I’m in therapy and working on identifying my emotions there, in general, in writing etc. The words don’t come to easily beyond “happy, sad” etc in the moment. Is it okay to make a cheat sheet or is it counter productive vs muddling through trying to get to the words myself? I know the words, I feel them, I just can’t find them in the moment. Thanks :)

Basically as the title says. I’m looking at new places to move to and before I can apply I need to have the ESA letter to submit with my application. My therapist says she needs an actual persons name and not the name of the property management company, the property management companies I’ve spoken to have said she can put the company name on the letter. When I’ve told the companies what my therapist says they say something along the lines of “well that’s really bizarre, I’ve never had to give an actual name before” or they’ll tell me that the letter would be addressed to me since I’m the patient the ESA is being “prescribed” to.

Trying to get some clarity before my next therapy session so I can finally secure a new place. I’ve tried googling who it needs to be addressed to and I don’t get very far, from what I’ve seen there’s not really anything on the law books about it either. For reference this is in Texas. I really appreciate any and all replies

When I was 19, I saw a therapist for a year and a half (she was 30 and married to the pastor at my church, yes she was licensed). It's been nearly a decade and I am just now starting to work through it with a healthy therapist. She (along with many others) has told me the relationship with my old therapist was controlling, abusive, and predatory. I still feel a sense of love and positive feelings towards my old therapist so it's hard for me to hear these things, even though it was obviously traumatic seeing as the feelings remain in my body and I project these issues SO heavily onto my current therapist.

I tend to blame myself for the whole thing. I saw this therapist when I was still in the closet struggling with the fact that I was a lesbian because of the religious environment I was in. I was attracted to her before I even became her client (I'd see her at church). I quickly fell deeply in love with her (or infatuated, transference, whatever you want to label it) and became overly attached and obsessed. She knew I was attached, but I don't think I told her that I was sexually attracted to her or went into the details of just how obsessed I was. Obviously I never got better during the time I saw her, I got drastically worse in many ways, and my feelings for her/the blurred boundaries/how she treated me hindered any progress.

In our very last session, I told her I felt I was doing better and was ready to stop seeing her. She became very cold and scary and essentially told me in a very calm way that I would be nothing without her, wouldn't be able to accomplish my dreams, I'd kill myself without her, etc (I struggled with suicide and self-harm, which was why I started therapy). When I reported her to her supervisor later on, he told me that she probably didn't know the extent of my feelings for her, and even if she had kept her boundaries 100% and not blurred them at all, it still never would've worked and she should've referred me out. Obviously I see how the last session was horrible and not how she should've handled it, but I have a tough time seeing the rest of the relationship like that because she'd never treated me that way before.

She would openly encourage my attachment to her whenever I expressed fears about being too dependent on her, and my friend at the time said she seemed to get off on the fact that I loved her so much. I know that some kind of attachment is part of the therapeutic relationship. A big part of me thinks that she knew I was attached, but had no idea how much, like didn't know I sexually fantasized about her and thought about her all the time like you do when you're 19 and "in love." So can it really be her fault if she didn't know the extent of it? Isn't it my fault for being SO obsessed with her and not reining it in? And wasn't it my choice to not actually do the work in therapy because I was so concerned with what she thought of me (which again, she probably didn't know), so of course I didn't get better? I will also mention that she was diagnosed with BPD, which she was open about with me, and her specialities were in attachment and trauma.

I guess I want to know how a healthy therapist is supposed to handle this situation so I can compare it to what she did. My current therapist and I are working through this, but you can imagine why I might be distrustful of just one therapist's opinion. Thanks in advance.

I keep imaging how it’s going to go but really I’m not sure as to what it going to happen. I’ve been to therapy before but still I’m unsure. Like what do I say/what will he say? My previous therapist said “why are you here” and I responded “I can’t get out of bed”. Is it going to be something like that again? Thanks in advance

I’m looking for a therapist that does NOT practice CBT at all. I’ve been in therapy on and off since my early teens and I know for a fact that CBT absolutely does not work for me. I am not going to get into all of the reasons why I don’t like CBT; just trust me on this. Pretty much every therapist that I’ve tried uses CBT, even if I tell them that I don’t find it helpful. I tried searching for a therapist on Psychology Today, but there is no way to filter out CBT therapists. I have autism and ADHD, so I would prefer a therapist that specializes in that, but it is not strictly required. I would also like a therapist who takes a “tough love” approach and actually challenges me on things, rather than just listening and validating. Also, the therapist would have to be located in Ottawa, Canada, or be able to do online sessions. Does anyone have any advice on how to find a therapist that meets these requirements?

