Writing to psychologist/therapist, is it appropriate?

[malign]

As I said before, I'd feel safe talking to a therapist about thoughts, of anything. But it's okay if you don't. What I would suggest would be to ask him, instead. What would he consider "imminent danger", what would he think of a person who <fill in the blank>. You're still interviewing him, after all.

Then, after you hear the answers, you still get to decide how much, or how little to tell him, and when.

[karai]

Hi malign and Paula,

Therapy is getting more and more difficult by the day and I haven't even really started!!! Well, I guess I gotta ask or all this stuff is never going to get out of my head. Of course every question is going to be in the hypothetical!

Thanks for both of your suggestions and advice. If you don't hear from me for a while, well, you know what happened!! LOL!

[Guest ASchwartz]

Karai and everyone,

Please remember this fact: There is a huge difference between suicidal thoughts and suicidal action. Your psychologists or social workers are trained to know that difference and to ask questions about it and od assessments. Just because you mention suicide does not mean the therapist will put you into the hospital. Actually, no therapist wants to do that. Hospital is a last resort when everyone is convinced beyond as shadow of a doubt that you will hurt yourself.

It is Really Important that all of you be able to talk about what you are thinking and feeling with your therapist. Karai, your therapist is not looking for a reason to hospitalze you and mentioning suicidal thoughts does not equal suicide and he knows that.

However, if you (anyone) has a plan of suicide and method of suicide, is giving their possessions away and suddenly feels very calm because the decision is made, then it is time to enter the hospital where you can be safe and where medications can be adjusted to get you over the worst.

Please try not to fear your therapist and, in fact, discuss you fears with your therapist.

Does this make sense??????

Allan

[karai]

Hi Allan,

I guess what you say makes sense. It's a matter of me convincing myself of this. I will print your reply and stick it in my journal so I can read it everytime I worry about it. Hopefully by the time I go to my next appointment next Friday, there will be no hesitation there of bringing it up.

Thanks for replying; coming from you, this reassures me a lot! I feel a lot better now.

Thanks again.

[karai]

Hello again, Allan,

Reading and re-reading your reply days before my session actually gave me the courage to bring this suicide discussion up w/ my therapist. I feel a whole lot better now that he made it clear what circumstances would "force" him to hospitalize a client. With this out of the way, I think I had the best session yet. There was more interaction on my part and I came out of this 3rd visit feeling very upbeat, instead of in turmoil. Even my first homework assignment on self esteem didn't bother me, well at least not much (simple enough yet difficult to do!). Thanks again!

[Guest ASchwartz]

Hi Karai,

Wow, that is great. Keep us up on how you are doing with therapy and with life.

Allan

[karai]

Hi Allan,

So far, therapy: GOOD! Life?: Still SUCKS! Still can't reconcile the two. Is it because I have someone to talk to in therapy, but in the world outside that door, it's the same old $%#@! world? Will keep you apprised of my progress, or lack of?

Thanks.

[confuzzed]

Hey y'all,

Has anyone besides me ever had a therapist refuse to read a note and insist you "verbalize" what's in the note?:confused:

I had this happen to me and as a result I rarely got thru what was on my page because I was too uncomfortable to say some of the things I had written down.

I would have much preferred to let the therapist read the note and then we discuss it....

[karai]

Hi confuzzed,

Not yet, but I was going to try that tomorrow 'cuz the last appt. I had, I couldn't get thro' my list either! I have a list of 6 questions/issues (not detailed) that I wanted to talk about in tomorrow's session and I plan to give my T. a copy of the list to follow along as I went thro' it and also so I won't chicken out of mentioning everything I wanted to say. I intend to do most of the talking so hopefully he won't mind. I will let you know how it goes.

Edited June 5, 2009 by karai

[Mark]

Sometimes the therapist and the patient are coming from two different places of need. The therapist is working hard to help the patient to become more verbally expressive. Not being privy to the internals of the patient's experience, the therapist may not be aware just how difficult, and anxiety provoking it is to be more verbally expressive.

So - here you are working as hard as you can to be more verbally expressive - which for you means using the prop of the letter so that you can verbalize at all - it's a way to manage your anxiety and challenge it at the same time - but I suspect your therapist doesn't understand how difficult it is for you to do even this much and is pushing you to do more - more than you can do right now apparently.

It may be hard for you to do this, but the appropriate thing to do in this situation is to say to the therapist something on the order of, "this is really hard for me - I'm not ready to do what you ask - I need to read from this paper right now".

No therapists are mind readers. However, some therapists are more sensitive than others, and at this moment of his or her life, your particular therapist isn't picking up on your needs and so you need to step up your feedback to him/her - if you can do that. If you need to do that by writing a note, that's okay too.

Mark

[confuzzed]

thanks for your post Mark.

I know in my case the therapist was extremely aware of my problems with verbalizing things. In thinking about it though, I think you hit it just right - my therapist pushed me too hard on this. Most of the time I ended up not saying what I had written and after a while I just quit bringing notes. I see now I shouldn't have done that....

I have been able to say more things than I used to though, but again it's been really hard. I think its always been that way for me.

My mom told me the kindergarten teacher quetioned whether I could talk at all as I didn't say a word the whole fall, but after Christmas that year they couldn't shut me up!

karai - I hope the note thing works OK for you in your session tomorrow - please let us know how it went.

