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Comment by artemonster | Hacker News Reader

Therapy is not a silver bullet. While it can be helpful, I found it incredibly awful and frustrating when therapist tries to describe and justify things that are happening to you by trying to tie something from your past. You can always do that with any person and any circumstance. Client: „I am annoyed by the interuruptions“ Therapist: „Maybe you dont like loosing control because your mother havent given you a titty when you were little and cried for couple of hours“ Something like that…

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A year of therapy weekly here.

That’s just BAD therapist, whom you can leave right away without a privilege of explanation. It’s hard to find a good one, but when you find em, your mind will “shit bricks”.

My (experience-based) way to detect a good one:

They can prescribe. That means they are a real doctor and not a “great courses plus grad”. If they work with drug addicts, good.

They only ask, never theorize, nor criticize, nor give a “dad lecture”. They ask, listen, note key points, rephrase and ask if they got it right. Then they ask you a question about the above, which is both perplexing and obvious at the same time. This is the moment when you realize there is a effing wrong pattern in your mind that you weren’t even aware of. Then, often the resolve is just a matter of understanding the issue and being aware of it for a week/month or so. If that doesn’t help, e.g. you now see the issue daily, but can’t help but feel emotion pressure, they give you an algorithmic method or a medication.

They always go from your issue you came in with down to basic mind patterns and emotions, small step by small step, with your affirmation, and do not jump into conjectures straight away, which you can’t even evaluate logically and emotionally.

They clearly explain their methods, if you ask them, or by themselves. It’s not a black magic neither a brain surgery, therapy is a thing you may do yourself, but sometimes you need a mind different than yours to mirror your findings.

There are 10+ charlatans per one therapist.

I would appreciate if someone with a similar experience added/fixed my list, or taught me of why sometimes they behave differently and that still ought to work.

I kid you not I got an explanation about feeling sad and depressed around birthday once: "when we are born we are separated from our mothers and that event deeply traumatizes us for life". Really? an underdeveloped brain of a baby is already traumatized at birth? Maybe you're right, maybe I just have to switch.

Heh, my last time one basically told me to “think about it, maybe it’s something there” for an hour in a variety of ways, mixed with cool stories of his own. I had a feeling that I’m a better therapist than him because he didn’t even pick on my own work and suggestions towards “the method”, which I’ve got relatively fluent in.

(I had to switch recently because my best doc took a long break for an educational mission. And I can’t blame him, it is a pure necessity.)

100% drop your therapist. That’s why you pay them: to make clear this is a professional relationship, and it’s your prerogative to change it.

I've had some really bad ones too. They definitely exist, but there are some good ones too. If you're still seeing that person I'd definitely recommend shopping around.

Just curious, which area you are from (if you don’t mind me asking) and how much an average good therapy costs per hour? Not in USD, but e.g. in % of a decent income there. Mine is around 3%, non-capital russian 1m city.

Chicago area, USA. It varies wildly depending on your healthcare coverage. For me personally, and most white collar workers, it would be less than 1%. Call it 0.1%?

Unfortunately for those that often need it most, coverage is often not good, wages are very low, and it might well approach 10% of your income.

My experience with CBT was that it eschewed chasing down causal issues from your past, and rather worked more towards understanding how you’ve ended up, and to give you the tools to counteract your automatic thoughts and behaviours.

I found it incredibly helpful, what I thought were my issues turned out to be symptoms of a more foundational issue and understanding that gave great insight into why I do things the way I do.

Run a mile from anyone practicing Freudian nonsense.

I am hearing this several times now that I should try cognitive-behavioural therapy and get away from Freudian crap. Thanks!

Depends on what you need from therapy. I had childhood trauma that I went to therapy for, a lot of stuff WAS connected to that.

But now I just say "Yeah, I don't feel like it's connected" and we move on.

CBT and similar techniques are the way to go for most people.

You had a bad therapist. I had a bad dentist once. I found a new dentist.

I don't go to forums talking about how all dentists are terrible because they refuse to listen when you tell them a tooth is not fully frozen.

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