Does therapy work?

[kendo59]

From an article: "Therapy is a good idea for anyone who is anxious or depressed. It can help enormously to have an impartial shoulder available who knows the territory. Do be aware though, that certain forms of therapy can actually be counter-productive. When choosing a therapist, please do recognise that any therapy which encourages continued negative introspection can actually make you feel worse! These styles of therapy are the ones where you go and tell your therapist all about your problems week after week and their role is simply to listen. This focuses on the problem, but doesn't offer solutions, and for reasons that should be obvious will often deepen anxiety or depression. Effective modern therapy should be positively focused, that is that it creates new perspectives and finds solutions to problems, hence the name- solution focused therapy."


How many people have found that therapy doesn't help, or even makes their situation worse?

[kendo59]

My councelling seems to be as above; I've had 4 session with 2 more sessions to go, and all it is, is me just talking about the negative stuff, the counsellor making a few comments like "You must find it difficult to cope with all the rejection", but she doesn't actually offer any insight or helpful coping strategies. I don't find it's helping me at all. If anything, I'm finding the counselling to be a very negative and depressing experience in itself.

[nomorepanic]

Sounds to me like you don't have a very good counsellor!

Can you get someone else at all?

[marie1974]

hiya kendo, im not sure wot sort of counselling you have, mayb wot u are having doesnt suit you. i have cbt cognative behaviour therapy and the first say 3 sessions i spoke about my life, my probs etc and she listened and i had to do practical homework. then as time went on she kind of gives me different ways of thinknig and dealing with stuff and also gives me confidence.

the most important thing with therapy of any kind is you have to connect to your therapist in some way and trust them and feel comfortable telling them your life story.

also you need to find the correct form of therapy for you, mayb do some internet research.

hugs kendo and hope today was a better day for u xxx

[ElizabethJane]

I have had extensive therapy over the years including psychotherapy in groups and one to one, had art therapy psychodrama, hypnosis and CBT. They have all played a part in my recovery and yet I still suffer with depression and panic and anxiety. The only therapy that really didn't work was CBT as I was too depressed to work through the examples and wanted to talk about what I was feeling. At the moment I am a great believer in hypnotherapy as for me it seems to reach areas that other therapies were unable to. Unfortunately it is expensive. It would be too expensive to embark on a course of psychotherapy although I'm sure that would be helpful. At the moment my only meaningful 'therapy' are prescribed drugs and I'm not sure that they always 'work'. I haven't abandoned all hope of a cure and primarily my problem is severe recurrent depression with panic and anxiety thrown in. I have had many years of being free of severe depression and anxiety. I wouldn't abandon hope that therapy wont work for you. I expect one of them will.

[ElizabethJane]

Hi Donna are you talking about 'tranference' having a good rapport with your counsellor/therapist? That in itself can cause its own problems.!

[kendo59]

I asked her what sort of therapy it was - she said "Psycho-Dynamic Talk Therapy". As soon as the buzzer sounds at the end of the session, she literally interrupts me in mid-sentence to say "Time's up"... and that's it until the next session. She doesn't give me any insight, any suggestions, nothing. I might as well just be rambling on & on to a nodding dog. The only comments she makes during the sessions is to highlight the negative experiences and tell me how difficult it must be for me. Well, DUH!

Apparently the NHS only pays for a 6-session course of counselling. If I want any further counselling, I have to pay for it myself, which I simply cannot afford.

[Franz]

I asked her what sort of therapy it was - she said "Psycho-Dynamic Talk Therapy". As soon as the buzzer sounds at the end of the session, she literally interrupts me in mid-sentence to say "Time's up"... and that's it until the next session. She doesn't give me any insight, any suggestions, nothing. I might as well just be rambling on & on to a nodding dog. The only comments she makes during the sessions is to highlight the negative experiences and tell me how difficult it must be for me. Well, DUH!

Apparently the NHS only pays for a 6-session course of counselling. If I want any further counselling, I have to pay for it myself, which I simply cannot afford.

Sounds like you have a bad counsellor. It's true that, ironically, they're not supposed to offer advice (= counsel), but I think the good ones find ways of offering it circuitously.

How many sessions have you had? I don't know how easy it is to change therapists on the NHS.

[kendo59]

Sounds like you have a bad counsellor. It's true that, ironically, they're not supposed to offer advice (= counsel), but I think the good ones find ways of offering it circuitously.

How many sessions have you had? I don't know how easy it is to change therapists on the NHS.

Eh? Is that true? Counsellors are not supposed to offer advice????

[HeatherMc]

Hiya All

I just thought I would throw in my two pennies worth, I have just started CBT had two sessions and a preliminary assessement session to see what therapy suited me,

yesterday I had my 2nd session and we talked about health anxiety and illness and death phobias we also talked about the relationship between anxiety and depression.

the therapist said basically when we start addressing one problem it has a domino effect and will affect the other problems ie they will start getting better too. I think that the therapist cannot tell you what to do, but they sort of nudge you in the right direction so that you are doing it yourself its about empowerment.

Heather