Posted by yellowbird01 on March 4, 2009, at 9:02:29
This is primarily to those who are in (or have been in) long term therapy, although anyone is more than welcome to respond.
I've been in therapy on and off (mostly on) for the last.. 8 years. I began with one therapist and saw others inbetween, but always ended up back with the initial one I saw. I recently just quit my past T after two years and have moved back to my initial T yet again. The reason I've switched away from her have always been logistic issues.. money, distance, etc. I've only been back with this therapist for a few months now but because of our past relationship, she already knows me quite well and it's like picking up where we dropped off in many ways. Anyway...
I've reached a point in my therapy and with my depression where I no longer feel like I'm in constant "crisis management" mode. My therapy has always been aimed towards pure coping skills... putting out the fires and keeping me okay enough to allow me to function in life pretty successfully. However, I'm no longer struggling with day to day functioning issues like I used to when I was severly depressed, and my self-destructive behaviors (self-injury etc) arent a major problem like they used to be. Not the significantly dangerous ones anyway. I'm not sure where to go from here in therapy.
For those in long term therapy, how do you define your goal? Is there a goal? I dont know how to ask what I really want to ask which is really.. how does it work? How is long term therapy different, in your opinion/experience, than shorter therapy?
Do you ever feel like you're just overanalyzing your life and your experiences? Do you ever feel like therapy "keeps you sick"... keeps the focus on "whats wrong" rather than whats good? I want to note that I'm not suggesting anyone here does these things.. it's just something I wonder about for myself and I wonder if anyone else ever feels that way.
poster:yellowbird01
thread:883687
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090227/msgs/883687.html