TRIGGER WARNING: Domestic Violence

This isn’t easy for me to bring up and I apologize in advance if this triggers anything bad for anyone.

So me and my wife just recently had our first therapy session. We’ve been married 13 years, and have 2 kids - one from my previous relationship who’s autistic and intellectually disabled, and a younger child we both had together. We’re at a make or break point in our marriage. Long story short, I caught her having an emotional affair with another guy. When I confronted her, her initial reaction was to bring up trauma that occurred over 10 years ago. She agreed to try couples therapy for the sake of our kids.

Since this will essentially determine whether we end our marriage or try to continue on, I’m prepared to put all my cards on the table and discuss everything we need to discuss and own up and face the traumas I inflicted on her many years ago. I’m having my first one on one with the therapist in a couple of days, and I want to bring these up to try and get ahead of it. The problem is, these traumas are pretty significant…

Without sugar coating this, my wife’s main traumas involve 2 big fights we had over 10 years ago, very early into our relationship. In the first one, I had given her an unloaded gun, not telling her it wasn’t loaded, and told her that if she’s done with me to shoot me with it. While I didn’t point the gun at her or threaten her life, what I did was incredibly toxic and understandably traumatized her… the 2nd incident occurred when she threatened to leave and I wouldn’t let her (partially because I was scared shitless of her wandering around since she had no place to go and it wasn’t exactly a great part of town, but mostly because I was being toxic and abusive). Understandably, she screamed and I freaked out and tried to cover her mouth because I was afraid the cops would get called on us and at the time we were having a lot of issues with my older son’s mom and I was paranoid it would result in her taking him away when she was an unfit parent with serious issues with drugs and many other problems. Of course she reacted and had hit me (rightfully) and we wrestled on the bed during which we had hit our heads on the wall. No punches, kicks, shoves or items were thrown on my end, and there was no intent to cause any harm… but what I did was horrible and I should never have done it. I fucked up badly. Amazingly, she stayed with me all these years (after a 6 month separation), and for what it’s worth I never inflicted anymore physical/psychological abuse to this day and have largely remained stoic despite some pretty heated arguments and verbal/emotional abuse from her end in some of those incidents.

Also, the kids were not involved or nearby in either of these incidents, so they were not exposed to what happened.

I know facing these traumas I inflicted on her is absolutely something we have to do since we never did go to therapy after the fact. They have also haunted me to this day and I want to help her move on from them… even if the only way that can be done is by her leaving me.

My one fear though… will I need to worry about my therapist reporting me and having charges pressed against me due to what occurred in these incidents? I worry, mainly for my oldest son. As of this day, his mother has been completely out of the picture for several years now, and he really doesn’t have anyone to take care of him aside from myself. He’s settled into his environment and is finally in a good program at his school that I don’t want to disrupt. I know my wife doesn’t want any sort of charges pressed against me… she just wants to find the best way to heal from this.

Anyway, I really want to bring these issues up with the therapist at the appropriate opportunity, but I need to know if there will be any potential legal ramifications for this (we leave in Maryland just FYI).

I'm thinking about going back to school to get my MSW or masters in counseling. I come from a background in nonprofit communications/copywriting. So, while I've worked with organizations that support vulnerable populations, I've never worked directly with those populations. What are some jobs that might provide insight into working with clients that I can do now, while I decide if I want to go down this path?

