Posted by Racer on April 15, 2004, at 16:10:41
In reply to Re: Laughing Academy Faculty Bloopers Anyone?, posted by Kind Girl on April 15, 2004, at 0:55:40
I'm in a year long blooper right now, myself. The latest, which has kept me on the sofa with a quilt wrapped around my head all day so far and IS very traumatic, was a DBT group they decided would be helpful to me. My gut told me to drop out, because it was so traumatic to me, but I didn't for a lot of rational reasons -- like showing signs of good faith, showing them that I was motivated to get well, finishing what I started regardless of anything about it, etc. Today's exercise was to examine an emotional situation. That would be fine -- IF I DIDN'T SUPRESS MY EMOTIONS SO EFFECTIVELY I CAN'T EVEN RECOGNIZE THEM. Not only that, but I experience my inability to recognize my emotions as a shameful failure.
If they had made any effort at all to understand anything about me, they might have caught on that this wasn't a group to ask me to attend. They might have thought about trying to support me to the point I could recognize and name my emotions, and to where I wasn't terrified and traumatized by them so much, and then suggested something like this. The DBT group uses techniques that mirror my own maladaptive techniques for suppressing any emotions, so it really isn't helping me any. Now I'm kicking myself for running out of the group early today, for failing miserably -- again -- to Do The Right Thing for my recovery, for thinking that it's anyone's fault but my own, and for my general failure in life.
Mind you, the therapist who decided this would be a good group for me leads the group, decided it would be helpful for me and she wanted me in it *before* she even *met* me, and I think it's a case of One Size Fits All therapy: "DBT groups are good for everyone, regardless of their own problems." A corollary to that, of course, is that "everyone can benefit from DBT; DBT was developed for Borderline Personality Personality Disorder; therefore, everyone in a DBT group -- by definition -- must suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder." This is the same therapist who put more energy into trying to convince me that I was borderline than she did into trying to find out who I am.
Sorry, I guess mine is more like Vic Morrow being killed on set, rather than an entry for the Blooper Reel.
How about my therapist telling me the other day that anti-depressants don't cause weight gain -- it's just that when you're on them, you eat more and don't exercise enough? Does that count?
poster:Racer
thread:336453
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040409/msgs/336670.html