Its hard to find a good therapist.

[anna_0range]

So i dropped my therapist because she completly ticked me off.

I went into her office and spoke with her.

1.I felt like i knew more about anxiety and medication then she does.

2.I asked her how zoloft would benifet me more than buspar and she told me she couldnt give me a scientific answere and that she had just been doing this sence the 90s and just always used zoloft.

3.I felt like i did most of the talking and she barely said anything when i was going to HER for her to help ME.

4.I told her that i would like to be able to over come my anxiety mentaly and with the lest amount of mediation as possible because i feel like im strong enouph and positive enouph as a person to do so.

This is what she told me.....
"Anxiety is a dibilating disease, just as bad as diabetes. And dont know anyone who has been able to overcome this. Your going to have this disability for the rest of your life. So your best bet is probably some form of medication"

She also told me that i had to "trick" my mind in telling myself i can do somthing when i feel like i cant.

How is this tricking your mind? You can do ANYTHING. You have to tell yourself that to be possitive. The minuet you think your "tricking" yourself, you set yourself up for failur because you put yourself in the mind set that your anxiety is holding you back.



......I continue my search for a therapist that understands and clicks with me....And who wont push me into medications.

This is the 2nd one ive been to.

I try my 3rd next week.

[northstar]

jeeze anna you're really having it tough at the moment!

i'd totally steer clear of any therapist who says that anxiety is something that will stay with you for the rest of your life like diabetes and drugs are the best method of recovery!! that's crazy, it's unbelieveable that people like that are allowed to take the mental health of others into their hands :shock:

i also think she put the "trick" thing forward in a really bad way. i think she must have meant distraction? i'm not sure. lots of people with anxiety find that they feel ok when they're distracted. or perhaps she was talking about keeping positive mentally and not allowing yourself to be crushed by the anxiety? i'm not sure.

keep searching, i'm sure you'll find someone good out there :) i was lucky with my first counsellor that our relationship worked quite well. in the sessions i did a lot more of the talking than her, but that was the intention, i was supposed to be exploring and discovering things for myself. it was really great, but very difficult at first to open up and to see the benefit of it. after the first couple of sessions when i just came out in tears every time i really thought it was a bad idea to get in touch with all these sad feelings, but after a while it just started to feel so good to get everything out!

i also went for a couple of sessions of neurolinguistic therapy, which is great if you want to learn exercises and techniques that you can use in every day life. the one problem with therapy i have found is that it's hard sometimes to put into action the things that you discover in a theapy session. i also found it quite hard to discover that while i was learning and growing the people around me weren't and it affected some of my relationships with family and stuff. it was really good though, i reccommend it for everyone.

good luck! i hope you find someone good soon!

[Carla]

Hi
I understand what you are saying about therapists. I have had a problem finding the right one. I had CBT and my therapist began to irritate me lol I would go to see her and she would sit moaning about how warm it was outside, how noisy the traffic was outside and she seemed so disinterested. I almost felt like apologising for burdening her with my troubles! I am moving to another area and once I have fully moved I shall look again for a counsellor. I think it does a while to find the right one sometimes. The last counsellor you saw doesnt sound very good. I asked my gp if I wld have to live with anxiety for the rest of my life and he pretty much said what that last counsellor you saw said, in that he thought I wld have anxiety for life. That really worried me. He tries to get me to take medication too every time I see him, but maybe he thinks it will work better for me than natural remedies. I will take it if my anxiety gets too bad but for now I am not that bad. Hopefully your next counsellor will be a lot more helpful!

[Obelysk]

Damn that sucks, if a counselor told me that I would have walked out on the spot, I hate to waste my time and with the way I feel I wouldn't have taken that. I do hope you find the right therapist. My current one is alright but I want a lot more answers than she is giving me at the moment. I might have to look for another one myself.

[ericgio87]

that's some bad news, i swear i have no idea how some people get their jobs.....

i'll keep my fingers crossed for you for the next one, maybe do a little dance. good luck though seriously =)

[Robbed]

"Anxiety is a dibilating disease, just as bad as diabetes. And dont know anyone who has been able to overcome this. Your going to have this disability for the rest of your life. So your best bet is probably some form of medication"

The REALLY funny thing about lines like this is that ANY therapist who says this sort of thing is essentially talking themselves out of a job. If meds are the ONLY solution, then why not just see your GP for a prescription. It is, after all, MUCH cheaper.

Ask yourself one question here: When was the last time you heard of someone actually getting BETTER because they went to therapy? Can you honestly say that you can think of ANYONE? I would be willing to bet you can't think of one. And attitudes like THIS one are a BIG part of the reason. Unfortunately, this is the prevailing belief among therapists. I encountered this one ALOT myself, and eventually gave up on therapy. But keep in mind that people DO recover from anxiety. And although I am not completely recovered, I feel MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better than I did a year ago. Anyway, if you REALLY want to find a good therapist, there are a couple of questions that maybe you should ask before paying to see one. First of all, ask whether they believe anxiety is incurable. Secondly, ask whether they believe medication is a MUST. And you might also want to ask whether the therapist has PERSONALLY overcome anxiety disorder themselves. Although this last one might not be essential, it is a DEFINITE bonus if you can find someone who has.




