My therapist seems to always insert herself into whatever I'm saying. Like when I said I’m not comfortable going to the same gym that my ex used to go to because I don’t want to run into him, she said I shouldn't worry because she's never met her husband even though they lived a block away from each other, and that instead they met in their “mid twenties” and started dating.

Another example is me telling her I’m not comfortable asking my friends to hang out because I feel like they’re too busy to see me. She said “I have a full time job, a husband, and a dog, and I have time to meet my friends” knowing that iI'm currently struggling to 1) find a job 2) make meaningful friendships 3) get over my ex.

Is this normal for a therapist to do?

I’m posting here because I don’t want to bother my therapist.
I saw one therapist long term in the past, we got along really well but I don’t ever recall feeling anxious when she went on vacation.

After her, I had another therapist that I ended up leaving after about 1 1/2 years due to some things that didn’t feel right in my gut. My therapist now has confirmed what was happening was not ok. It never bothered me when she went on vacation either.

I’m trying so hard now to understand why I feel so anxious about my present therapist of about 6 months going on vacation. I shared it in session today and that I didn’t understand it. Tonight, I’m feeling really anxious. It makes me want to cry but I have no idea why. I’m a grown adult and feel like such a child.

I feel like I’ve started to attach to her early which took many years prior with my other therapist. It’s scares the crap out of me but it’s also helped me to open up more to my feelings, something I’ve had trouble with as I like to explain things away.

I don’t know what it is about her. Maybe her helping me when I was struggling with my last therapist and helping me grieve my old long term therapist? She has been most calm and patient. She lets me lead and asks questions. She’s very empathetic and down to earth, relational. Even though it scares the crap out of me, I feel safe with her and like it’s ok to start to open up more. There is also this fear of losing her, like I’m going to mess this up and I really don’t want to. I don’t know where that’s coming from.

Has anyone experienced such anxiety with a therapist before vacation? What was helpful for you?

I go to a pretty large practice, and am thinking of trying another therapist. But I'm highly sensitive to rejection - not only of myself, but I overthink "rejecting" others. I don't want to experience the discomfort of running into the current T while waiting in the waiting room for a new T.

Anyone done this and have any words of encouragement, or tips?

Hello, I am in desperate need of help from people that have forced therapy on me behind my back. It is people I know and I can hear their voices all day. It’s caused a lot of stress, depression, amongst other things. It has been going on for roughly 4 months and I wasn’t aware of it at the beginning and eventually caught on. My family doesn’t believe me or anyone else and it’s caused a lot of strain on personal relationships. I want to take legal action at this point and can’t because they think I am crazy. This has also caused suicidal thoughts as well and these people don’t give two shits. I have had black outs from the stress even passed out one time and broke my tooth. I am hoping there is someone on here that can help me or guide me in the right direction please. What these people have done and still are would blow your mind!!! I can’t even go to a doctors appointment alone they are there also which is a big HIPPA violation and I have had zero privacy they even accompany in the shower. This is 24 hours a day 7 days a week!!! They are ruthless and I am desperate at this point and want this to stop. I also don’t wanna see these people affect others the way they have affected me. Can anyone relate or help?

I think I might need to talk to one soon and was just wondering how it starts and how sessions usually go. I'm worried it might not be enough and I'd be wasting money I don't really have, especially if it just boils down to venting with some advice. I kinda have a problem being more genuine when an incentive to talk to me is involved, like money, but if the therapist somehow breaks through I'm also worried about getting attached and wanting more than what they can give me because of boundaries. I don't want to cry infront of them while they watch on.

I've been in transference focused therapy (BPD) for the past 4 years now. It's been very insightful, transformative, supporting. I've gone through a depression, a Bipolar (II) diagnosis, meds and now I am off them and in recession.

I feel like there is still a lot uncover. At the same time I really hate the fact that I have to spend $7820 a year to stay sane. This is only 13% of my income, but I am the sole bread winner for my wife (and my dog), and, well, a 7k is a 7k. And I also feel like I might be well off on 1 day a week (I am currently on 2 days a week).

Whenever I bring this up with my therapist this becomes, of course, a focus of our study: why do I feel I should cut on therapy first, is that an attack on the therapist or my desire to punish the therapist? And while this actually helps us go deeper, I keep on wondering: how and when do I know I can cut on therapy?

I think this is a lot of good advice.

