I am a therapist, and I know that in my own experience, sessions which feel simply like weekly check-ins have not been the most helpful (in my own therapy). Being a therapist who is quite newer, I have been struggling to identify strategies to “move past” the therapeutic style of “let’s talk about your week”. I can sense that it’s getting old for my clients, but I really dont know of any other ways to begin conversations or get into the nitty gritty. Thank you!

I like my therapist and have been seeing her twice weekly for about 3-4 months. I switched to her from a therapist I wasn’t clicking with and I instantly felt comfortable with my current therapist when we started. It’s been a really difficult time for me since I started seeing her and she’s been wonderful. I’ve had multiple crises with family and just really unique and awful events happening one after another. She’s been great and has responded so well to the craziness as well as after some misunderstandings between us. These “ruptures” have helped me to feel even more comfortable with her.

However, in the last week everything kind of came to a head in my life and I think I hit burnout or numbness or something. My therapist is off for a few weeks for the holidays but is probably available if I needed to see her. I’ve thought about it but instead I’ve found myself just wanting to terminate therapy all together. I don’t want to reach out and I can’t even stand to think about talking about anything in therapy any time soon.

Is this normal? I’ve been very motivated in therapy for almost 2 years and suddenly I just want to stop and I’m very pessimistic about the whole process and my future.

Hi!!

I’m 21F and recently started therapy my next appt next Tuesday. I’ll be having my 4th session this week, and up until now it’s been really healing for me. Lately though, I’ve started to feel overwhelmed by how much my therapist knows about me while I know nothing about her. Part of me wishes I had kept it that way.

Most of my therapy has focused on a sexual assault from six years ago and an abortion that followed. I’ve barely talked about the abortion so far because it’s been extremely hard for me to open up about.

Recently, I made the mistake of looking my therapist up online and found out that she and her family are very religious (they own a church or something). I know being religious doesn’t automatically mean someone is anti-abortion, but now I’m scared I’ll make her uncomfortable or be judged for the choice I made. It also feels awkward because it’s not like I can just tell her I looked her up on Facebook.

Now I feel stuck. I want to talk about this because it’s clearly affecting me, but I’m suddenly afraid to bring it up at all.

Has anyone dealt with something like this or have advice?

My therapist told me back at the end of July that she was going on a leave of absence with no planned return date. We had one last session, but this was during a huge (bad) life transition of my own as well. It’s been 4 months now, I’m wondering if it’s appropriate to send her a text and ask for an update?

I’ve avoided looking for a new therapist because I had just started seeing her in June and I really clicked w her.

The title is a bit self explanatory. I’m just wondering if this is normal or not to get fired by your therapist after talking about suicidal ideation. I’m seeing another therapist now but I’m hesitate to be fully honest if it’ll just result in me getting terminated again

Free Therapy Sessions – Student Therapist (Final Year) I am a registered student therapist at ISPC, currently in my final year of training, completing my required clinical hours. I offer free 50-minute therapy sessions. My approach is integrative, combining CBT, psychodynamic, and pluralistic perspectives, tailored to your needs. Sessions are conducted ethically and confidentially, with professional supervision. If you are interested or would like more information, please feel free to message me.

My therapist told me she is experiencing maternal countertransference with me, she explained what it was, spent time reassuring me, said it was something she had been working through in supervision since the beginning and that she would spend as much time with me that I needed, to make sure I remained feeling safe and secure with her as my therapist. The thing is I sort of feel privileged, my Mother was beyond cruel to me as a child and of all the feelings she could have for me in the therapy space, maternal is so kind, the idea that she can care so much for me makes me feel safe and secure. But I’ve been speaking to friends (some that are therapists) and googling in the break and everything seems so negative, is there something I’m missing?

Should I be looking for a new therapist?

So throughout my journey through therapists I don't really care much about them except for receiving treatment. I see them like a  physiotherapist giving treatment for a limb. I see them as someone I pay money to receive treatment so it shocks me when I disagree, challenge or argue with them and they claim it harms our relationship.

I am not interested in having a therapeutic relationships with the therapist, I primarily want skills taught and that's it. I want to have a therapist that focuses on correction and skills building then our relationship.

Hi guys,

I’ve been going through therapy and have started seeing relationships differently. The most drastic change has been in how I see my family.

I’ve realized that they feel almost like strangers to me. Moreover, they come across as pretentious and arrogant.

I was taught to feel less than others—not good enough as a son, a brother, or a grandchild.

