what does therapy do? how does it help? will i be in counseling forever?!

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Most behavior today is based on behavior modification, and focuses on helping you achieve a new perspective on situations, and to gain new insights and learn new behavioral skills. There are different therapeutic approaches, such as dialectical behavior therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Therapy takes time. In terms of therapy, going since October isn't really that long. There is a great deal in your own beliefs and behaviors that you need to explore, and many new skills to be learned. Therapists will move through this work in phases, so that you can concentrate on one thing at a time, and hopefully make more progress. Sometimes, since the changes are incremental, you may not see them, but a therapist may be tracking slow progress that you are unaware of. A therapist can tell from what you say in your session, how much drama is in your life, how you are responding to different challenges, how often you seem to be having psychotic episodes. A therapist will use this feedback to adjust the focus of your future sessions, or to decide when to move on to new tools and skills.

If you are attempting suicide and cutting, you do need this therapy. It took you years to get into this condition, and it may take a year or more to get out of it. During that time, you need to learn how to define and maintain your personal boundaries. You need to learn new strategies for coping with stress and anxiety. Your emotional maturity stopped at the age that you began cutting, like you were frozen in time. I don't know your age, but it's like you are a fifteen year old in a thirty year old's body. Since you retreated from stress into drug use (natural endorphins), you stopped working on developing the insights and techniques that other people your age were practicing and perfecting to avoid and manage stress.

You have YEARS of work to catch up on. It is just not realistic to expect you can be caught up on what you missed over all those years, in just a few months. A trained therapist can accelerate the process, so you don't have to discover it by yourself. But, it is still going to take lots of time and practice, working on just one or a few skills at a time, working through the program. Just like you can't learn to play the piano in three months like someone who has studied it for years, you cannot catch up on what you missed over all those years in just these short few months. It takes practice, practice, practice, and your therapist is your trainer.

Also, your therapist needs time to get to know you, and understand you. That is probably just starting to "gel" right about now. There is a learning curve for you and your therapist, and the best benefits start to come faster after you get past that initial breaking the ice period.

I hope you will stick with your therapy and start to feel better. I am sorry you have had such a rough time. Some of us are just born with physiological mood disorders. Sometimes, they are inherited from a parent who is struggling with the same thing, and, not only does their problems make ours worse, but they don't teach us what we need to know to survive, because they don't know, themselves. It is no one's fault, but if no one understands what is happening and helps us at the right time, we have to take the long hard road to learning how to live with it.

Your psychiatrist or counselor will have better answers than anyone of us here can give.

Counselling isn't mandatory, also it shouldn't be seen as a punishment. Therapy will help you deal with why you want to commit suicide, and counselling is necessary as long as you need it.

My personal recommendation is, never stop going to see someone if you have an opportunity to do so. If you're ever prescribed medicine don't ever stop taking it either unless your doctor tells you to.

I wish you the best of luck, I know I didn't answer many of your questions but hopefully you'll take my advice.

Counselors help guide you to better mental health and well being. You have the right to decide what course of treatment is available. Ask your counselor for all of the options they can offer you. Some people go to therapy during there entire live. And they may have no major issues to deal with such as you have. Do no hesitate to ask your counselor any questions concerning your treatment options. EMDR is a wonderful type of treatment that helps a lot of people. This is one of many in conjunction with medications some times proscribed. I wish you the best .
Good Luck
Peace and Serenity

28 years of Social, Mental Health, Medical, and Substance Abuse work.

everyone feels better if they can tell their problems to someone but whether it does any long term good is doubtful
some counsellors are lazy and listen to the voice but not the words

a good counsellor will talk back and offer helpful advice and will directly answer your questions