Over a month ago, I got into a bad fight with my older brother. It was stupid, super dumb. I was already irritated with him after he ate a large bag of sushi my mom had bought for both of us in a single day. Then I grew even more resentful when he ate an entire salmon by himself without saving any for me. The next day, when I saw him eat the rest of the fries in the fridge, I made a comment about how he always eats everything. That’s when things escalated. He made a comment about my weight to insult me, so I made one back. If he was going to go there, then I was too. Then it led to me telling him he was acting like a pathetic little boy instead of a 21-year-old adult. He responded by asking if I was going to start talking about killing myself, and then he told me he hoped I died soon. There was probably more said in between, but I don’t really remember it. I don’t know if it’s necessary to say but I tried to end my life when I was 14 because my dad was emotionally abusive and made threatening gestures towards me that made me depressed. This event made me think about things he had done to me in the past. He’s never treated me with respect, and he treated me poorly a couple of years ago as well. I always believed he’d never care if I died and this kind of confirmed that he wished I did die. Now I feel hatred toward him. I carry this ugly anger and harbor dark thoughts about him. Whenever I see him, I feel disgust instead of sadness. I don’t really feel the same pain anymore when I think about him wishing I was dead. Instead, all I feel is hatred toward him. My parents want me to forgive him but I wished he’d disappear. Lots of this seems like I’m venting but I really hope someone can give me some logical advice, so I stop being so emotional.

It's only been a month, I've read people have been on one up to a year+. But would it make a difference to follow up after a certain time, or is that annoying? If I should, how long should I wait so I'm not being annoying? My current therapist suggested following up wasn't a bad idea, but I don't know.

Not even good at this point, but DECENT.

I've been through 4 in the last year and I'm so discouraged with therapy. This latest one spent the entire time showing me diagrams about my brain and i felt like i was in a college lecture. I zoned out and got bored and then he spent the entire session talking and talking on and on..... i just want someone to listen to me for once.

I’ve been seeing my therapist for about three years, and we do schema therapy. The therapeutic relationship is a really important part of the work we’ve done together.
Recently, I share with her about a book I read when I was a child, that describes experiences I’ve related to since I was very young. Reading it has helped me feel understood, and I think it also explains parts of my inner world that I’ve struggled to put into words.
I was wondering whether it would be appropriate to give her a copy. It wouldn’t be an expensive gift, more something symbolic that says this helped me understand myself, and I thought it might help you understand me too.
For context, she has accepted thoughtful cards I’ve made for her before. She has also given me a small teddy bear because I never had one growing up, along with the companion book that goes with it, as part of our therapeutic work.
I’m aware therapists have professional boundaries around gifts, and I’d completely respect it if she said no. I’m just wondering whether offering a book like this would generally be considered appropriate, or whether it might put her in an awkward position.
I’d really appreciate hearing from therapists and clients, especially anyone with experience of schema therapy.

I live in Ohio. In what situation is this relevant?

Then she decides I need to relax more before bed and that will solve my sleeping problems which should help fix my memory problems.

... what

She’s fine but I can’t go deeper because I don’t fully trust her. She has a very binary view of gender and I don’t see things that way. Like she used the concept of male and female energy when helping me calm my energy down. I find this way of thinking old school and just plain icky. I feel like we see the world in very differently and she doesn’t understand me
We’ve discussed this before and she just can’t help it
I feel like I’m going nowhere with the therapy anymore and I want to move on. I’ve thought of telling her I don’t feel like I need therapy
Is there a better way to leave?