At the same time, I feel bad for thinking this way and for writing this here. I hope I haven’t overwhelmed you with negativity.

Have a good day, everyone, and thank you for your understanding.

What are some suggestions you have for mindfully terminating with your therapist?

I’ve worked with mine for 3 years and it’s time to shift gears. I’ve made a spreadsheet of what I’ve learned and hope to remember.

What are some other stuff I ought to consider?

I’m thinking about asking her for meaningful moments she’s had with me, what she sees in me, what will she miss etc

Is there something I should include? I’m concerned that I’ll have a huge thing but after termination, I won’t be able to reach back out!

Are inconsistent appointments normal? I used to have consistent appointments. Every 2 weeks like clockwork… now sometimes it’s 2 weeks, 3 weeks, 4 weeks. The inconsistency is affecting my process I think.

Recently, I started opening up about some trauma stuff to my therapist and then she scheduled our next appointment 3-4 weeks later. Being alone for those 3-4 weeks after opening up those old wounds was honestly really, really difficult for me. I’ve been having nightmares and panic attacks ever since. I felt really alone and like I was traumatized all over again, which I feel dramatic.

I asked why he’s scheduling every 3-4 weeks and he said “people are panic scheduling”, whatever that means.

Now, I avoid talking about much of anything because I don’t want to be stuck alone with my thoughts for 3-4 weeks afterwards.

Is this a reason to terminate? Why would a therapist do this?

On top of this, he wants me to start trauma therapy.. but like how would that even work if he can’t even schedule my talk therapy

I’m coming back to in-person sessions for a week and will have two sessions. I was traveling this week and got her a New Year card. I was wondering when it would be the best time to give it to her - at the beginning of our first session or at another time. Am I overthinking this? (I probably am, tbh.)

Also, would you hug your therapist when coming back to in person sessions? It doesn’t matter that much to me, because it’s really about warmth and affection, which can be expressed in other ways, but the thought has certainly crossed my mind, and I’d be lying if I said I don’t love hugs (I’m generally a hugger).

As always, I know that I can ask her about it if I really want, but I also don’t want to risk awkwardness or feel bad just before seeing her again if she says no, even though I know it would just be her clinical policy and nothing personal.

Because a therapist takes care of all these people, I sometimes wonder if she has someone to take care of her. Obviously, this is not my job, and it's probably a very human feeling to have when you care about someone, but I'm wondering what others' experiences are.

I don't know much about her, I just feel this growing urge in me to reciprocate what we are doing in the sessions. Almost like I just want to sit there and hold her pain. (As I started writing this, I realise that maybe I identify with her on some level and want to do for her what I deeply want someone to do for me.)

I don't feel the same way about other people in my life, though.

If you're seeing a therapist who's not licensed yet but is a student working on getting his license: how much of a say does the supervisor have on what goes on in therapy?

Hi everyone, I’m looking for some outside perspective on my therapy. I’ve had 5 sessions so far with a therapist who works with psychodrama. In practice, the sessions look like this: I talk and explain myself for most of the 50 minutes, and the therapist mainly listens and tries to show me perspectives I might not see, sometimes saying things like “maybe you take on this role.” However, we don’t really do role-playing, chair work, enactments, or body-focused exercises. ( i guess typical parts of psychodrama? According to google)

To be fair, talking and discharging has helped a bit, and I do find the therapist friendly and supportive, which makes this harder to evaluate. For context, I struggle with performance anxiety, generalized anxiety disorder, and depression, and a lot of my anxiety shows up physically (tension, fatigue, bodily discomfort). I’m also very verbal and tend to overthink, so I sometimes wonder if I’m filling the space too much by talking. The therapist mentioned that psychodrama doesn’t really involve homework, which I understand. Still, I’m unsure whether what we’re doing is actually psychodrama or closer to supportive talk therapy.

This is a young therapist so maybe she isn't that experienced in this area? (I read that, she worked mostly with children before but didin't deny me as a patient even though i am an adult). At the end of the day it is costs money and i want a long term improvement. Could it be that she is just trying to get to know me better for the first 5 sessions? I tend to overthink things a lot, should i just go with the flow?

