Posted by sunnydays on February 18, 2008, at 15:29:21
In reply to Re: Therapy - Bang for the Buck?, posted by Hermitian on February 18, 2008, at 10:39:37
What is broken is that the patient has suffered severe trauma. I will not assume you haven't suffered trauma, but in my experience, some people who haven't suffered trauma don't understand the extent to which it can damage one's ability to trust ANYBODY. Being able to trust the therapist is the first step to being able to trust other people. And after 10 sessions of me not talking hardly at all, my therapist asked me if I wanted to continue, and I did. Because I WAS getting something out of the sessions - I was learning that people will sit with me and listen to what I have to say and not criticize me or hurt me. One can't assume that that is a given to everybody. For those who have been severely traumatized trusting is a skill that must be learned. And, like drawing, or those other skills, it is one that can take years to fine-tune and perfect. I don't think many would say that someone who takes drawing classes for 20 years would be wasting their money, even if the last 10 years they see only marginal improvements in their skills. What looks marginal to one person can be SIGNIFICANT gains to another person. I wish that everyone in the world could realize how severely trauma can affect people, and how long it takes to heal from that. Even connecting the dots is not as simple as it sounds. I can connect the dots in a session, but then when I go home and have to have contact with my abusers, it can call it all into question again, and I have to go back and reconnect the dots.
I hope that helps explain how long-term therapy can be beneficial to some. I truly, truly hope that you can come to accept that long-term therapy can be something beneficial and in fact VITAL to a person's mental health and personal happiness and well-being.
sunnydays
poster:sunnydays
thread:813285
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20080210/msgs/813462.html