When I was very young, like 5 or 6 years old, I was very paranoid -- I distrusted people who were nice to me or tried to get me to be a part of any group, I thought people that others liked could not be up to any good, and I thought that liking things other people liked would give them control over me, etc. Around 5th grade or so, I found living like this to be so exhausting that I had to stop, but these are still sort of buried urges and thoughts. And it's very confusing because I've been trying to research this and it's very hard to find anything on it -- because internal states for children are hard to get information on in the first place, and paranoid people tend to not be forthcoming on their experiences, I guess.

I feel like understanding this is key to understanding some of my issues but again it's hard to find. There's a lot of discussion of what someone might be like as a child to understand neurodevelopmental disorders but when I remember this it doesn't sound like anything I have heard of. I think something was wrong but there wasn't any way to help me. Does anyone have any resources on what could have been happening? Thanks.

Hi, I'm looking for examples of what a reasonably high quality of life with trauma (with ptsd/cptsd or without) can look like. I'm aware it's probably the sort of situation where individuals are always working on maintaining or improving their qol, but I'm wondering what a reasonably/achievably high qol can look like for someone living with trauma. I'm looking for either descriptions of their lives from people living with trauma (I mean, who doesn't have some trauma as an adult, but hopefully you know what I mean), or information from a therapist about what someone can expect to possibly achieve.

I worry that my question is too vague and I'm not sure how to improve it, so here is an example of what I mean:

Non-trauma/minimal-trauma life example: Individual thinks about sad events or how those events have affected them when something directly related to the event is brought up (eg, someone's cat dies, they think about their own cat dying), but doesn't think about them regularly in day-to-day life. They may be sad for a few minutes, up to even possibly a couple of days depending on how recent/affective the original event was.

Trauma, but not ptsd/cptsd level trauma life example: The individual thinks about the trauma multiple times a week, but not constantly. Memories are triggered by things less directly related to the event (someone gets a new kitten, and the person thinks about how their cat died a few years ago). Maybe a few times a month they cry about it. They don't have nightmares about the event, and do not consider themselves to be significantly impacted by it.

Ptsd/cptsd level trauma example: The individual is heavily impacted by the events. They think about them multiple times a day, possibly for hours. They experience flashbacks and nightmares. They feel constantly tense, and are overall anxious and prone to stress. They feel as if the lens through which they see the world is determined by their trauma.

With those examples in mind^, what does life for someone look like if they do have trauma, but have worked on it with medications and therapy etc to have a good quality of life? How often may they think about it? Like, could someone with PTSD have flashbacks monthy instead of daily, and no nightmares? Could someone without ptsd still think about the event multiple times a week, but no longer have spirals about it?

I apologise for how long this post got, I just try to make sure I won't be misunderstood. I'm also aware that this is probably kind of like explaining dryness to a porpoise (easier than to a fish), so I do appreciate any insight you manage to give me.

Does someone who is maltreated always/often hurt other people the same way? How do you break the cycle?

I have attachment trauma/CPTSD from childhood in addition to recent big T trauma. This recent trauma is the highly traumatic incident(s) relating to medical emergency of a loved one that took about 6 months plus experiences when I sought help that reminded me of my childhood and made that attachment trauma explode as well.

My new caring, calm, compassionate T spontaneously suggested doing EMDR right there and then in our most recent session and I hesitated. I couldn't quite put my finger on why and said there's two parts in me, one wanted to do this very urgently and be heard and seen, another part is scared to go there and about not really knowing him that well yet. He replied something about "at my pace" and being ready and of course and we spoke about other stuff for the rest of the session.

After some thinking and feeling about this, I think it wasn't about me not being ready but about me thinking he didn't grasp the full impact here and that HE wasn't ready and the session would have been retraumatizing bc it wouldn't have addressed the core issue of relational/attachment trauma and it would have repeated it bc he would have focused on the "wrong" issue. Of course I cannot say for sure what would have happened but the way he described how it would work pointed into that direction for me and made me become triggered and scared immediately. For me, it would be about having the corrective experience of having a compassionate other with me while being in that activated state, which would counteract the traumatic experience of having no help, but I am afraid he'd focus on "doing EMDR" and asking questions to assess the level of intensity and not being there relationally. I would expect the level of intensity to go down bc I would suppress my emotions or dissociate and play good client bc I would not feel him to "be there" for my wounded part that got activated, then the session would appear to be successful and my core wound would hurt even more.

