Posted by noa on April 12, 2004, at 9:18:36
In reply to Re: How Frequent is Therapy? » noa, posted by Dinah on April 11, 2004, at 22:56:19
Well, one of the things that happens a lot is that since my appointment is right after work, and I am usually rushing from work to the appointment, I come in with a lot of workaday stress to unload. But then I become very aware that I'm ending up talking about work more than myself. So lately I've been trying to use the workday unloading to go more in the direction of my internal stuff rather than just venting or kind of analyzing all the other people and the organizational dynamics, etc.
It's interesting because if I have an appointment once in a while when not coming directly from work, it is often very different. If I've been out sick, for physical or mental health reasons, I might be somewhat depressed and the tone of the session is so different. I often don't like how those sessions go, because I feel kind of mired and stuck. Once, recently, I took a mental health day off and actually lost track of the time and realized I wouldn't make it in to my appointment. So I called and left a message telling him I wasn't going to make it to the session. As it happens, one of the reasons I had lost track of time was because during the afternoon, I had started thinking about something that upset me from an email I received, and I was kind of getting into obsessing about how to respond, etc. So when my therapist called back, we ended up having the session by phone which isn't what I expected would happen (yes, he did charge me for it, which I would expect him to). It was helpful.
So, the issue of what I focus on is an ongoing issue. Sometimes we talk about health-building kinds of things--ie, now that I'm not in the throes of deep depression, what are the things that could make my quality of life better, etc. etc. Little goals and such. And the same old going over and over the old issues and the ways I resist change etc.
But as I said, mostly, I come in with a lot on my mind from the stress of the work day and that is what dominates most of the time.
poster:noa
thread:335279
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040409/msgs/335472.html