What are your experiences from psychotherapy? Has it helped?

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I´m very ambiguous about psychotherapy as I´m on one hand have had a few positive experiences from therapy and I´ve had high hopes about therapy helping me. But with more and more sessions I´ve become hesitant about how therapy can help me with important things in life and I feel it´s more or less just about talking about problems with a therapist that can´t do anything. I don´t mean I expect a therapist to for example find me a job but noone has helped mw to such an extent that I feel I have the strength and belief in myself to look for work or to make important changes in life.

I´ve tried different approaches and also antidepressants but that don´t make any difference more than it feels nice to talk to someone once a week or so. I´ve also thought that perhaps it´s because of my (possible) diagnosis that no therapy will ever help.

What do you think?

I found therapy to be helpful because I liked getting a professional opinion on all the crap in my life. I felt like my feelings received validation from my psychologist. It made me feel better about myself to know that I wasn't wrong for feeling the way I do about the crap in my life.

Hej, jag är också svensk! Men bor utomlands!

The first time I went to see a child psychotherapist at 15, it nearly killed me, he was seriously not clued up on anything. The second time, in my early 30's the woman accused me of being a psychotherapist or psychiatrist myself (I am not, and I don't know if that should have changed anything) and said she couldn't work with me. Both times were horrific. There is no way I will ever have therapy again as long as I live. However, my daughter sees an amazing woman. So I reckon I was just seriously unlucky. Or I just have something going on that frightens the living daylight out of therapists! So basically, sure it can be really helpful if you find the right person.

AFAIC, the shrinkrap experience has made the difference in me, between living and dying. it was the only time in my life where I could talk to somebody about things that bugged me, and they would actually listen to me. so I recommend it if one is feeling out of sorts.

Bad experience. Had two people pull the "If you want to be a good person..." routine as though I was a bad person rather than someone who needed help and support.

Bad experience. One shrink couldn't figure out what my issue was. Another wouldn't focus on the problems I presented and insisted that I was thinking things that I wasn't thinking.

Yes, "thinking things that I wasn't thinking" sums my first one up too. It was a very destabilising experience for me but then once I recovered I came to the conclusion I would have to stand on my own two feet and that was positive.

Bad. I'm seeing a new one on Tuesday who understands autism. That will be the ninth one in my life not counting psych ward counseling or the social worker when I was in school. I'm 27. There are many different psychotherapy approaches. You should ask the therapist what methods they use. If it's just talk therapy you are wasting your time and money and should just leave and find another one. Solutions-based therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy can be useful for people with autism. Most therapists take an eclectic approach and use a combination of approaches. Be careful there, that can easily slip into talk therapy only.

Talk therapy does not do much at all unless you really feel like getting a lot off your chest.

My flatmate did schema therapy for a while and found it really helpful. But then the psychologist left for another practice far away.

The psychologist who diagnosed me with HFA was an excellent fit for me, she specialises in behavioral therapy. All her advice was concrete and easily applied. I would see her again but she's really expensive.

Talk therapy helped me with sorting out my feelings.
But only the third therapist was able to help me, the two before couldn't penetrate my copping&masking strategies to get to what I really feel. I couldn't do it myself, too.

One of the important points is: what do you expect your therapy to do for you? An established, realistic goal helps. You need to discuss it with your therapist until you agree on one.

As others have said, it depends so much on the therapist. I've had talking therapy four or five times over the last thirty years, but only the most recent therapist I saw was really any help. The difference between her and the others was that she had experience of working with autistic people, and it made a huge difference (the possibility I might be autistic had been suggested shortly before this referral.)

I think this is down to several things...

1) Most therapists are used to dealing with people with a temporary mental illness (e.g. depression). A common experience with the other therapists was for them to try and have me recall "better" times from earlier in life, and I just didn't get what they meant by "before I was like this". If I tried to point out that I felt as if my traits had always been present, it was just hinted that I was being "defeatist". The autism aware counsellor was much more realistic about "managing" problems rather than trying to restore a mythical "older, better me."

2) I have significant alexithymic traits, so when asked "how did X make you feel?", I often didn't recall any particular emotion, or there was an emotion there but I couldn't identify it. This was often deemed to be some kind of repression or evasion, when "I don't know" was actually the honest answer. In contrast, the autism aware counsellor would work with me to help me identify the emotions that I couldn't categorise.

3) Misreading autistic traits. One counsellor in particular could be very melodramatic about how "sad" it was that I spent a lot of time alone with my special interests, when I was already fully aware that it was both innate and a coping mechanism, and not something that made me "sad". The autism aware counsellor instead encouraged me to use this coping mechanism more wisely while acknowledging that it can be a valuable tool for managing anxiety.

4) Putting everything down to "negative thinking". It wasn't until seeing the autism aware counsellor that I was able to convince anyone that the people around me really do treat me differently to others and very obviously do notice things like my strange posture/gait, social faux-pas etc. Previous counsellors' efforts to "correct my negative thinking" just came across as gas-lighting to me. Having these things taken seriously made it much easier to stop hiding behind my "mask" during the later counselling.

So I do think that psychotherapy can help, and I would have it again, but I would insist that I see a counsellor who understands that the job has to be done differently when dealing with an autistic patient.

Waste of time. I get better feedback right here on WP than with a therapist who is clueless when it comes to dealing with my trifecta of PTSD, ASD and bipolar. I'd only went because it was part of my DSHS requirement. If it's required for SSDI I'll also go.