For you guys working with clients with attachment trauma, is there a specific way you approach your EMDR sessions to avoid something like this? Apart from me reading this text to him, which I will definitely do, any suggestions, experiences, advice? Thanks so much in advance!

I’m a 22-year-old man who has been in therapy for the past two months. Recently, I’ve realized I’ve developed feelings for my therapist. I understand this is a common phenomenon in therapy—even though I come from a math background, I’ve studied enough psychology to know about transference. She’s around 27, unmarried, and while I don’t know if she’s in a relationship, the age gap isn’t significant.

My issues aren’t extreme—recurring dreams of dying, a difficult childhood, and some past sexual trauma and some other but they’re why I’m in therapy. Now, I’m left with two questions:

1. Should I confess my feelings to her? She has no idea, as I’m adept at hiding emotions.

2. Is there any chance for a relationship? I’m aware it’s unprofessional, but I can’t stop thinking about her. How can i say this but she gave me hope and it's first time i fall in love, thanks

I went to one of my school counselors before and ask if I was capable of being a psychologist/counselor. She said I could but the part about being a therapist or in this case a counselor (what she's doing) is that you almost have to bottle up or suppress all those negativities and hide those feelings to yourself.

If it's okay to ask, how do you guys or anyone here that is a license and professional. Deal with that kind of thing? I'm very curious and would appreciate some answers if can!

is it more helpful in the long run to accept both views or accept one and cast away the other?

My uncle is a doctor and he said he and other health professionals dislike it when patients diagnose themselves with AI/ internet before coming to the hospital. He said it's mostly because a lot of these people don't listen to medical advice that doesn't go with their own diagnosis, and that it often is a "pain in the arse" to deal with them.

Is it the same for therapists? How do you feel when patients come to you saying this like "I know I'm a self-diagnosed HSP/BPD/ADHD" on your first contact ?

A friend of mine did his researchs on his mental health and came to the conclusion that he had ADHD, but he is not a mental health professional. He said he is 100% sure, and he would like to go to a professional to make it "official". How would that be received? Would it make the therapist more reluctant to diagnose him with ADHD? Does it bother you when a patient has researched "too much" without professional help ? Do you evaluate them in a more "thorough" way or something?

I hope it doesn't sound disrespectful, I'm just curious about it.

Do they want the appointment to be over that bad? It hurts my feelings and is kind of offensive. It makes me feel like I need to hurry or rush.

If you don’t mind sharing—what was the total cost for your masters degree through being fully licensed?? Was cost a factor in determining if you should do this career?

I can’t afford therapy even with insurance but i know I need it. Im a dog groomer. If i can find a therapist who owns a dog or dogs that needs regular grooming would it be legal for me to offer them free monthly grooms in exchange for one free session a month?

I'm not a therapist, but would like to practice psychodynamic therapy with fellow non-lincensed people both as the therapist and the patient.

I was just wondering because there is not much information on it on the internet, like is it a common thing? Because ppl with hypochondria can have some symptoms of it imo, also does it actually forces you into a loop of anxiety (like is that even possible to be continuously anxious?) ,which is why im wondering if its a real thing, and is it the reason why psychologists dont use that term for anxiety sensitivity?

I have briefly mentioned to her before that I sometimes get the feeling that there is a bug or bugs on me and I have to either swat them away or check to make sure there’s nothing there. I wasn’t too concerned cause she didn’t seem that concerned. But I think things may have escalated since then.

We’ve been working on my cannabis usage but unfortunately it has been a rough last few weeks, and I believe I’m experiencing the “dip” some people get during rTMS treatment (currently ongoing). My cannabis use has since worsened since I talked to her in person last (maybe 3 weeks ago), she’s aware I’ve been struggling more and I did disclose my ongoing but not worsened usage. It’s sort of escalated more to many days I’ll wake up and smoke and just consistently throughout the day, when before it was only nighttime.