[karai]

Hi confuzzed,

This list thing worked out really great for me! I actually had a very active session with my T. and I even feel I can be more open with him now. I actually started talking about item #1 on my list w/o giving my T. the list first. I guess after 2 weeks since my last session, and some bad nights, I was ready to just start talking. I did give the list to him a few minutes later, though, saying that, if he didn't mind, I made a copy for him to make sure that I would talk about everything I wanted to talk about because the previous session I hesitated and did not do that 'cuz some of the things sounded really lame when talking about it a week later. Anyway, I talked, we discussed, and when I stopped talking, he prompted me on the next item on my list. It worked out great and he even recommended that I do that from now on--write my thoughts down, make a copy for him and we discuss all my issues at the next appointment. I feel really good about this and I hope you can find a way to open up to your T. too, maybe if you told him you would do most of the talking and that the note is for reference only? Hope you find something that works for you. Take care.

Edited June 6, 2009 by karai

[confuzzed]

Hey karai-

That's awesome news that your session went so well!!!

And even better that the therapist wants to continue that way.

I'm SOOOO glad you've found a tool that you and your therapist can work together with.

Sounds like it's going to help you in moving the direction you want to go and you'll get more out of your sessions!!

WONDERFUL!!

[karai]

Hi confuzzed,

You seem a bit resentful. I'm sorry. Maybe my session didn't go 100% perfect as I may have described, but I was really relieved and excited that I got to discuss the things that were bothering me, which I never had success doing previously. Maybe I'm reading you wrong. If so, I apologize and am glad that you are happy for me. But, I really do hope you can find a way to comminicate with your T.

Take care and please don't stop trying...

[confuzzed]

Hey karai,

oh no, I didn't mean to sound resentful! Really I didn't.

I TRUELY DO think it's awesome that this worked out for you!!!

[karai]

Hi confuzzed,

Sorry, I didn't mean to pounce. I know I just misconstrued your feelings, and I know I was getting into one of my "funks" again--being late evening and the weekend and such--no excuses. Actually, my moodiness came on a bit early that evening--it kind of surprised me too. So, I apologize, and thank you for being happy for me. :-))

[confuzzed]

No problem!!!

[JulianP]

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Edited February 3, 2010 by JulianP
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[karai]

Hi JulianP,

Giving a copy of my concerns to my T. works better for me than just reading or referring to my notes. I tend to hesitate and skip over some items and later regret it. And, since my T. is encouraging me to continue making him a copy, I will continue doing that until I guess I find I don't need to. You talk about taking charge of the session--if that was easy for me, I probably wouldn't need therapy! I guess I'm not a "take charge" kind of person, at least not yet not even of my own life!!

Change of subject: Regarding your writing by hand for "child", and typing your thoughts for "adult", that's an interesting concept. It would be interesting to compare the two, if you don't mind sharing! Thanks.

Edited June 10, 2009 by karai

[JulianP]

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Edited February 3, 2010 by JulianP
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[Guest ASchwartz]

Hi Everyone,

Writing is an excellent way to deal with things that are on your mind and it is an extremely effective tool to use in therapy. As to whether you write with your monitor or by hand, there is something to be said for either. I think that the answer is whatever works for you. I agree that writing by hand can be extremely helpful for some. Also, it makes sense to have your therapist read what you have written. But, again, that depends on what works for you and your therapist.

Allan

[kb4500]

After meeting my therapist in marriage counseling, I asked if he would see me individually. Schedules prevented that happening for 3 weeks. DUring that time, I wrote out my history and sent it to him. He said it was very helpful and it enabled him to zero in on the most important areas during the first meeting

[smallstar]

Giving notes and such to your therapist is all well and good, if you already have an established relationship with this person. I think it would be very odd to meet someone for the first time and hand them a piece of paper. Like, um okay, thanks for that, that was weird. I could just imagine how awkward that could be. Not even having met the person, yet handing them a piece of paper with your very personal information and concerns. I used to think that I would like to write to the therapist but the more I think about it the less that idea appeals to me. Truthfully, I don't see a way that you can ever just sit down and start talking to someone you don't even know about personal things you are embarrassed of. It hardly seems logical. I wouldn't mind going through therapy if it all could be done in writing, never face to face. It just seems odd that you take someone who already has trouble with anxiety, especially socially, and expect them to just plop down and start talking about themselves. As I see it, that would never happen, it's simply not possible. I want to enter therapy, I don't think I will be able to ever move my life forward without it, yet I feel completely stuck because I'm too afraid to do what I need to do. It doesn't get much more pathetic than that.

[JulianP]

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Edited February 3, 2010 by JulianP
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[smallstar]

So, if I'm reading correctly, it seems that you're telling me that my only option is basically to get over it? I guess I kind of knew that already, I don't really know what I'm looking for, hoping someone maybe had the magic solution for me? I guess if I'm afraid, I'm going to be afraid no matter what is said to me, so there's no reason to ask, because there is no answer. Now I just need to work on "letting go". Which I have a feeling is most likely much easier said than done. As for judging myself, I am working on that also, I can't seem to control that however, even if I can pick it out, but I try to be realistic about it, and not just tell myself every nasty thing I can think of when I get angry with myself, I guess I think if I scream at myself enough it will erase whatever thing is making me feel bad. Thanks Julian, for your comments, I'm not as sure as you are as to how able I am, but I am trying. Also, do you think you can tell through a phone call if someone is compatible with you or not? I got a bad impression from the woman I called, she did not make me feel comfortable whatsoever.