Psychotherapy: starting out

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So now my thoughts are to 'what would my advice to a person be if they want or think or are told they should be in therapy?'

My immediate thought is: unless you are suicidal or in such a bad situation that you need instant relief or medication ; I would advise to write down your problems and then find a therapist that will work with you on 'these' problems...
If that therapist deviates to much.. you have read all my previous blogs by now and especially: Jonathan Alpert - In Therapy Forever; then I would push them to keep working on your problems as agreed or leave them.
I know that there can be all sorts of things that come up in Therapy and might need to be discussed but as much as I like to ramble on and be passive and chat about every little detail... is it absolutely necessary? I don't know in all honesty.. but I will say... do you want to spend all your money and time... discussing the family issues when, maybe, you just need some coaching on how to make friends or cook or ??

I have never taken this advice for myself and have come to this point now and find it so damned hard to discuss normal every day life in therapy.

You have to be honest with yourself. Deadly honest.

One of the things that happened in my own therapy.. hundreds actually but.. one that sticks out was me retelling a story of me travelling in a train in Europe and how a young lady and man interacted. I love telling this story and have told it to many people. My experience about learning about people relating to each other while I was totally alone.
I realised the last time in telling the therapist, this story, that they were smiling and telling me 'what a great experience' it was.
Yes it was.
But this was the second or third time I had retold this story. I try not to create a problem for myself in retelling stories a hundred times if necessary, BUT, this was costing me money and was not assisting me to make friends, work NOW!!

I felt that he was trying to get me to understand 'see, you do have positive situations in your life' and I'm thinking, yes, I do but 24 years ago... and this now is just like you sitting there while I ramble on and pay and you don't stop me for some cooked up reason...

The good outcome was that I pushed back more and become more forthright in my sessions....

So my advice is you do that from the start... give yourself a time limit.. three months? and re evaluate.. if possible... after that time period and if you are stuck in the same old shit.. discussing stories over and over and they are not assisting... then either change your self and push back or leave... or bring to the point: these are the things I want to discuss.

It is easier said than done and I know that... but part of my typing all this is because of my own situation and stories I've heard about others...

I might add to this later sometime..
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