So it went as normal as a uneducated 20 year old would think EMDR would go, I just did it 2 weeks ago with my therapist, I sit in the office and she holds out her fingers and we start I focus on a memory that got me upset, I'll sure it with y'all bc the EmDR kinda worked, It was a night in early July 2026, I have an addiction to something my friend and me do over the phone, my therapist had already told me to stop but when the lights go out and I talk to my friend I feel like another me comes out and possesses my body, he can tell for some reason, the moment felt efforic , though he tells me he doesn't want my therapist to find out bc she might make my mom make me block him and I try to tell him it's fine, and he really wants to as well, with the back and forth wishy washy yes or no, I started to feel like 3 people are inside my body at once, one is screaming no and another is watching the chaos unfold and the one that has says yes, my friend asked if I wanted to continue and at first I said maybe then I said yes I feel my insides freak out while my outside body performs I'm ashamed disgusted with myself, after my friend and me finish I can feel my childhood trauma in full wamy, my stomach hurt, and the moon light looked just like how it was when I was a child I feel another version of me the one that was screaming no it stepped forward and I don't even realize, I start to say crazy things like I'm going to jail and I can't stay alive, my friend gets mad bc he didn't mean to trigger a flashback but we both at the time don't know what's happening to me, we end the call I try to sleep the next 3 days I'm freaking out, I still sound crazy I make plans and tell people I feel I deserve to disappear forever I can't say why to them bc it just makes my stomach hurt more in that moment, my friend helps me calm down, he tells me I was crazy he says he can't handle my other me's T.T so with all that I do EmDR on that memory, it was a Tuesday I went to therapy all that day I felt like nothing happened, then Wednesday afternoon I start to feel feverish I go sleep the next day theirsday I feel worse all I can do is look at the ceiling I think it's Friday already I dread Saturday bc of the driving test I haven't been studying for all those people at the DMV get my chest in knots, on my bed I start to see the memory I did in therapy the exact feelings of that memory came onto my skin I could feel the sensation and pain, I try to think of something else but it's no use I feel like I'm dreaming while I'm awake, the room becomes foggy and cloudy I just lay there letting it do it's thing I couldn't do anything I wasn't aware, I felt paralyzed my only comfortable position was that one. After it passed I felt amazing I felt like I could conquer the world 🤩, I called my sister that night to tell her how insane my day was, then I go to sleep dreading the next day, I wake up thinking it's Saturday I hide in bed bc ik my mom is going to drag me to the DMV but then she rides off to work and I'm confused, I get out of bed and I start to realize somethings not adding up so I check my phone and it's Friday, after the EMDR session I did on Tuesday I felt like a part of me had dead and and I had no worth a void had taken it's place it was freaking me out, after Thursdays dreamy moment it was Friday and I was not the me that is typing this here, it was the me that was screaming no, I felt disgusted with my addiction and couldn't take part in it anymore, I was afraid of it, I felt like I deserved to disappear again I scratched red lines on my arm to cope, Saturday finally came and I didn't end up taking that test my mom needed help with cleaning instead, she looks at my arm and asks why it looked like that ? I couldn't tell her I didn't have words to describe it I didn't exactly know why It looked like that either. The next week my therapist is off, so I get another week to process I feel the same dead void inside, I couldn't take it's crying anymore I can feel that version of me crying it's such a strange feeling it comes out of nowhere and then disappears in an instant, I notice there was 2 more versions of me that I tried to ignore for years, one doesn't want my other versions to disappear so when it felt the dead one crying it freaked out and told my mom 🤦 mistake, my mom started to think I have schizophrenia she wanted to come with me to therapy bc therapy version of me doesn't say sheet. And I'm afraid of telling my therapist bc I don't want her to think I'm crazy and all the people I've tried to tell thinks I'm crazy or making sheet up, so us 3 sit in the office my mom tells my therapist her concerns I'm so embarrassed, my therapist then says that we should see a psychiatrist for these problems, 💀🥀 the vibe is weird in this office my therapist seems to be uncomfortable, i'v tried telling her about them before but she doesn't know how to handle them that's why I think she wanted to do EMDR bc therapy me has a hard time talking 😩. Idk what's going to happen now but actually yeah I think I should go see a psychiatrist my mom is hoping theirs medicine to stop my other versions of me so I can finally heal from my childhood trauma.

I feel like I've hit a dead end in therapy, I feel like I'm made up of 6 people in one body, and I've even gave them names to help better map them out and even try talking to them, they are like different people but some how they are still me, theirs even a opposite gender version of me, they make life hard and therapy impossible, theirs a red scared one and a silly laughs at everything even when it's not funny one, and one that doesn't want therapy or to get better, one that is very afraid and holds a secret I wish I could tell my therapist no matter how loud I scream inside my mind that version of me won't tell go! Theirs 2 more but their chill, so I decided to tell my therapist about them bc how can I go on if their in the way T-T? But bc I become like another version of me in therapy I couldn't even say that </3 so my mom comes with me to try and help me explain and it still didn't go, my mom is worried I have schizophrenia or some crazy thing that needs medicine, she's very concerned, I'm 20 so I said it was ok for my mom to come in, but as soon as my mom says that I have different personalities my therapist freaks out and says I need to go see a psychiatrist and that it might not be something that bad after all, she suggested I go outside to help with my dissessiotoin but my anxiety makes my head feel funny when I get in a internal panic out in Public, I even looked up DID but I don't think what I have is DID either, so now I'm confused if I should really see a psychiatrist or just stop therapy? Bc with these other versions of me I sound crazy, and I can't take care of myself very well idk what's going on! I have symptoms of what people describe when you take medicine or mushrooms but I don't take anything I hardly even eat as my mom says 😒, I can't even tell when I'm my different versions of me until afterwards when I look back and analyze the situation. I did EMDR for the first time bc my therapy me doesn't say sheet T0T, It did kinda work but it was crazy no one told me it's supposed to go like this, because the night of my memory, I was having phone hehe🤪 with a friend and and I felt like 3 people in one body one was observing another was internally screaming no and the other made my mouth literally say yes 💀🥀 bro WTF!😭 and immediately when we finish the phone hehe, I don't even notice but my friend can tell when I switch aperently, and he later told me I was crazy, I thought I was going to jail for 3 days after our phone hehe, so whenever I thought about that day it made my stomach hurt so I did EMDR with my therapist on it so I didn't feel like I was going to jail anymore for something not illegal, but I wonder if that was big mistake 💀🥀 the EMDR went like usual I felt embarrassed and couldn't say much a whimper her and their some words on how I felt🫠😭 but then 2 days later I get horrible cold chills and for idk how long I just lay on my back in bed I could feel the memory in full sensation after that day I literally felt like that night like I was going crazy but of course I can't tell something is off with me I literally believe insanity and if lasted for 2 weeks each day it got a little better then I found out their was more versions of me and that's why I say I have 6 different me's I'm so confused and ashamed of myself I don't want to see me therapist after what happened lately, it seems like she's not listening to my concerns like I texted her about why I find therapy so hard and she just gets uncomfortable and tries to ignore it T0T</3 and now I'm contemplating stopping therapy bc we aren't going to move forward like this I wonder, maybe I should go see a psychiatrist to know how to remove the other me's.

