Talk Therapy

anagram wrote:

shock_the_monkey wrote:i get a slight i'mpression that you possible didn't really know yourself. perhaps that's why they didn't lead anywhere.

Isn't that what a therapist is supposed to be skilled at helping you with? (This is a rhetorical question.) It's not like this was a hidden theme in the sessions.

ignoring the rhetorical bit, not in my experience!!!

anagram wrote:I don't think they were particularly bad. Just limited. Remember that Asperger's is barely known at all in my country.

emm??? i think asperger's i well known enough in the UK. this hasn't stopped all the therapists i've ever seen failing to diagnose or address the problem (although it's a lot harder to diagnose in adults because we develop adaptive behaviours which mask the symptoms). the irony of this is that the psychiatrist the company i used to work for sent me to see probably got closest to a diagnosis - and that cost me my job.

anagram wrote:I think they were bad at recognizing that their approach was simply not for me. Especially the second guy, he kept insisting that I needed to adjust my perceptions in the very opposite way of what I later realized I actually needed. It seems to me like the vast majority of psychologists around here will think of systematic approaches (both by the therapist and by the client himself) as essentially negative. I think it's a matter of outdated school of thought. They like to "humanize" things that are better dealt with as just mechanics.

i just think that people approach life in a way that suites them. if you go to someone and say 'i'm having problems with my life', or words to that effect, which is basically implicit in seeing a therapist in the first place, then all they'll likely be able to offer you is the tools that they use to cope with their life. i don't think it's so much a matter of schooling. most people have a very touchy-feely approch to life, especially in the medical profession. if you don't have a specific list of problem areas and goals you want to achieve, that in itself will create a lack of focus to the therapy sessions. candidly, i do know what you mean. i had the same experience. i think both myself and the therapist became deeply frustrated. but i think they lacked the skill to tease out of me anything that would have given them areas to work on. and i'm not that forthcoming with things like that unless people ask very specific questions. i short, this just didn't happen and i stopped going as i felt i was wasting my and their time.