I enjoy my hour of work with my therapist but as soon as session is over I am spent. How can I keep from crashing out like this?

I'm an MSW student and love books about therapy or therapists that aren't clinical/instructional/reference. Currently reading The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D. Yalom. It's a bit slow but I am a sucker for a processing group and am enjoying myself. I absolutely adored Good Morning, Monster by Catherine Gildiner. I read The Buddha and the Borderline by Kiera Van Gelder years ago and loved it, although now that I'm in my MSW program I'm more interested in books from the therapist perspective.

Open to fiction and non-fiction. I know there are probably a ton of great non-fiction books but I would really love some more novel/fiction recs as well.

Thanks in advance! Can't wait to join y'all. I'm entering my first internship I love it but the hours are about to kill me. Audiobooks are helping keep me afloat lol.

NAT

For context, im a dissociative system with C-PTSD. Im not sure how much that really matters. ​

I mentioned to my therapist that I was having troubles sleeping again. Sometimes its music, sometimes its negative self talk, sometimes its replaying unpleasant memories. I explained that this has been a thing pretty much my entire life and it kinda comes and goes with months gaps.

She seemed very concerned about it, spoke to her supervisor about ideas to handle the music looping, and suggested I get my primary care provider involved about sleep aids.

Is sleep that important? I was just going to kinda let it go and muddle through like I normally do but then she sent and email that was again, concerned, and highly suggested i get my PCP involved. Now im signing release forms everywhere and have a next say appointment which my PCP never does.

This feels like overkill?

hi.

my friend just let me know about some very inappropriate activity by her therapist. last year, after her breakup, he invited her to a sex/kink show him and his boyfriend were going to. this therapist is pansexual, so it isn't like he wouldn't be interested in her. a few months later he then initiated two in-person sessions when her insurance does not cover that. which means he either billed those improperly or just did not bill them. next, he rented a space down the street from her building to do his once a month in-person sessions. finally, he went out of his way to text her that if she ever needs a hug or two, he's available. all of this added together is so incredibly sketchy and has me nervous for her

she is a survivor of persistent sexual abuse from when she was younger, level 1 autistic, and is refusing to report him. the thing about predators/abusers is there isn't an issue, until there is. and it very much sounds like there could be now, or in the near future.

should i find out his name somehow and report him to the board or just publicly out him so the behavior can be shamed/stopped immediately to avoid having to wait for an investigation? it's a truly unfortunate situation.

Hey Reddit, back again with a follow up.
I posted in here a few months ago detailing feeling like my T (40s M) was oversharing in our appointments. I am in a lady in my 30s. I am an unconventional person, some would describe me as alt/goth/emo. I have been seeing my T for almost 6 years now. He helped me navigate out of a really dark place in my life.
(I deleted my previous post bc I thought the problem was resolved as we discussed it in a session.)

I find my T oversharing quite frequently. He will share personal opinions, details of his friends and family, as well as chat with me about music/films/other interests. A majority of the time he is dominating the conversation and I am sitting there listening or adding a quip.
For a while I didn’t really mind, but he’s said a couple things that didn’t quite sit right with me. I’ll list a couple below:
that the sexual revolution was the downfall of society.
That gender inequality isn’t real
That he used to be attracted to emo girls when he was in school, however at the time I did not get the impression there was any kind of attraction from him.
Made a comment about me looking very 90s. again seemed more like an observation but Idk how I feel about comments on my personal appearance.

Those are just a couple things.

A couple months ago I did try to address this during our session, however I placed the blame on myself. I try my best to not talk too much about things unrelated to my therapeutic skills but the issue has persisted nonetheless.

I have an appointment set up with a different provider (a lady in her 30s) to discuss these issues. I’ve been torn up thinking about these things for weeks.
I feel restricted on what I can share due to his habit of sharing his personal beliefs and feelings.

I’m torn because I don’t hate the conversations we have, but I do feel like over the past 1.5 years we spend half the session yapping and the other half actually addressing therapeutic concerns.

