Don't known what to do about my therapist

[GingerFish]

I've been quite quiet about how therapy for OCD and everything is going but I feel I need to be honest now about how shit this therapist is.

I've been going to her since January and was an urgent referral from my GP so I didn't wait too long which was good and I was told that I should get an appointment at least every week because I was in a bad way which I wont go into but the therapist said she thinks just once a fortnight will do. Fair enough but I've only saw her once a fortnight at a max of 3 times. The rest of the time there has been a waiting gap of between 3 to 6 weeks between appointments. I have no other help bar her. I can't take meds due to my OCD contamination fears and my OCD was and still is crippling so I couldn't just man up and take a pill so it was therapy and self help, nothing more.
She cancels a lot of the time an hour or 2 before my appointment and there is no back up for me to visit if she is off, so that is an extra 2 or 3 weeks to see her again. If I cancelled as much as her, I would have been struck off the patient list.

Therapy is a place you talk. You talk about big and major things. Well get this...apparently I talk too much! She would be moaning if I didn't talk at all! She has even admitted that she doesn't think her type of mindfulness based therapy will help me. Yeah, that made me feel brilliant to hear that just a few sessions in. I shouldn't feel the need to dull myself down at therapy. Everything I talk about there is relevant - things that happened in the past, my OCD fears, what triggers me etc - not random things like what I had to eat 3 days ago.

Here's the best bit. I don't want to sound like an arrogant bitch here but I am proud of what I have done in regards to making myself better through my conditions, well she said what I have done hasn't really helped me much. I was housebound for 6 months, couldn't even make it to my bins. I forced myself out of that. I made my challenge chart and look at me now 2/3 years on, I can go everywhere now, rarely have panic attack setbacks. If you have never had panics or been agoraphobic then you wouldn't believe how hard it is to climb up from being scared of going out your front door to building up to going out alone, going to town and all that. I am proud of that. I got myself out of that with help from family and friends and nothing more and she shot that down. The one thing in life that I am truly proud of, she belittled. I have confidence now that I never had all my life and she thinks what I done was useless? **** her.

This isn't a dig at the NHS. I love the NHS, I think I just got the wrong therapist. I don't know what to do about it. I have mentioned it to my GP and she says to talk to the therapist about it but how awkward would that be?!

[MyNameIsTerry]

Wow, your therapist is a bit !

I completely agree with you, you have achieved a lot. For a start, you could have been attending therapy for a lot of the things you have worked hard to conquer all on your own! Your therapist should appreciate that work or how on earth are they going to keep you positive? Reminding ourselves of our achievements is an important part of moving from negative to positive thinking styles, to stop seeing the bad and recognise the good too.

If you are talking about too many things for the session to handle, the therapist can work on keeping sessions running they way they should. It just means keeping a structure in place and keeping you within it's framework. Some people clam up, and the therapist struggles to bring them out, some talk too much because they are nervous or there is just so much to get through. Regardless, the therapist should be able to keep things moving the right way by controlling the sessions better.

Whether you talk about the past or talk more about how you feel and what you want to achieve, depends on the style of therapy. In CBT very little needs to be known about the past as it's more important to understand how you think now and change it rather than how it got there. Approaches like psychodynamic and psychoanalytical are more about the past but to be honest Gingerfish, you have always seemed very able to talk about either the past or how you feel so surely you can work based on either or both?

Mindfulness based therapy might work. Mindfulness really helped me with my OCD. I think it can help most people in some way. CBT and particularly ERP are used in OCD but why can't she offer the type of therapy to fit the needs of the client? This was a GP referral for treatment of your OCD, so exactly how restricted is this therapist? And why aren't you allocated to the right form of therapy if they can't do what your GP has referred you there for? That makes no sense to me at all.

This issue with the appointments is just unacceptable. She can't make an agreed appointment, fair enough, but she should be re-organising her schedule to ensure you are seen soon and if that means bumping other people who were after you, then she should do it. The way this is working currently, if she can't make yours, she is just keeping her schedule in place and causing a detrimental impact to your therapy. Like you said, if you did this, you would be booted off the service very quickly.

Your GP is right, the concern should be raised. Regardless of it being NHS, the NHS is a service that we have already paid into. They are expected to fulfil that service. It's only natural that you may not feel you can confront her about this and if that is the case, your GP should be doing it.

[pulisa]

She probably doesn't like the idea that you did all the work yourself, Gingerfish. Therapists often think that they know best and recovery has to follow a certain path...but it doesn't and you have done so well to conquer and break through the agoraphobia demons.

I doubt whether you would be able to change your therapist but maybe it's worth a try? She sounds awful.

[Sunflower2]

Ginger fish it seems very unfair that we have to keep appointments or we get struck off the list, but the therapists can do what they want and we can't do much about it! I would make a complaint about this alone, even if there wasn't all your other issues! In al my years of NHS therapy appointments I have not had one appointment cancelled!

Would you feel able to take to her about any of these things? I am useless about doing these sorts of things with my personal life but like Terry said, we are paying for them to treat us so we deserve what we pay for.

Some therapists are good, some are bad, I would go back to your GP if it doesn't improve.

[GingerFish]

Thanks for your replies everyone. I was a bit hesitant to open up about how I feel because I didn't want to come across as a spoilt brat or anything like that because I know how many people are waiting for therapy and here I am with it and moaning about it :(

My mum is taking me to the GP next week to talk things over. I feel bad that I am nearly 24 and my mum has to fight my corner but at the end of the day, if it gets me help then that is the main thing. I'll keep you updated with how it all goes.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Don't worry about that, people are waiting because of the lack of funding & training to give us the services we need in acceptance turnarounds. You shouldn't feel that must only be positive about the service. Don't feel guilty at all and we mustn't feel guilty for struggling either.

I was in my thirties and I took my dad with me to my early GP appointments. He has suffered 2 years of depression many years ago and I gratefully accepted his support, and I would again. Prior to that I was working with people of all levels up into senior management, and held my own in meetings any day with them. Within weeks of all this anxiety, all that confident was lost. But it comes back. I felt a failure for not doing things on my own, especially given the work I was doing, but you learn later that it is pointless to think that way, we all need support at some point in our lives.

I think you should look at your next GP appointment like you would if you had a physical problem of such severity. Wouldn't your future husband be sitting there concerned? Or maybe even your mum? Why is mental health any different? Because we are still in a society where it's not equal. Why wouldn't our loved ones want to be there to help us? If we were in hospital for an op, even a minor one, wouldn't they show up?

[Bigboyuk]

Hi GingerFish Clearly your therapist I couldn't be doing with cancelling appointments and no back up when they are ill or off work. Ask for another therapist as you are actively being proactive here and trying to get help It doesn't matter what age you are to have a support from your family is great. And Terry while I agree why wouldn't family be there, mine wasn't when I had my stent fitted and in hospital for 5 days I let the hospital know my next of kin (brother) who didn't even come to visit me how bloody bad is that and to top it all my brother didn't even let my sister know who lives 12 miles from where I live. I am disgusted totally by my brotherATB

[wcs2222]

+1 for asking for another therapist.

It's important that you find a therapist that you can work with and will trust on your journey.

[GingerFish]

Thanks for the replies everyone but this thread is over two years old now. This situation is done and dusted

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thanks for the replies everyone but this thread is over two years old now. This situation is done and dusted

And now you no longer have a future husband, you have a current one!