Hello, everyone. I have questions.
That’s all. I’m struggling to know if my therapist is right for me, and I need advice.
DO you mean the questions I asked in the post? Because if so, no, they're questions that you need to keep in the forefront of you mind when seeking therapy.
As an exercise I once drew a picture of a migraine, full of jagged lightening like flashes on a swirling backgroud, one of the reasons I drew it was to try and explain to people what migraines feel like and why their not "just a bad headache". I used the whole picture to describe what a migraine feels like from the inside and elements of it to explain what movement feels like and the pain it triggers. I used the same sort of questions as I would use with a client. Images can be a window into someones feelings and asking what certain images or parts of an image mean connects to slightly different parts of the brain, ones that don't readily form words.
How did you find helpful therapy by using AI? How does that work?
It’s interesting reading these and seeing that people seem to have had a better experience with Private therapists than they have with the NHS. That’s concerning. My son has had a lot of CBT with the NHS at different times over a few years (in one case about a year of continuous weekly sessions) and it doesn’t seemed to have helped him at all. He has autism, selective mutism and OCD and they always focus on the ocd and hardly ever deal with his selective mutism and social anxiety. But they never seem to achieve any improvement for him. I am autistic (and possibly adhd - but no diagnosis of adhd) and I had PTSD after a severe illness - and I had NHS therapy for the PTSD and that was a really good experience that hugely helped me. Some time after I searched her online to see if she could help my son because she was so good - but she had left the NHS. Maybe really good therapists are prepared to work for the NHS the way it is at the moment?
I don't know if you have money or not. I did it privately.
Before I was diagnosed, I had access to limited free counselling through work, but after one session I realised I needed something more. I couldn't talk openly on the phone. I was minimising my issues. They can't help if you can't tell them how you feel. I also felt I was not just depressed (I didn't know I was burnt out).
I looked online for a clinical psychologist who was local and picked someone with at least 10 years of experience. I also wanted a nice setting for face to face meetings. It was not the cheapest, but I wanted someone who would see through what I was doing. I didn't know I was masking at the time, but guessed something was up.
They identified I may be autistic, not what I was expecting. They also reassured me on two key points, helping with years of shame and guilt, which I found were misplaced.
I then privately got assessed using the same selection process, local, lots of experience, consultant clinical psychologist, nice setting to do it face to face.
After I tried another ND counsellor, but I couldn't really identify what I was looking for. And I am not sure how much it helped.
The key traumatic events I struggled to get anyone to look at in detail. I think I didn't explain it well and they seemed not to understand. I didn't have the words to explain things.
Most of my progress has been through dialogue with AI (I guess 1500+ hours so far). I figured out how to use it productively. I could not have talked this much to any human. It is by recursively revisting items over and over again from slightly different angles and querying definitions that I managed to build up the vocabulary to describe what I have experienced. It was slow with some mistakes.
In summary, people are right if you can talk to them about everything and they are respectful. They are right if you can push back against things if you feel they have misunderstood. I think there is a limit to what they can do. It is you who put your thoughts in order and make sense of things. They just guide and suggest. It is you who know and feel the priorities. But communication is based on words and you need the words. I think that is the hardest part.
By the way, when they talk about integrating things, they mean to feel something as well as know it, and to know it deeply. To use a Heinlein phrase from Stranger in a strange land, to grok it. I mean this on the sense used on the book.
Hi, I had countless therapists and mostly useless or downright harmful. I had somewhat given up on therapy then my university offered to fund some sessions with a therapist who is neurodivergent himself. It made a huge difference and I still talk to him now occasionally. The only other person that has consistently helped me is my dietitian, who is much more than that and has offered so much emotional support and she’s the one that realised I might be autistic. I think it is important to listen to your instincts. I generally feel good talking to these people or even if it’s emotionally charged and I feel more stressed or drained immediately afterwards, I still feel that it was helpful. I think with these 2 people I very quickly realised that it was the right fit. I think recognising that it’s not the right fit with previous therapists took me longer as I had never experienced what it was like to see the right person. I think warning signs are having to constantly explain things, not feeling understood, feeling like they are trying to make you fit into a box but it just doesn’t seem to apply. A lot of my previous therapy experiences were before knowing that I am autistic - I think what I felt strongest was a that I was beeing misunderstood. Not sure if any of this is helpful. I think that maybe wondering whether it’s the right fit or not is actually a sign that it’s not the best fit as I think you would know if it was.