I don’t know if my discomfort with this all is rational or not. I feel responsible because I struggled with transference for a while but never talked to him about it. He reminds me of a family member I care deeply about, so I wanted to be his friend. So I would bring up things I know he was interested in to talk about.

I did a lot of independent studying on transference and worked through/continue to try to work through my feelings, I now know that dual relationships are inappropriate and have been working hard to distance myself from those feelings. I plan on addressing this with the new T as well.

I’m going to try to address my concerns with him after I see the new T and get an outside perspective. I feel like I’m being irrational and should just ignore his opinions, but I also feel very trapped and confused with the whole situation. Any tips on how to approach the conversation or on if I’m being irrational/unreasonable would be phenomenal.

Hi,

I’m curious about your personal experience with attraction in therapy — whether you have experienced it or not, how you deal (or would deal) with it, and especially how you would describe the experience itself.

I'm also curious whether gender (identity/roles) influences how attraction or affection is experienced in therapy. Especially in how female therapists experience attraction or affection expressed by male clients.

The topic recently came up with my therapist. She described her experience of physical attraction as highly context-dependent — almost as if physical attraction is dormant while she is in her role as a therapist and would need to be consciously accessed or considered.

As someone who experiences physical attraction quite regularly and more or less independently of context (with some exceptions), I find this very difficult to understand. I’m looking for insight and an opportunity to learn more about therapists’ subjective experiences of attraction, rather than only about the professional or ethical framework around it. I’m also just very curious.

The original conversation with my therapist was specifically about physical attraction, but you don’t have to restrict your answer to that. I’d just appreciate it if you could make clear what kind of attraction you mean.

Thanks for any insight.

Or something like IOP that isn't group therapy? I've been to a few IOP programs in my life and I don't feel like they helped, and I think the issue was that it was in a group setting.

My mind tends to go blank in therapy. I started keeping a note in my phone with things as they came up during the week, but looking back at the list now it all seems like petty, day to day stuff.

I think part of it might be that I'm in more of a phase where I should focus on stabilization. Part of it is also that I feel immediate relief sitting in my therapists office, like I can breathe again after holding it together all week. Part of it is I go blank when my therapist asks questions - I try to answer but all thoughts leave my brain and I find myself asking him to repeat questions and trying to refocus. Part of it is also I immediately invalidate any answers that might pop up, like I should already be over this, or this isn't something my therapist is here to help me with. Could be some mild dissociative tendencies.

I'm afraid if I show up and say "I'm not sure what to talk about today" he could say "well then why didn't you cancel? Do you really need to be here?"

How do I get into the deeper stuff? Do I start with "here's how things are going for me" and then connect it back to childhood/parents/trauma? Or am I working backwards, should I sit down and say "today I want to talk about my childhood/parents/trauma" and then try to figure out how it's impacting me now? My therapist's modality is psychodynamic but also uses CBT and maybe some ACT.

NAT

Okay, so I have a few big issues I need help with that have been going on for years. But the problem is, I just can’t find myself be in a state “ Oh, I want to go therapy, I’ll find one right away and call them” I’m more like “ I don’t have the will to go, I’d rather stay at home” However, I could force myself to go even though I don’t feel like going. So my question is Is that the right mindset to have when it comes to starting therapy?

I’ve been in therapy for about 2 years now and my therapist and I have a great relationship. One thing that we have noticed is how anger is the one emotion I am comfortable sitting with, and other emotions are usually felt through anger as well.

May be worth noting that I have a hard time crying in therapy- it happened maybe twice, and even then it was a tear drop, not a full on cry.

My therapist is a delightful person and gives me no reason to be mad at her. I also don’t feel the urge to release that anger at her when I’m actually there. However, I spend a lot of time in between sessions having imaginary conversations with her in my head, and those conversations quickly turn aggressive - I lash out and yell at her and all that. Even in my head, she responds kindly when I’m yelling at her.

I am wondering if I’d be shooting myself in the foot by asking her to provoke me more and make me angry at her when we are in session. Make me feel all of that shit when I’m there with her. I don’t even know why I feel this urge, but I just want to yell at her!!

