Posted by antennastoheaven on June 19, 2013, at 2:47:42
In reply to Is partial hospitalization right for me?, posted by antennastoheaven on June 6, 2013, at 3:48:43
I'm starting to question the utility of me being in the program even more. I don't think there's enough content useful or relevant to me specifically - I'm too far away from the average patient. I have such a limited set of emotions and no real problems aside from depression, anxiety, and ADD, the last two of which I have under control with CBT and Adderall respectively.
Everyone else seems to have issues with drugs, family, stress, work, relationships, health, or trauma, often with a specific event leading up to them being in the program. And I can't relate to most of their stories. This makes group therapy not very useful, and general discussion of issues accounts for almost half the program. I end up hearing the same stories and explanations multiple times from the same people as they re-explain everything whenever some little detail changes. Sometimes, it seems the group spends a long time discussing a single person's issue. And sometimes repeatedly. The other day I didn't get a chance to discuss what I wanted to because of this. The most I get from many of these stories is reassurance that I'm doing a lot better than some others. I think group therapy could be very helpful if only the group was comprised of people with similar issues - which seems like it would be difficult to find.
10% of the program is CBT and 10% is DBT (dialectical behavior therapy). CBT is good and it has helped me in the past, but there's so little of it. DBT seems like it might be useful for helping with emotional issues but since I experience few emotions I don't have the kinds of problems it seems to be geared towards solving - I think it might help me a little bit, but I think I'd get more utility out of more CBT.
I feel like I would get more benefit seeing an individual therapist four to five days a week; but short of offering cash to see someone outside of their regular business hours, it seems like it would be very difficult to schedule. And finding one I like who would do that might take a while. It would be nice, however, to be able to pick my own psychiatrist instead of having to deal with the one assigned to me by the program; I'm not sure if the psychiatrist I was assigned is right for me. Are there any other treatment options that don't involve so much group therapy? Is it possible to see the same therapist for 4-10+ hours a week? Would it even be productive past a few hours a week?
Staying in the program is going to make the people filling out the disability paperwork happy, and probably looks better for my disability insurance claims, and it's better than doing nothing all day. Full disability income and job protection lasts for 12 weeks, so there is no pressing need for me to return to work. So unless I figure out some alternate treatment that's going to be more useful and seems to be worth the cost, I may as well keep going along and try to make the most of it until I feel I'm able to work again.
poster:antennastoheaven
thread:1044771
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20130309/msgs/1045521.html