# How do you know if your therapist is helping you?



## aloss4words (Jul 17, 2007)

Right now, I'm debating on whether or not I should see a different therapist. How long does it take to see results? I really don't feel that much different. I have been seeing her for about three months I think and I still can't figure out how to have a decent conversation with my roommate.


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## Reachinghigher (Jul 12, 2008)

This is a good question. I have had a number of therapists who overall did almost nothing for me except waste my time. However the very little that I did pick up from them I built upon so as to use bits and pieces of their philosophy to help me get better. Although it took going to several lousy therapists to accumulate knowledge to self-help my condition it did pay off over a period of several years. I wish there were more good therapists out there but I have yet to meet even one. So I take the bits and pieces I can relate to and put them together so as to make my own program of self-healing. It has worked for now and I am much better. If it hadn't worked, god only knows where I might've been today. I really do not look favorable on counselors or psychiatrists in the profession, not only because of my experience but the amount of people who continually are in need of their help and go every week prove that most of their treatment for mental conditions don't work overall. I can’t help but think that money is the motivating factor behind their profession and it gets in the way of really helping their patients. After all, if you can’t afford a good therapist, you really have no chance of ever being treated by them. Therefore I rest my case.

I hate how therapists just string people along just so they can make money off them! :mum


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## Blueshadow (Sep 16, 2008)

Wow, my sentiments exactly John1961! Though it's a shame!

I think you should listen to your instincts and try someone else if you have any inclination at all to do so. It's a good indication the therapy you're in isn't really useful and it's better in that instance to move on rather than stay with something that isn't truly benefitting you. Take courage and try again if your are compelled at all to do so.


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## jackarandarainbow (Sep 27, 2008)

I agree with much of Reachinghigher's views that therapists are geting good money and not really helping people much. That has been very much my own experience. I think most professional therapists and counsellors are charlatans. There are reasons for this too numerous to mention here, but anyone can contact me privately if they want to discuss that further. I think one of the main reasons for therapuetic failure which is entirely ignored by the profession, is that not every type of therapuetic approach or method suits every type of human difficulty, and it doers seem to me that people who exclusively and insistently use only one approach are running the risk of not only taking their hapless clients' money for nothing, but they also risk seriously harming their clients by making inappropriate interventions.

If you are seeing a cognitive behavioural specialist, or a psychoanalyst, then its a good idea to also invest in a specialist who offers emotional work of some kind, like primal therapy, deep feeling therapy, or maybe one of the psycho-spiritual approaches like Psychosynthesis. CBT is a kind of brainwashing or 'conscious' hypnosis, which is excellent for some conditions, particularly irrational anxiety and fear, but it very badly neglects the emotional aspect which is so important to us humans as it is to all mammals, and thus the good benefits of the brainwashing can be overwhelmed by the often deeply burried hurt feelings which CBT cannot address. So yes, if your therapist is not making anything happen for you, then try a different approach, its essential to your survival.

Jackaranda Rainbow


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## coeur_brise (Oct 7, 2004)

Reachinghigher said:


> Although it took going to several lousy therapists to accumulate knowledge to self-help my condition it did pay off over a period of several years. I wish there were more good therapists out there but I have yet to meet even one.


Yeah, it's hard to find a "good" one, I agree with Reachinghigher. So far, I haven't found a really good therapist, at least, according to my needs and individual personality. I agree, it's a shame that it's hard to go through the process of 'getting help' and that the therapy itself helps only so much at a time when say, during a crisis point, people really need some kind of treatment only to find mediocre treatment, or in this case, treatment that takes years and years to finally have an effect. Exasperating, in my opinion! I hope to find a better therapist soon myself, but in the meantime, stick with the one I have in hopes of it coming to something helpful..


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## bleach (Mar 23, 2008)

A therapist will never help you. They will tell you **** that you could look up on your own at this site or many others, in many different books, etc. You tell them what you think is wrong with you so they can give obvious advice which you have probably heard already. Don't expect anything more because that is all there is to it. A total racket. Go to a psychiatrist, at least they can write scripts.


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## Gerard (Feb 3, 2004)

Be authentic and honest and self disclose your whole entire experience on how you experience anxiety with a person, persons, or situation. Do not undermine, squelch, repress, suppress your thoughts. All of your private thoughts you disclose in full vivid form.

The therapist holds confidentiality. It's they job to treat your thoughts. So these private thoughts that made you feel anxious, you should disclose and with the therapist process those very thoughts.

And be always motivate to put yourself out there in social situations.

Go back in therapy and process again your whole entire private experience.

Be very motivated to go out into the world.

And then go back in therapy and process your learnings and your whole entire private experience.

Do again until needed.

If you do this, you are going to go quick in recovery. You'll beat SA really fast. I guarantee you.


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