Treating PTSD Symptoms: Is Your Therapist Right for You?, Part 2

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Continuing from Friday’s post…       

We need to be really aware that the help we seek is, well… actually helping, which means moving us forward, not around and around. Things are murky in PTSD; we need to force ourselves to seek clarity when it comes to our care. 

After 8 years (or less, no need to wait as long as I did!) if you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels with your therapist, perhaps it’s time for a change. Perhaps it’s time to take stock of the relationship and assess its benefits to you. By the time I suspended my work with Henry we had reached a point where I felt stagnant – not because I wasn’t trying or we weren’t working hard but because we just weren’t making progress. I was sinking deeper and deeper into the PTSD abyss and Henry just wasn’t clear on how to guide me to pull myself out. In fact, he didn’t think I had PTSD; eventually I got that diagnosis somewhere else.

A big problem was that I was depending on Henry to see the larger picture I couldn’t – and he didn’t. He took me as far as he could go but neither of us realized when we’d reached the end of the road. For about 6 months we’d hit an impasse and while I really looked forward to our sessions they weren’t at all effective. Henry helped me perpetuate my trauma myths instead of helping me debunk them. The problem, of course, was that Henry was not trained to help me with my specific issue. He wasn’t a trauma therapist, which meant even though we talked about my trauma he ultimately didn’t know how to help me heal the effects of it.

Eventually, I lost faith. I no longer felt Henry could help me. I felt there was a battle going on inside me between all of my fractured selves and I had to just sit by and let them fight it out. Henry accepted this and our sessions ceased.

Losing confidence in the therapeutic process is an enormous problem when it comes to healing. If we don’t believe in the validity of that relationship what kind of progress can we make??

There are many things to consider when we seek the help of a therapist; I’ll cover those in the next post. Today, a different kind of checklist: a series of questions to consider in order to assess the therapeutic relationship you’re in. Every now and then it’s good not to take the relationship for granted but to sit down and examine its pros and cons:

• Do I feel safe? - No progreess comes if we’re antsy in the chair.
• Do I feel comfortable exposing my thoughts, beliefs, experiences, ideas, problems, issues? No progress comes if we remain afraid of opening up.
• Do I feel secure in this person’s company? – No progress comes if we don’t trust our therapist implicity.
• Do I believe in this therapist’s ability to help me? – No progress comes if we don’t believe this person is uniquely able to assist us.
• Do I feel myself moving forward? No progress comes if we remain stuck in one place forever.
• Do I see my thoughts and perceptions evolving in a positive way because of our interaction? No progress comes if our thoughts, emotions and
  behaviors don’t change.
• Am I learning from these sessions? No progress comes if we do not find ourselves discovering new thoughts and ideas.
• Am I developing skills that help me cope, manage and maintain a more healthy lifestyle? Not enough progress comes if we don’t develop healthy actions and beliefs.
• Is this therapist trained to help with my specific issue? Not enough progress comes if we aren’t in front of someone who really understands and has a plan for dealing with the deepest motivation for our issues.
• Do I believe that together we will achieve the goal of my recovery? Little progress comes if we don’t believe in how we’re going about it.
• Does this therapist know as much or more than I do about trauma recovery and PTSD? Little progress comes if we have to educate our therapists.
• Does my therapist believe in me? So much progress depends on the attitude of the therapist and how he/she relates to us. 

What questions would you add to this checklist?

BRIDGE THE GAP EXERCISE:

Take a few minutes today to assess your therapeutic relationship. How does s/he rate on the scale of questions above? If you see areas that are not up to par consider the following:

1 – Do I need a need a new therapist?

2 – In what way might I discuss these ideas with my therapist so that our sessions become more successful?

For more information on PTSD therapy visit the TREATMENT page of our web site.

(Image: WeddingMusings)

Tags: heal, ptsd, Seeking Help, symptoms, therapy, treat