My experience with traditional therapy with psychologists
That was basically a horrible experience 🤣.
Psychologist no. 1. Poland (Polish).
I was around 15, 16, maybe 17 years old, exhausted by my mum's behaviour. I had suicidal thoughts for years already. I couldn't take the reality anymore. Although I had a loving boyfriend, we never talked about the situation at home, so he was not aware of how I was feeling. I was a different person with him. Happy and worry-free.
Close to my high school, there was a Society for Family Development, a government unit. There was a psychologist I could go to for free. So, I gathered the courage, and... I went to ask for help. And you know how difficult it is to ask for help. It took months for me to decide to do it.
The woman was an adult. Mature? Not so sure. She was maybe my mum's age. She sat in a gloomy room behind a desk. I sat in front of her. I didn't know how to start, so I started somewhere. That my mum was making my life difficult. That I felt I couldn't take it anymore. I can't remember exact words I said, but after 15 min the psychologist interrupted me. She said I was spoiled. That I should appreciate my mum. Best, if I got myself a job and grew up.
Funny... Grow up... As if I wasn't growing up and maturing much faster than most children since the little me realised that I didn't exist for my mum.
I was in shock. I was so in shock, that I thanked her for her assessment of the situation, and left. Happy and worry-free. That was the thought I was left with for the rest of my life. Until I turned 40.
Can you imagine how, if this psychologist had decided to hear me out and helped me, my life could have been different? If only she had been genuinely interested in me and the reason I came there?
Psychologist no. 2. Sweden (Swedish).
At the age of 38 I reached out to a different psychologist, as I noticed that my relationships were devastating me. They were toxic, and I would leave them burned out. I wanted to know what was happening.
That psychologist was part of the health care. I had 10 sessions that cost me as little as a doctor visit. I call that man “Notebook man”, as he was looking constantly into his notebook. No eye contact. We talked about my current relationship that was giving me lots of anxiety, inflammation in my body, heartache and… was sexually abusive.
During one of the sessions, that psychologist yelled at me, “What do you want!?!?”. I looked shocked at him and said, “Like I said many times BEFORE. I don't want to be lonely. I have no friends here. I have no one except that guy. I want to be loved, and I want to love.”
After 10 sessions, I was told to check out a book “Stop walking on eggshells” as my mum might have had a Borderline Personality Disorder. I asked him if we should continue our sessions. It was him who had the discretion to decide for 10 more sessions. He said, “No. There's no need for it.” And that was it.
As I was about to find out, after reading that book my life turned upside down… I cried and I felt lonely. I was left alone with the epiphany that my mum most likely had Borderline Personality Disorder. I still wasn't aware of what it meant for me, what it had to do with my bad relationships.
Psychologist no. 3. Sweden, (Norwegian).
A year after having read that book, I reached out to another psychologist. It was a woman, and this time I wanted to talk about my mother and what my childhood was like. After three sessions of her “Oh no…!” and sighing, She said that what I was telling her was terrible, and she was not able to help me. It was too much for her. I was left with these memories, epiphany, and emotions alone. Again.
At least she was honest.
I have worked with 3 psychologists and 1 welfare officer and I met with:
What I experienced was ignorance and indifference, an inability to connect with me or tune into what I was feeling, and a sense that their notebook was more interesting than I was. Interruptions during sessions, such as answering text messages from other clients and fixing prescriptions. Looking at me with pity rather than understanding.
My opinion about traditional therapy with psychologists is rather low, and I have my reasons for it. Except that I felt unseen by them, that they didn't even try to understand me, they left me alone with my problems that turned out to have a great impact on my life, relationships, beliefs about myself. How can one think there was nothing to talk about, and another one was crying, not being able to listen to that “nothing to talk about”?
At that point, I began wondering whether traditional therapy was the right approach for me.
Every week, I entered a traumatic feeling, that would cause my body to shake. I was asking myself questions “Why did I stay in this or that?”, trying to understand myself and my actions. I was left alone to deal with it and calm myself down on my own after the sessions. I wasn't taught any methods on how to work on issues myself between the sessions or how to deal with a minor, stressful, and/or irritating situation.
Working with those psychologists made me wonder:
“Have they ever experienced and lived through a trauma, and… Have they ever done any healing of it???” You know, people who tell you what's wrong with you and what you should do, but they don't follow their own guidance?
I started looking for other options, less “psychologist” more “therapist”. I stopped watching YouTubers telling me what was wrong with me, and started looking for people who were engaged in helping me to heal my past.
I see people being given pills for deeply suppressed anger or grief, instead of helping them to heal it.
EFT
It took me another year before I found out about EFT and contacted an EFT Practitioner. It was Andy Bryce, and I've been working with him since then. He did not leave me alone with my shit. I finally found someone who could meet me at the same emotional depth. Who was not overwhelmed with my issues, my memories of my childhood, had the capacity, empathy, and compassion to hear me out, and help me.
Leaving the sessions, I was calm. Sometimes, I was very tired, emotional, crying, or sad. But, I didn't have to calm myself down after each meeting, and it didn't take me days to do it. I left feeling calm, and I wasn't emotionally overloaded the way I often was after traditional sessions with psychologists.
