing the same thing, and never really improving.


Yeah, that article is an awesome indictment against Freudian psychoanalysis. But no one does that, except for really rich people. You spend years doing it 4 or 5 times a week. That is ****ED up!

I think if you go into therapy with someone you should say you're just going to do it for 6 months and see how it goes. That would put more pressure on the therapist to get results, instead of just stringing you along.


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## redtogo72 (Jun 7, 2008)

LostPancake said:


> I think if you go into therapy with someone you should say you're just going to do it for 6 months and see how it goes. That would put more pressure on the therapist to get results, instead of just stringing you along.


I think if I said that to one of my therapists, he would have kicked me out of his office.  I assume some doctors would probably say something like this, "Well hopefully we can make you feel a little better. But, I won't promise anything." I just think in my case if the meds aren't working I'm useless so I don't really blame the doctor. I know I'm kind of a difficult patient.

At least for me, it's a lot harder to say those kinds of things to a therapist when you have SA (maybe I could write the doc a note). I usually can't even ask a therapist for a certain drug or tell a therapist that I'd like to seek help elsewhere.


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## aok (Sep 8, 2010)

I went to several therapist before I found one that I actually liked. The first few I went to seemed like they didn't want to scare me away. It was like they were babying me. I didn't like that at all.

Not until I went to a psychiatrist who also did my therapy, did I find a good match. He wasn't trying to baby me and didn't approach it like he was suggesting things like he just read it out of a book. It took a little while for me to fully trust him, but for the most part I do. And I can see over that time that he is very experienced and knowledgeable in doing therapy for people like me.

What was also great is that he could make alterations to the medecines by judging my mood during our therapy. I think all psychiatrist should do their own therapy, it is definitely very beneficial.

I guess my biggest problem with him now is that I sometimes withhold some information from him becasue I'm afraid he would think ill of me because of it. I trust him but at the same time I respect him and want him to view me in a positive light (does that make any sense?)


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## Honeybee1980 (Jan 29, 2009)

That's cool to hear about a good experience with a psychiatrist. I have always thought about maybe going to see one, but I was under the impression that they mostly just prescribe meds and that's it. I have tried a few other therapists, a psychologist and an LCSW, but I also felt like they were just babying me and I didn't feel like i was getting anything constructive out of the experience. I have the Overcoming SA step by step CBT program, but find that on my own I keep procrastinating and not doing the practice. I really wish there was some kind of support group around here but i live in an isolated rural area, not a great thing for an SA person :roll


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## ski-li (Jan 18, 2004)

Honeybee1980 said:


> I have always thought about maybe going to see one, but I was under the impression that they mostly just prescribe meds and that's it. I have tried a few other therapists, a psychologist and an LCSW, but I also felt like they were just babying me and I didn't feel like i was getting anything constructive out of the experience. I have the Overcoming SA step by step CBT program, but find that on my own I keep procrastinating and not doing the practice. I really wish there was some kind of support group around here but i live in an isolated rural area, not a great thing for an SA person :roll


I completely understand. I just posted about my bad experience with therapy in another thread. It was ironic because the therapist didn't challenge me or offer advice. I was really looking for her to be more constructive and it was almost like she was afraid of saying what was wrong with me. At times, I felt like the therapist instead of the patient when I would come in and tell her a tip I learned online and how it helped me with anxiety (since she wouldn't.)

And when I finally got brave enough to ask her to give me strategies she said in so many words that she couldn't provide any more tips. Ironically she kept telling me how important it is for me to open up to her but when I finally did and told her I was unhappy with her service she offers absolutely nothing. Very discouraging. She was also very closed off with her body language. She sat in her chair as if she was afraid of me. She kept her legs tightly crossed and her hands clinched between her legs almost as if she was nervous. It was very bizarre. LOL I started to wonder which one of us needed the therapy more.

Anywho, I hope to find someone else. It took me so long to get help because I was always so skeptical of therapy and when I finally do find someone, she's no good. Oh well.  I'll keep trying... I think. 

But to answer the original question... my biggest barrior was that my therapist and I did not sit down at the beginning and map out goals. There was no direction whatsoever and we had these horrible awkward silence moments and sometimes she seemed as unsure as I felt. And since she never pushed or encouraged me to try new things, it began to get pointless. After a few months, I felt like a broken record in every session bringing up the same problems waiting for tips or strategies.


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## JimmyDeansRetartedCousin (Nov 28, 2009)

Falling back into the twisted comfort of a socailly anxious lifestyle that I'm used to. That and laziness.


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## Shizuko (Sep 4, 2010)

For me, I notice that I tend to lie about some of things that are wrong with me. I do know that the therapist is there to help but I still get paranoid about what they are thinking about me.(weird, stupid, etc.) And like the person above, I am also so used to being soically withdrawn from people and anxious. Even though the therapist is giving me suggestions I never follow through with them.


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## miminka (May 10, 2009)

Trying to get my therapist to like me by trying to desperately solve my own problems. I never believe a word of what I tell myself; or her. It just makes me think I'm making progress.


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## lawlessness (Sep 20, 2010)

Being agoraphobic, getting there is obviously my biggest issue.

In the past, my therapists will usually schedule my appointment at the end of the day since they know it will take me that long to make myself ready to go. At different points, my therapist would do home-sessions.


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## Honeybee1980 (Jan 29, 2009)

ski-li said:


> I completely understand. I just posted about my bad experience with therapy in another thread. It was ironic because the therapist didn't challenge me or offer advice. I was really looking for her to be more constructive and it was almost like she was afraid of saying what was wrong with me. At times, I felt like the therapist instead of the patient when I would come in and tell her a tip I learned online and how it helped me with anxiety (since she wouldn't.)
> 
> And when I finally got brave enough to ask her to give me strategies she said in so many words that she couldn't provide any more tips. Ironically she kept telling me how important it is for me to open up to her but when I finally did and told her I was unhappy with her service she offers absolutely nothing. Very discouraging. She was also very closed off with her body language. She sat in her chair as if she was afraid of me. She kept her legs tightly crossed and her hands clinched between her legs almost as if she was nervous. It was very bizarre. LOL I started to wonder which one of us needed the therapy more.
> 
> ...


You really put into words a lot of my own experience with the therapists I tried, no gameplan just meandering along in an aimless sort of way and saying the same things over again with no resolution or suggestions on how to overcome my problems. 
Have you tried the "overcoming SA step by step" program? 
http://www.socialanxietyinstitute.org/
I find it to be more helpful than anything else I've tried because it's like an individual therapy session specifically targeted towards SA, with progressive goals, from an expert who really seems to get it. Whenever I've consistently practiced I've noticed it helping. I've even contemplated attending one of the exposure groups they have when I can afford it ( i live pretty far away from all of them right now, so would entail a lot of expense to travel). 
If i do try another local therapist (unfortunately my mental health insurance was cut ) I will make sure I find one that utilizes a CBT approach, because old school talk therapy got me nowhere and actually seem to exacerbate my issues, with all of the dredging up and dwelling on the painful past experiences in my life. 
I think what I'll probably do instead is get a referral to a psychiatrist and see how that goes, like *aok* did.


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## eccentricpeter (Sep 30, 2010)

odd_one_out said:


> The NHS ignoring statutory guidelines for having appropriate services and specialists in place in my local area (and in many areas across the country). It's so bad they're passing new legislation through Parliament that will make it easier to sue.


+1

my doctor is an idiot.


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