......I continue my search for a therapist that understands and clicks with me....And who wont push me into medications.

This is the 2nd one ive been to.

I try my 3rd next week.

One place you might consider trying is anxietycentre.com. I myself have NO affiliation with this site whatsover, and have nothing to gain from you going there. But they DO offer phone therapy (I have never tried it, though). What I REALLY like about their therapists is that they won't hire anyone who has not personally overcome depression/anxiety on their own, and been depression/anxiety free (and medication-free) for at least two years. This right here makes it MUCH more likely that your therapist will know where you are coming from AND know how you can overcome. Furthermore, the site does not encourage the use of medication. And the fees seem pretty low (compared to therapists in my area, at least).

[joey9]

Your therapist sounds rubbish and if you felt no improvement from seeing her you were right to drop her. One thing I have to say on the whole diabetes comment though - I don't know what she really meant by it but I can relate it to my anxiety in some ways. My grandmother has diabetes, which causes her no problems at all as long as she is eating properly and keeping her blood sugar stable. As soon as she starts pigging out on cakes and biscuits (which unfortunately are the love of her life), then the diabetes causes all sorts of problems and she gets very poorly. I have always suffered from bouts of anxiety all my life, and I am a firm believer that i am 'prone' to anxiety. However, as long as I look after myself, by trying to avoid stress, eating properly, taking time to relax, taking exercise, then I'm usually not troubled too much by it. Unless I try to do all these things, the next time stress comes along then I know I will get hit again. Some people go their whole lives never troubled by anxiety and then they get hit suddenly. On the other hand, some of us have always had it lingering around and keeping it under control becomes as important as trying to keep e.g. diabetes under control to prevent flare ups. This doesn't mean I will always be anxious - just that I need to be a bit careful because when I get stressed, anxiety always seems to strike. Obviously you can't avoid all stress, so part of keeping it under control is about learning to cope better with it when it comes along. And back to the whole diabetes thing - some people are born with diabetes, others develop diabetes through bad habits i.e. eating too much sugar. I'm pretty sure this is true of anxiety as well. Not the sugar bit though. Although this sometimes doesn't help.

[Robbed]

Your therapist sounds rubbish and if you felt no improvement from seeing her you were right to drop her. One thing I have to say on the whole diabetes comment though - I don't know what she really meant by it but I can relate it to my anxiety in some ways. My grandmother has diabetes, which causes her no problems at all as long as she is eating properly and keeping her blood sugar stable. As soon as she starts pigging out on cakes and biscuits (which unfortunately are the love of her life), then the diabetes causes all sorts of problems and she gets very poorly. I have always suffered from bouts of anxiety all my life, and I am a firm believer that i am 'prone' to anxiety. However, as long as I look after myself, by trying to avoid stress, eating properly, taking time to relax, taking exercise, then I'm usually not troubled too much by it. Unless I try to do all these things, the next time stress comes along then I know I will get hit again. Some people go their whole lives never troubled by anxiety and then they get hit suddenly. On the other hand, some of us have always had it lingering around and keeping it under control becomes as important as trying to keep e.g. diabetes under control to prevent flare ups. This doesn't mean I will always be anxious - just that I need to be a bit careful because when I get stressed, anxiety always seems to strike. Obviously you can't avoid all stress, so part of keeping it under control is about learning to cope better with it when it comes along. And back to the whole diabetes thing - some people are born with diabetes, others develop diabetes through bad habits i.e. eating too much sugar. I'm pretty sure this is true of anxiety as well. Not the sugar bit though. Although this sometimes doesn't help.

Well, she DID say that

"Anxiety is a dibilating disease, just as bad as diabetes. And dont know anyone who has been able to overcome this. Your going to have this disability for the rest of your life. So your best bet is probably some form of medication".

When she says that anxiety is a DISABILITY that you will suffer with for the rest of your life AND that your best bet is some form of medication, this indicates that she DOES see full-blown anxiety disorder as more than something that is simply episodic in stressful situations. It seems abundantly clear that she considers anxiety disorder itself (as opposed to a tendency to develop anxiety disorder when things get bad in your life) as PERMANENT.

[joey9]

As I said, I have no idea what this particular therapist meant by her comments. They are clearly misinformed, and the liklihood is that the therapist isn't actually very clever and has no real understanding of anxiety disorders, and simply picks up snippets of information here and there and then uses them inapproprately when advising her clients. This doesn't mean that there isn't an analogy to be made between diabetes and anxiety. Everyone is different and I don't know the circumstances of your anxiety. Perhaps you have been a very happy go lucky individual your entire life and were suddenly hit by anxiety and will go on to make a full recovery and never be troubled again. I on the other hand, have been susceptible to anxiety all my life, and it would be very foolish for me to think that once an episode was over that I could go about doing all the things that make my anxiety flare up in the first place. Just because I believe I am prone to anxiety doesn't mean I have to label myself in some way. I am lots of things, and I am defined by none of these things exclusively. They are just a part of who I am.