Anyways, I mention this cause it’s likely relevant. The bug crawling sensation has escalated to actually seeing a bug or bugs for a moment, before they disappear after I either blink or shake my head/rub my eyes. I’m not sure what to make of this. It can be scary in the moment but often I just go into such shock rather than like freaking out and swatting at them. Idk it’s weird. I’m concerned that obviously this is connected to my cannabis usage, but also that it’s not just a when i’m high thing anymore. I do feel like it’s worth mentioning, but I am scared of the “consequences” if that makes sense? How can I approach this without sounding scary or super unwell?

I understand there are different psychological models. CBT, Jungian, IFS, and more.

Using the experience you've gained through your psychological route I want to hear how you obtain hope. Show me where your sense of security is found.

Chaos and difficulty arise without a sense of safety. If I feel no security then I will feel afraid. Yet I can gain hope, I can can a sense of safety, through many ways.

How do you obtain a sense of security?

I've been with my therapist for 3-4 years, and it's been really good. I think I've made significant progress on self-esteem, acceptance, and interpersonal relationships, but I still feel like there's more work to be done. Obviously, 3 years isn't enough to solve problems that have been building for over 29 years. The thing is, my therapist had a baby a year ago, and I understand that this has changed her schedule. Sessions used to be in-person, but now they're virtual. Sometimes she's had to cancel appointments because her baby is sick. I get that babies get sick, but I feel like I'm slowly losing my therapist. Sessions are becoming more spaced out - every 2 weeks, every 3 weeks. She forgets to send me anxiety exercises, etc. I don't think I've done anything wrong; I've always been on time with payments, sessions, and never rescheduled. It's affecting me a bit because I feel like I need someone to talk to. My family relationships aren't great, I don't see my friends as often, my job is remote so I have zero interaction with people. And, of course, I've always struggled with self-esteem. Just got a message that she's raising her rates - it's always gone up about 10-15% each year, but this time it's a 25% increase, and it's getting expensive. Honestly, I'm not sure what to do.

Before i say anything, I just want to say that my therapist was never being rude to me, and I was never rude to her

I just got out of a session and I’m wondering if I need to get a new therapist. For context I have social anxiety and self-esteem issues that I want to work on. Recently (through my own introspection) I realized that these problems may exist because of the way I think. I tend to view the world through what others think of me, rather than what I think of others. I told my therapist all of this, and then I told her that I wanted to learn how to reframe my mind to fix this. She asked me how I think I could do this, and I said I don’t really know. (I wanted her advice on how I could work on this. I was hoping she could suggest certain books or exercises I could do to reframe how I think, however I never directly said it, I just thought it was implied since shes my therapist). Anyways she asked me how this problem affects me to which I stated again that i think it causes me social anxiety and self esteem issues. She asks how it causes my social anxiety, and I had a lot of trouble verbalizing this. In hindsight i feel like this shouldn’t have had to have been explained. The correlation seems pretty obvious, WORRYING ABOUT WHAT OTHERS THINK OF YOU = SOCAIL ANXIETY. However instead i said that it causes me to freeze up in conversation, because It causes me to panic instead of fully listening, making it tough for me to respond. This caused her to text me a graphic she found on Pinterest, with advice on how to be an active listener. After going through part of it, i told her I don’t think my problem is that I don’t already know this advice, its that I feel unable to use it in conversations because I have trouble considering how I feel about the whats being talked about. She really could not understand what I meant by this and most of the session after was me trying to help her to understand what I meant.

Eventually I said that I essentially wanted to be more in touch with my emotions. To which she kind of understood. She said journaling is a great way to do this. However this next part really rubbed me the wrong way, she said that journaling could help me figure out what my problem is, because she is having trouble figuring it out and so am I. The thing is I’m not having trouble, only she is. I ended the session feeling frustrated. Neither me or my therapist really learned anything new.

Ive used her for over a year snd a half, but this session is making me feel like she just can’t help me with this issue, and that I should swap to someone who can. I want yalls opinions, do you think what I was saying didn’t make any sense or that my therapist just isnt capable enough to understand me. Am I expecting to much from her?

I'm just wondering how often therapists run into the situation where they're obligated to report something like abuse or crime or a suicidal patient. Seems like a difficult situation. Thanks for all you do!