Therapy issues - issues in therapy

See, therapy should never, ever be "looking at the positives and pushing down the negatives." If you're having to do that, there's really very little therapeutic alliance, because that requires the client to feel like the therapist fully "gets them." If that isn't happening, it is severely impacting the work that's being done.

And yes, I share your belief that that probably half (and actually, maybe more) of therapists out there absolutely suck. I'm in a number of groups for counselors and therapists, and I have also met an awful lot of them in work and other professional settings, and am constantly appalled at just how misguided, un-intuitive, un-imaginative, or wounded so many therapists are. It's not so much that they're below par, it's that they are wounded and do not realize their own wounds. Even if they've been therapists for 20+ years. That's the sad part... most are unwilling to look at their own wounds, and if a therapist can't do that, they have no business trying to help anyone else.

 

I really can't overemphasize how important the therapeutic alliance is. It really forms the basis for all work. A very large part of all work in therapy is addressing the trauma wound which, at its core, stems from attachment issues. So, regardless of what the acute issue is in therapy, underlying almost all of it is rebuilding (more at the unconscious level than the conscious, though both are important) the attunement and attachment, which cultivates the capacity for deep trust, and that, in turn, helps with whatever the next layer (anxiety, depression, bipolar, OCD, eating disorder, etc) is.

 

I can understand why your stomach is knotted, but that, in itself, says there's a problem with the therapeutic relationship. Any therapist should be ready to end the therapeutic relationship at any time if the client wishes to do so. If the therapist thinks there's therapeutic resistance going on (which I absolutely do not think is the case here), then it's appropriate to bring that up, but it is still always the client's choice.

It can be as simple as "I've thought about it, and I've decided I want to end treatment" said at the beginning of a session. In this particular case, I'd be inclined to have your mind made up so as not to be guilted or otherwise persuaded by the therapist to continue treatment. And then you can use that session for termination. (It should not require more than one session, and even there, it's only if you feel the need for it.)

Alternatively, there's no reason you need to officially do a termination session. It's OK to send a text or email or phone message saying "I've decided to end treatment. I'll let you know if I decide I want to continue."

In any of the above scenarios, if the therapist is hurt or upset... that's on them, not on you, and indicates work *they* need to do, because this sort of thing comes with the territory of being a therapist.

 

Our experiences early in life form much of our responses to situations... because how we responded as children (sometimes as infants) was purely a response to support survival. Often that means cutting us off from our gut, our intuitions. And it often means putting up with substandard BS. Those strategies served us as children. Often they do not serve us as adults, but until we can unpack and look at what we are doing, we don't even realize we're doing these things.