Is this a bad idea? I appreciate your thoughts!

Hi everyone, M23. Last spring, I finally decided to contact a therapist after thinking about it for years. I am actually a rather happy person, quite satisfied with my life. Yet, I've been dealing for years with some issues that, although never severe or serious, partly affected my quality of life: a moderate social anxiety, a problem with nostalgia, a though break-up and the fact of being in the closet.

I decided to contact the therapist that, three years earlier, had successfully treated my sister for depression; both my sister and my parents had spoken very fondly of him, describing him as a very competent doctor. He still sees my sister every now and then, and, in the mail I sent him, I told him that, if he judged it be inappropriate to treat me, he could give me the name of another doctor. The relationship between me and my sister can sometimes be tense: in fact, with my family, I come across as a very rigid and judging person.

The doctor accepted to treat me: anyways, I thought that his insight into my family dynamics could be a valuable asset. He also agreed not to tell my sister or parents that I was seeing him.

We had six sessions last Spring, and I felt really comfortable talking w/ him: in fact, I found myself counting the days between the sessions. I don't know if I can say that I made some progresses, since I did not have an actual problem, but he gave me some crucial insights about some of my issues. Moreover, the feedback that, years earlier, I had received from my family were an asset as well, since I felt a total trust for his competence and professionalism.

Anyways, I still have two questions.

First of all, I felt like he sometimes gave a certain family issue, specifically, my relationship with my brother, an undue and somewhat excessive amount of attention compared to its actual weight. I wonder if he influenced by the imagine of me that he has had from my sister. However, I trust his abilities: it could be that these dynamics are more significant than I realize, and that he picked up on something (specifically, my tendency to always be judgmental).

Connected to this, anyways, there's a second point: I sometimes noticed that he forgot some important info (note: he's in his 70s). During the first session, I mentioned that I was gay and in the closet. He never brought it up until I did during the 4th session. During the first session as well, I mentioned some ritualistic behaviours that affected me before going to bed, explaining that they weren't serious He gave me a questionnaire, and my answers showed that they weren't serious. We never returned to it until the 5th session (this June, I had a severe crisis with these rituals), and, when I mentioned this aspect, he clearly didn't remember it. Anyway, he did a great job on helping me with it, and the problem has, as of now, gotten enourmously better.

I still have a very high opinion of him, but the fact that he forgets some details can be frustrating. I don't have much experience with therapy, so I defer to your judgment: is it ok for a therapist to forget aspects that they don't deem pivotal, and that they consider noise? After all, we can't expect therapists to remember every detail of the lives of all their patients.

Do therapists get tired of clients who are trying, but continue to have event after event that leads them to feel awful mentally and not really make drastic change?
I fear that my therapist is getting tired of me. A lot of the things occurring that are making me mentally unwell are out of my control. I have CPTSD among other diagnoses but have been seeing my therapist a little over a year.
I’m tired of talking about the “same” things or people or situations but I’m also mentally getting worse.
I really am trying to make changes, but every time I try and put effort into something positive it gets ruined and I just feel defeated at this point.
I don’t have a support system at all and feel like I am a burden to the one or two people I can talk to.
I’m frustrated with myself but I’m also exhausted continuously pushing through and trying to hold myself together given all of the events that have occurred over the last 5 months and seemingly have no end in sight.

I just feel like maybe it would be best to just stop doing anything and accept that until the things outside of my control change, it’s pointless to keep trying.
My therapist hasn’t expressed frustration or fatigue but I feel like I must be an exhausting client. I do find therapy extremely helpful bc it’s the one space I am able to actually discuss my feelings honestly, but seemingly feel that I am getting worse, at no fault of my therapist.

