Posted by JenniferB on December 10, 2002, at 0:47:27
I'm a twenty-five-year-old female with pretty severe inattentive ADD and secondary anxiety (more so)/depression (less so) and occasional (probably partially compensatory) OCD flare-ups.
I recently moved to Chicago to start graduate school, and the experience proved so overwhelming to me that I was encouraged to take a medical withdrawal (in part due to an impulsive suicide threat to a professor, when I was not suicidal at all, just anxious and helpless and out-of-control feeling due to a late assignment not being accepted). The treatment plan prescribed to me was intensive group therapy, which (not thoroughly understood by the prescribing counselor, I think) turned out to be a Dialectical Behavioral Therapy group.
Anyway, this group has done nothing but give me additional stress. I cannot relate to many of the core behaviors it addresses (such as avoiding pain by engaging in self-harmful behavior), and I do not feel that my needs are being addressed whatsoever. I brought this up to one of the group facilitators, and she acted as if there were no possible way the DBT could be harmful/counterproductive for me, and I should just "take what works for me" (which is pretty much nothing) out of it and ignore the rest. I'm thinking, though, that an ADD-specific group would be better for me (especially since these groups aren't free!). Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
poster:JenniferB
thread:131202
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021203/msgs/131202.html