Going Back To Therapy

[Crystal Reed]

This could potentially be long and rambling but bear with me. I was diagnosed with panic disorder and dysthmia in 2005 while in college and during that time I tried several medications and in the end wound up on Cymbalta. Besides medication I also had individual and group therapy. After a year I wasn't covered under insurance anymore and in the last 8 years I've kind of just coped without any sort of medication or therapy. It has by no means been fun.
Recently the anxiety has gotten much worse and the depression has been following the same path so I decided to go back to therapy. Today was my intake appointment with a licensed counselor and we established some goals mainly to get the anxiety and depression to be more manageable. However in addition to the anxiety and depression I have multiple phobias and she showed no interest in helping me with those. Another thing that kind of bothered me is she never asked to see my previous mental health records to find out what my history is in terms of therapy or medication. Granted the records are about 7 years old but you would think that it would help provide some insight into what has been going on previously.
I'm questioning whether to go back to this counselor or not because it concerns me that she doesn't feel the need to see my mental health records. I'm also concerned by the fact that on the goals sheets she stated that therapy would only take 12 weeks?? I've been dealing with anxiety for at least 10 years and depression since junior high and its disconcerting to me that she thinks that I'll be ready to discharge from therapy that quickly.
Does anyone who has or is currently in therapy have any advice for me? I'm thinking of possibly changing to a psychiatrist/psychologist but I hate to not give this new counselor a few weeks to see how it goes.

[jessed03]

Hey Crystal

Good to hear you're getting proactive, and into therapy.

Would you mind telling me what your phobias are? Some may be connected to your anxiety and depression, however some may be stand alone, and will need their own attention.

There are 3 things I look for in a therapist. This is just me, but I've found a lot of people do the same thing when choosing a therapist, even if it's just subconsciously.

Rapport
Knowledge
Inspiration

Firstly, I always look to have a good rapport with my therapist, and I've always been lucky enough to say that I've never had to quit therapy because of poor rapport with a therapist. They should be like your favourite teacher. The boundaries should be there, but you should feel comfortable.

Then I look for knowledge. How well does my therapist communicate. How much am I learning from sessions. How well are concepts being explained to me. Is my therapist good at their job. Most are. Do I have a better grasp of what's happening with me?

Then there's inspiration. You want to feel you can improve your life when having your sessions.

I don't know how you felt when leaving your session. Whether you felt positive or not.

I don't know whether you need to communicate more with your therapist to fulfil your needs, or whether the direction your therapist wanted to take you in wasn't suitable.

This therapist sounds a little half assed. But, I may be being unfair. Unfortunately like any job, some are just there for the ride.

A lot of therapists set 8-12 week discharge dates. Then if therapy needs to run over, they continue on. I was set for an 8 week discharge. Ended up doing around 15weeks.

Maybe talk a little more with him/her, see if they can address your concerns. If you give them a chance to, and you leave again feeling unsatisfied, then call time on it, and find someone else. There's a phone book full of them :)

[superchick22684]

Hey Jessed03,
It's Crystal, I decided to go with a different account so that I can be a little more anonymous on the forums. Thank you so much for sharing what you look for in a therapist. I think that it will be helpful to me in helping me establish what I want out of my therapy.

In regards to phobias, there's a lot of them. A few of the phobias are heights, spiders, vomiting, fear of suffocation, germs, fear of being trapped/unable to escape a room if necessary (this was addressed as agoraphobia with a previous therapist).

Part of the reason I decided to go back to therapy is that my life has gotten to the point where I feel like I'm living in constant fear and that I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. My anxiety and depression is also starting to take its toll on my significant other. He's doing what he can do to be supportive but if I don't get help its going to ruin the relationship.

I've also slowly developed an unhealthy coping mechanism of checking and double checking things to reduce my anxiety in certain situations prime example being checking locks. I haven't brought this up with my therapist yet because other things took priority in the intake appointment yesterday. However I think that its something that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. My obsessive checking of locks and other things makes it difficult to be on time and I often have to allot myself a certain amount of time or I could sit there for over 30 minutes until I'm convinced that its secure. It also interferes with my job and I find that it affects how productive that I am during work hours. I'm completely prepared for the fact that bringing this up in therapy could result in a diagnosis of OCD in addition to my other issues.

In terms of how I felt leaving the intake appointment, it was mixed feelings. That's partly why I decided to find a forum and vent. I feel better today but emotionally I'm somewhat numb and indifferent. I find opening up to people to be very difficult so the fact that my therapist set a 12 week discharge is disconcerting to me. I feel like there's a lot of pressure on me to be open with someone who I hardly know very quickly because if not the hourglass is going to run out and nothing will have changed.

[jessed03]

Crystal, did you reach any decision about your therapy yet?

[superchick22684]

I talked it over with my boyfriend a bit and he convinced me to give the therapist a chance. I'm thinking that I'll give it about four sessions, because I figure after four sessions if it's not helping or I'm not getting something out of it then it's probably time to cut the cord. I've got to do something though I've had a few bad anxiety days since I went last Thursday so there's no way I can go without seeing someone for therapy.

[superchick22684]

Just wanted to give an update on where I am with therapy. I just got back from my second session of therapy and this session was so much better. I think at this point its mainly that I have to get comfortable with communicating with another person one on one about potentially sad and sometimes embarassing things. One of the things we talked a lot about during this session was negative thoughts and how those are having a huge of effect on my anxiety and depression. I feel like a little progress was made so for right now I'm going to continue to see the same therapist. I'm 100% convinced that going back to therapy was the right decision for me.