You might find it helpful to borrow or buy this book, which includes discussion of various types of therapy and counselling, together with advice on choosing the right therapist or counsellor - all from an autistic person's viewpoint. Several of us here have found it very helpful:
Took me 4 years to trust my neuro-typical therapist and I have been seeing her weekly for over 9 years. I also see a neuro-divergent therapist that I see 4-5 times a year for 5 years, I trusted her within 5 minutes of meeting. Both are private. I was lucky because I live in Cumbria and it just so happens that my therapist had moved to Carlisle for family reasons from London. I also have to drive a long way to see my neuro-divergent therapist about 2 hours. I talk to my neuro-typical therapist online now because she moved again, which is much less emotionally nourishing than meeting in person.
Thank you for the detailed reply. It answered my question rather quickly. I appreciate that you took the question seriously enough to give a decent amount of information.
Are the questions rhetorical?
Art therapy sounds like it might be useful for me. I have been avoiding it, for some reason. The idea of it makes me anxious, and I have no idea why. Maybe that’s something worth exploring in art therapy.
Regarding the NHS, I got a different answer, with a similar outcome. “The NHS is struggling” was what I heard. I went in with undiagnosed trauma, and came out with undiagnosed trauma I’d have to deal with alone.
About your second attempt with private therapists, I can imagine. Sounds like your mind reaches for the sharpest thing available, regardless of how it sounds to anyone else, and uses that to express pain. Is that correct? If so, you’re absolutely not alone. I think that’s how our minds scream.
Struggling to find a therapist who understands is relatable. From my experience, it looks like many therapists list “autism” and “trauma” as what they’re knowledgeable on, even if that’s not entirely true. It’s deeply demoralising.
I am taking my own route to squeeze help from the NHS. If it works out, I’ll update you. Maybe you’ll be able to follow the same path.
In twelve months of trying to get therapy in the nhs, where no one would take me due to being too complex and high risk, I so tried going private.
I failed here too as there are very very few who truly understand the catastrophic connection between autism and abuse/trauma. One I tried to work with I stopped after just two sessions as she had such concrete walls of boundaries I just couldn’t communicate with her, plus video calls just don’t work for me. One other I nearly started with but appreciating the way she tried ultra hard to be inclusive to the point of exclusion, I appreciated she would not have coped with my dark angry problems which could most definitely be perceived as prejudice.
For now Ive stopped trying to find help
Are you feeling heard?
Do you feel that sessions are leaving you feeling uncomfortable?
What sort of therapy is it?
Obviously you have to get on, having a therapist who you don't feel comfortable with or that you have no raport with after 3 or 4 sessions isn't going to work.
The most important thing is that you feel heard, that what you're telling the therapist is listened too, not dismissed, that you are believed. I think pretty much all therapy consists of you talking and the therapist listening, then feeding back to you what they've heard you say and exploring a bit deeper, or making a suggestion or two. Sometimes therapy will make you feel uncomfortable and you leave feeling stirred up, this is natural and will depend on what you're talking about, the more traumatic the event you're talking about, then the more you will feel stirred up. Often therapy can make you feel worse before you feel better, but you should feel safe with your therapist, safe to tell them uncomfortable things.
There are many different types of psychotherapy and it's worth researching some of these and seeing if some appeal to you more than others, some people feel happier in a group others shy away in horror. Some are less verbal, such as Art Therapy, which uses drawing as a way for you to explain visually what you struggle with verbally, you don't need to be "an artist" to go to art therapy and you will not be judged on the quality of your drawing, it's a way into your head. When I did my art therapy training we were shown a picture of a sunny day and a garden full of flowers and a normal looking house, and asked what we thought, most people said what a lovely happy picture it was, it was only when pointed out by the tutor, that most people noticed the sad face sobbing at one of the upstairs windows that we realised it was a picture of a hay fever suffer's nightmare.