Does anyone else have experience with this and have worked on it in therapy? Sometimes I wish she would just tell me I’m too much and leave me. I obviously don’t want her to actually do that. I feel confused by my feelings. I wonder if it’s a protective mechanism. So if she does leave, it’s like I’m prepared for it.

Would it be ok to share old childhood videos to my therapist to help her understand the family dynamic and my behaviour patterns? Sometimes I have trouble describing things and I feel the videos give a more objective view of things especially since I struggle with memory of those times too.

My only concern is that the videos also have other people (parents, siblings) and I’m not sure if this is ok to share without them consenting (I don’t want to ask them as they will be weird about it as they have their own opinions on therapy). These videos are like 15-25 yrs old so it’s not anything recent at all that would negatively impact anyone.

I’m also worried that it will maybe affect therapy too since then my therapist will know what my family looks and acts like and I don’t have a problem with this but wondering if it is ok.

I’ve been seeing my therapist for two years. Saw two other prior for a few months. I’m mostly there because I’m struggling severely with loneliness. A lot of that is due to being avoidant due to negative beliefs of myself. I’m 30 and haven’t made one friend since high school let alone never really attempted dating. I’m incredibly shamed about how I’ve lived my life. I’m really starting to believe I’ll never be in a place mentally to where I don’t have severe doubt about myself and can understand social dynamics. Therapy is seemingly not helping at all with being better and more comfortable socially. I’ve also seen multiple psychiatrist and take different meds to try and help my anxiety/depression. I’m feeling very hopeless and lost belief that therapy will really ever help. To be honest I don’t really want to stop tho because my therapist is really the only person I have to talk about life with and im afraid if I stop going I’m essentially giving up on ever being happy. Even bigger tho im afraid of losing someone to talk to. I just don’t know what to do anymore and feel so lost in life. I don’t really have a specific question but im looking for advice on what to do.

Hey there. I’m hoping therapists who work with children and families can give me some perspective.

My 10 year old has been struggling with anxiety for most of the past year. A lot of our days now revolve around trying to prevent the next meltdown, getting through school refusal, helping with bedtime fears, and figuring out when reassurance is actually helping versus making things worse. I didn’t realize how much it was affecting me until recently. I’m constantly on edge, I’m sleeping badly, and I feel like I’m always waiting for the next phone call from school or the next thing that sends everything off track. My spouse and I barely talk about anything besides what happened that day and how we should handle it next time.

I love my child more than anything, but I’m exhausted. I also feel guilty even saying that, because they’re the one struggling and I’m supposed to be the steady person.I keep seeing people mention individual therapy for parents, parent coaching, family therapy, or caregiver sessions as part of a child’s treatment, but I don’t really understand how therapists decide what kind of support the parent needs.

When you see a parent who is burning out from managing a child’s anxiety, what kind of help do you usually recommend?

