What am I supposed to get out of psychotherapy?!


Question: I've had some depression and anxiety issues or whatever. And my insurance approved me for 25 sessions with a therapist, but there is 200 dollars deductible. I'm absolutely broke, but I thought if this was going to help me, I should give it a shot. I went for my first appointment today and had to pay 80 dollars. I talked for an hour about myself and stuff, and the only thing that she suggested to me is to block my ex until Wednesday. I could have figured that out on my own and keep my 80 bucks.

I've never been in therapy before, so what exactly am I supposed to get out of it?


Answers: Hi. It can be very confusing what to expect from therapy. You ahve tried some things- some of them have worked, most havent.You are right the therapy is not going to do the work for you. Sometimes it might seem very simplistic. Well, there are many things that we instinctively know but still struggle with. Get over your ex might be easy for you to know at a level but just too difficult at another.

In depression and anxiety, you can use therapy( I donot know what kind of therapy you are in, my guess is cognitive behaviour therapy / CBT), you will learn how to access the many pre conscious thoughts- also called at the automatic negative thoughts, core beliefs and schemas. thsi can give you important clues to change how you think about situation sand thus deal with your mood changes and anxiety.The success or faliure depends on you not the therapist. i will encourage you to take this question to your therapist. She/he might be able to talk you through it. For eg: my patient with anxiety asked me if she cant have somethign different. The mood diaries, charts, thought records were too simple for her, she said. we worked our way to the conclusion that having suffered from anxiteies for years, she had come to belive that nothing can really help her. Although she gives things atry because tahts what you do when you have a problem, she wasnt really able to belive in herself or the self help strategies enough to have the full benefit. this is very common on long standing illnesses. One has more fainth in therapy failing than otherwise. This obviously has an effort on what you put into it. I guess the same was at play at the ned of the session. maybe the thought- I could have figured it out on my own-leads to deeper thoughts such as-this is too logical- this cannot work for me- my problems are too complex- 80$ isnt really worth it - I should not spend money on such fads-I need to have treatments that i know work. etc etc
25 sessions is a good whack of therapy. I will encourage you to go for it. keep yourself motivated thorough your own reading in between sessions.Let your therapist know that you ahve these doubts- give her/hima chance to help you with it . trust is the paramount thing in therapy.
Theres a list I recommend to patients. Good luck- therapy is hard to make sense of, living with depression and anxiety is harder.


CBT for Depression and Low self-esteem
Paul Gilbert Overcoming Depression (London: Robinson 1997)



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