First, let me say that I'm really happy you went to see the doctor today!
The problem is that, well, therapy has mainly been a great waste of time and money for me. I don't know how to judge if I'm making progress, and I CERTAINLY don't want to hurt a therapist's feelings by saying that I feel like I'm NOT making progress, and, anyway, if I'm depressed, I'm feeling enough inertia that I don't want to make changes like changing therapists. . .
I'm going to second pleonastic on this one. A good therapist will have you set goals. I always saw that as the difference between counseling and therapy. One thing that should happen in therapy is that you should constantly evaluate with your therapist the progress towards your goals.
As you know, after a rough spot, I had a lot of success with therapy around nine years ago. I think that part of it was that I was paying for it myself, which really motivated me to get something out of it.
One thing I did have to do was to consciously hold back from drawing my therapist out into talking about herself, which I caught myself doing on occasion. So, it is something that happens, but it is something that you can control. Or, if it is a problem, identify that with the therapist as one of the goals for therapy -- to help you avoid tricks that keep you from making therapy successful.
I guess a final piece of advice that I have has to do with how you present yourself during therapy. I know a lot of people who tend to come off during therapy as being much more put together than they do privately or in LJ. I think this has to do with the drive to always appear better off than you are, emotionally. I usually advise them to print out a few key LJ posts (get Lis to pick them out :)) and bring them with them or send them ahead of the first meeting.
I really hope that you pursue this and that things get better!
Re: Saw the doctor today
The problem is that, well, therapy has mainly been a great waste of time and money for me. I don't know how to judge if I'm making progress, and I CERTAINLY don't want to hurt a therapist's feelings by saying that I feel like I'm NOT making progress, and, anyway, if I'm depressed, I'm feeling enough inertia that I don't want to make changes like changing therapists. . .
I'm going to second pleonastic on this one. A good therapist will have you set goals. I always saw that as the difference between counseling and therapy. One thing that should happen in therapy is that you should constantly evaluate with your therapist the progress towards your goals.
As you know, after a rough spot, I had a lot of success with therapy around nine years ago. I think that part of it was that I was paying for it myself, which really motivated me to get something out of it.
One thing I did have to do was to consciously hold back from drawing my therapist out into talking about herself, which I caught myself doing on occasion. So, it is something that happens, but it is something that you can control. Or, if it is a problem, identify that with the therapist as one of the goals for therapy -- to help you avoid tricks that keep you from making therapy successful.
I guess a final piece of advice that I have has to do with how you present yourself during therapy. I know a lot of people who tend to come off during therapy as being much more put together than they do privately or in LJ. I think this has to do with the drive to always appear better off than you are, emotionally. I usually advise them to print out a few key LJ posts (get Lis to pick them out :)) and bring them with them or send them ahead of the first meeting.
I really hope that you pursue this and that things get better!
*hugs and love*