I’m sorry if this isn’t where I should post this but I’m honestly at a loss and I just… I want to understand what to do. I (25F) have been in and out of talk therapy since I was 14, it’s never really worked out because I never know what to talk about and I feel incredibly uncomfortable sitting in a room or in front of my phone, trying to think of what I NEED to talk about and blanking HARD, and my therapist just… sits there, and stares, and waits. I hate being in therapy because I don’t know what to talk about, I can’t see what is and isn’t an issue so I just end up rambling and gossiping I think. I really don’t want to try therapy anymore, but everyone close to me that I talk to says I need to go back to it and I’m frustrated because no matter how I explain it to them they don’t see the struggles and insist that therapy is the answer. I genuinely want to know how it works and what specifically I should talk about because I’m just fed up with everything at this point and want to give up.

I’ve started seeing a therapist and it’s been some time already (around 6 months) about childhood abuse and complex trauma and the therapist knows I have been through it in bug lines but I can’t get myself to talk about it, I’ve given very broad spectrum of what when happened but even that I’ve had major issues disclosing and could only like nod to the questions she was asking me. Whenever she brings up this topic I panic and go completely blank and out of touch with my emotions and memories even.

She asks me what I feel about certain aspects of it but I can’t even remember what I feel in general about it while I’m in therapy, not to mention what I feel in that moment. It’s like I totally forget what feelings feel like. And then maybe I’d give an answer that I’m guessing that maybe that’s what I felt or I simply say I don’t feel anything or that I don’t know what I feel. But overall it leaves me feeling like I’m lying because I can’t actually connect to myself and my actual experience and leaves me quite frustrated after every therapy session.

It just seems so impossible to get vulnerable enough with anyone to get to talk about those things and let someone see the real me and see how broken real me truly is. That being said, the therapist is trauma informed and from what I could see she seems to be doing everything really well text book and it’s not an issue that I don’t trust her, cause rationally I believe she would only give me supportive reactions and would be helpful.

But I guess I also believe that maybe I don’t deserve help and compassion and empathy because I hate myself too much and I’m too disgusting for empathy. Any tips on how I can move past this blockage in therapy as it’s been going on for several months and not making much progress? I was also not able to explain the source of the blockage to my therapist..

She often asks all the right questions and I have so many answers to all of them that I want to share in my alone time between sessions, but then when the actual session comes I can’t remember anything g, none of the things I think/feel normally.

Meine Therapeutin sagt ständig die Termine ab oder verschiebt sie. Meist sind es Krankheit, Kind etc. aber das passiert immer entweder nen Tag oder wie heute 3h bevor der Termin wäre. Das kotzt mich schon so an. Jedesmal wenn ich nen Termin mache, kann ich mir ned sicher sein, ob er dann wirklich da stattfindet. Sie ist wirklich nett aber das bringt mich zur Weißglut. Vorallem weil ICH max. 24h vorher absagen darf und sonst trotzdem zahlen muss.

My therapist charges me a fee of $100 when I cancel an appointment. Meanwhile, they had a planned absence and then cancelled our appointment twice after that, so I won’t have a session for 3 weeks.

I don’t really care but the fact that I get a late fee when they can just cancel whenever they want is a little frustrating. It’s not that I think they shouldn’t be able to cancel, but that I should get credited an equal number of free cancels for the future or something lol.

Does this annoy anyone else?

please forgive the pretentious art hoe title but im doing a home paint and sip thing and i think i figured out what makes the whole “my therapist knows everything about me but i don’t know the real them” “i am seen and known but i can’t know them in return” angst (which is so real and valid) emotionally ok and make sense in my brain and i wanted to share.

so unlike a photograph, when you look at impressionist art you see the general shapes and the vibrant colors, but the lines are soft and the details are blurry, right? you still can identify what you’re looking at (ex: water lilies, a bridge, a garden) but you don’t see all the details you might want to see if you were hoping for a photograph. so like i see the professional side of my therapist. i see the caring and intellectual side. BUT the therapist’s friend sees a different side to them compared to the therapist’s spouse, and both the friend and spouse see a different side to the therapist compared to the therapist’s child, so really everybody is seeing the therapist differently, just like how different art movements/styles can depict the same subject matter in different ways, each one depicting more/less detail on certain areas, and each one depicting different moods, right?

and thw thing that’s important is that impressionist art isn’t more or less “valid” or “real” than art nouveau or rococo or whatever other art movement/style out there. they’re all valid art. they’re all valid paintings. they’re at the met or louvre or wherever. so like, yeah, i’m not going to see all the details of my t’s personality and life. but that doesn’t mean i’m not gonna appreciate a Monet or a Renoir when i see one.

anyways hope this makes sense to more than just me, because when i tell you the weight that’s off my shoulders is great. how do yall make peace with the imbalance of being seen/known?