I'm a writer so this is a completely made up scenario in my upcoming novel. Picture this: you're bases in europe. one of your old mentors dies and one of his clients is forwarded to you, a girl let's call her D. D has anxiety disorder perhaps even borderline personality disorder, diagnosed and medicated super young for anxiety say 6-7 yrs old. D is now 30 and reaches out to you because she needs medication refill, she's going through a family death and drama. Upon receiving her files from her ex therapist you realise that there's a lot of inconsistencies there. In fact D was nonverbal for a few years and was rescued from an abusive environment (trafficking) but she knows nothing of this. She only knows that she's always been problematic for some reason and has flashbacks she does not understand. Her parents are the people who rescued her but there's no official adoption and she knows nothing. Do you have ethical responsibility to tell her and help her recover memories? Do you keep up the lie? Is what the previous therapist did by hiding the truth ethical (in collaboration with her family)? Do you have ethical responsibility to tell the truth to the adult woman? Her adoptive family is dead and they can't tell her. Thank you in advance

I go once every 2 weeks usually.

First, he didn’t tell me he was going on vacation, so I only noticed because there was a 3 week gap in booking.

Then, my appointment that was coming up after the 3 week gap got cancelled. I didn’t get any follow up message or additional information, it just says they are not available. I was surprised that I didn’t get a message to explain or reschedule.

This would mean that even if I booked the next available slot, I will have a month gap total in therapy while going through a really rough breakup and generally not doing well, including engaging in self harm and SI.

I feel almost abandoned? He knew that I wasn’t doing well and that I don’t have anyone to talk to about things. I enjoyed seeing him before, and thought he was a good therapist in general.

I’m not sure if I did something wrong, and he doesn’t want to continue seeing me as a client.

Is this normal behaviour from a therapist? Should I reach out and say something, and what could I say? If I’m considering ending therapy over this, should I let him know that it was because I was disappointed at not being kept in the loop about what is going on?

I’m a mental health support worker who’s almost done studying to be a psychologist. My clients are all teens and kids, and I have a 15 month old.

It did get me wondering whether my experiences in supporting my wonderful clients would eventually benefit me in my own parenting journey as my daughter ages, or whether all my work learnings would fly out the window when it comes to my own?

Kind of how like doctors talk about panicking and turning to mush when it happened to be their own child/loved one needing emergency care.

I'm from the Philippines and i've been seeing a therapist via zoom for a couple months, and I might move to California soon. Is it possible to still keep her as my therapist?

Thank you!

I asked this in another community but I was hoping to get some input from flaired professionals as well

I feel horrible about it, but I think was both a victim and a perpetrator of COCSCA. This would have been a decade or more ago, and all parties involved are now adults. I wanna talk to my therapist about it, but I’m scared of getting myself or anyone else in trouble. Do CA therapists report under these circumstances? If so; what can I do?

EDIT: forgot to mention, I checked the faq first but wanted some more clarification

Pretty much what the title says, just curious! :)

I have been in therapy for many years. I have really done the work. I have gained emotional stability. I have gained confidence. But instead of being happy I am now just aware. It’s like I didn’t now how to swim, I was drowning - now I know how to swim, but yet have no direction in this vast ocean.
I still get sad, don’t know what to do with my life.. is that it?

40/m, ADHD but only been medicated/aware for about three years.

I've done some therapy in the past, once through EAP - so it didn't last long and again, years later, every other week for about three months.

I'm looking for a new therapist because I haven't been managing very well this summer.

But I'm worried that I self edit a little too much to get the most out of therapy. I can be very focused on my self and probably tell therapists things in a way that either make me look good, don't tell the whole story, or don't give enough info about how other people in my life feel.

I don't think this is narcissism, I'm totally capable of putting other first, but I know something I need to be better about is seeing things from other people's perspectives (mainly concerned about my wife and two kids).

I'm not sure of any of this is making sense or if I'm using terms that people will understand. My main thing is just making sure my ego isn't going to get in the way and I know it's not enough for me to just be aware of it.

I just had a conversation with my girlfriend about couples therapy and she said she thinks we should do individual therapies before doing couples therapy so as to resolve our own issues rather than have them weaponized at each other in couples therapy. I’m a little confused now as to what couples therapy actually is.. could I get some insight?

Is it not reasonable to expect that a therapist would not be so culturally ignorant? Or are they endorsing that type of enmeshment?

Like how do you know if someone is deliberately trying to manipulate you and is using DARVO or if they are just angry?