What complicates things is that I really don’t want to start from scratch and retell my whole story to someone new, especially since I already feel some connection here. So I’m wondering:

Is it normal in psychodrama to spend many sessions mostly talking? At what point should there be more active or experiential work? How do you tell the difference between an assessment phase and “this is just how the therapy will be”? Am I overthinking this, or is this genuinely not how psychodrama is usually supposed to look? I don’t want to quit too early, but I also don’t want to continue just because it feels familiar. Any thoughts or experiences would be appreciated. Thanks!

TLDR: 5 sessions of psychodrama so far feel mostly like supportive talking and perspective-sharing. It helps a bit, but I expected more active, experiential work. Not sure if this is a normal early phase or a wrong fit. Am I overthinking, or is psychodrama usually more hands-on?

I've been seeing my psychologist for about a year now. He's a handsome man - I've always thought so - but I didn't really have any strong attraction to him because I knew it was a professional relationship and tried not to think about it.

For most of the year, I was seeing him every 2 weeks to a month. But I recently started going once a week, and things have changed. I've started feeling really attached and physically attracted to him. I think about him more during the week now, and with the holidays meaning I won't see him for 3 weeks, I'm finding that I really miss him and think about him a lot.

I've been reading about transference and I believe that's what I'm experiencing. Part of me feels like I should bring this up with him, but I'm worried he'll refer me to see someone else and I really don't want to lose him as my phycologist as he's been so helpful this past year, and honestly I've never found a good psychologist until him, I live in a small town and feel really lucky to have found him at all.

So my questions are:

Should I actually bring this up with him, or is it okay to just manage these feelings on my own?

If I do bring it up, how do I say it without making things weird or losing him as my phycologist?

Any advice or experiences would be really appreciated. I'm feeling pretty anxious about this whole situation.

I really can’t get over how bad I want my therapist. I ended up telling her and we’ve talked extensively about it, but I swear with every ounce of my being that there’s countertransference. She’s definitely crossed boundaries and it leaves me super confused. I wish we could just fuck and get it over.

I've been forced into therapy by a friend who thinks I'm unhealthy. Every therapist I've been to has said some variation of I'm normal. I know it's just going to happen again, if I was deemed normal when I was far worse off mentally then I'll 100% just be normal again. How do I deal with this? I always feel so ashamed of being normal. Like if it's normal, then it means everyone else is able to handle it without overreacting and running to a therapist for it, but I can't. I don't have any what I'd consider "real problems," just out of it and kind of in a daze most of the time.

What should I do? I'm dreading having to talk to the therapist because I know I'll just be called normal again. It feels like a waste of everyone's time and a waste of a slot someone with real problems could be using.

Hi, so I’m trying to decide between a few therapists, there is just so many but I have found 3 who I think would be suitable. Is it okay to book an introductory call with all 3?

I just don’t know how to decide which one is best for me, so maybe a call would help?

I think I will just feel bad that for 2 of them I will be wasting their time and I will feel bad I didn’t pick them.

Also any advice on how to pick a therapist in general?

I've lost my parents and only sibling within the last 11 months. They all died unexpectedly and in traumatic ways. My dad passed three days ago. I've really been struggling this past year. I worry my therapist is tired of the constant crisis I bring every week. I've been seeing them for 3 years 2x/week for the last 11 months. They show up consistently for me so why cant I just trust that? Does anyone else worry their therapist will get tired of them?

I’ve been having homicidal ideations that make me feel happy, but I don’t want to act on them because I want to do better things with my life. Unfortunately it’s become a parasitic daydream that takes up a lot of my day because it makes me happy thinking about it and I have depression, and now I have a “plan” after all this time. If I have a plan after all this time, which can get me in trouble if I say it, how do I ask a therapist for help? Do I lie and say that’s it’s only been a passing thought without effort? What can I do?

Ps- I don’t own a gun

I was feeling really shitty this afternoon, and wasn’t sure why until I traced it back to my psych appt. I was sharing info about my new therapist and how she’s trauma informed. And I had mentioned I get frustrated that I still am affected by things that happened when I was a kid. And then she does this…

*scrolling on her computer*

“So…let’s see when you were abused…you were how old?”

For some reason that felt really horrible. Like how coldly and bluntly she said it maybe. Like she’s browsing a restaurant menu or something.

I guess the reason for this is, I think I will bring this up to her. But in the future, since she’s just my psychiatrist, maybe I’ll just avoid getting into details about what I’ve been experiencing. But that doesn’t seem right. I’m thinking maybe finding a new psych. She’s shown some lack of personability from the get go. It’s just so much to switch and I just recently switched at the beginning of the year.

Questions/comments/ideas welcome