My takeaways from 12 months of therapy

My spouse is a psychotherapist, and from her 10+ years of work I have seen that it can work very well. But the success depends on the patient’s mental attitude. If you go to a therapist with the mindset „here I am, do something that I feel better (again)“, then I can guarantee you you‘ll be disappointed. A psychotherapist is like a midwife who can help a woman in giving birth to a child, but the woman must go through the process herself, through the pain, the labour. But when you come with the right mindset, do the work, do not expect quick fixes, the results can be transformative.

I’d like to read on actual techniques, cause this post makes me suspicious. That question “how do I feel about it” is only a first step in a complex approach and the focus on it may suggest that there’s something missing in my picture. Which is lots of circumstantial techniques and ideas. I wouldn’t think of pointing this particular question out from all that if I was writing a blog post. Maybe I’m just different?<p>Anyway, I agree when they say that people who need therapy the most are the ones who cannot afford it. It makes you think different, not just pat you on the head and commiserate.

Try group therapy! It can significantly change your life. I was saying &quot;no fucking way&quot; whenever my psychiatrist suggested it, but after I tried, it turned my life upside down in the best possible way. It will be very uncomfortable first, but worth it!

How do I know if my therapist is a good fit? There are good days but on bad days I don&#x27;t know if it&#x27;s him or if I&#x27;m just that emotionally constipated

<i>The expressing of emotion comes with a lot of side benefits: the other person becomes aware of your feelings (yes, people generally don’t know how you feel about something). They will respect your boundaries better.</i><p>You can tell they&#x27;ve never dealt with a person with narcissistic &#x2F; sociopathic personality disorder. You express your emotions to them, all it does is provide them with a crystal clear signal of how to push your red buttons and believe me they will.<p>A lot of therapy is based on the assumption that &quot;we&#x27;re all the same&quot; or &quot;we all mean well&quot; but it&#x27;s simply not true. There&#x27;s real scum out there.

The concept of &quot;good therapist&quot; can be misleading, as it suggests the idea that there good therapist necessarily work well with any patient (and as a consequence, patients may give up too early in their search for a therapist). I think it&#x27;s more appropriate to talk about &quot;suitable&quot; therapist.<p>In a way, it&#x27;s like talking about friendships. Some people certainly have better &quot;friendship skills&quot; than others, but because a given person has such skills, it doesn&#x27;t automatically make them a good friend to everybody.

The problem with mainstream therapy is that, unless you&#x27;re being treated by a psychiatrist, there&#x27;s very little in the way of objective evidence of therapy working.<p>Sure, lots of self-reported successes by patients with no control to compare against, but at this point there is just as much self-reported evidence that prayer works.<p>For medical treatments, the bar should be higher than &quot;patient believes it worked&quot;.

I hope this doesn&#x27;t come across disrepectful, but its kind of weird the take away from 1 year of therapy is so cliched.<p>The take away is basically you should pay attention to your emotions, don&#x27;t be afraid to express your emotions and don&#x27;t be afraid to try new things. Which feels like something you would see on instagram written over a sunset.<p>Perhaps its just a case of the difference between knowing the path and walking the path, and the 12 months was learning to walk it.

Offer a lunch or dinner to a friend and you&#x27;ll be in better hands, at least they care for you.