Aa
Therapists
What should a person with anxiety/panic be getting out of their therapist? I'm on my 4th session with a psychologist (never had therapy before) and all we do is talk about how my week went. Feels good to offload the daily garbage but shouldn't we be doing something more? Should I be getting some sorts of suggestion or instruction on how to deal? I'm starting to feel like what we're doing now isn't very productive or supportive enough...
Best Answer
There are as many theories of psychology as there are psychologists. Each one becomes a mini school of one. But they are deriving their techniques from general theories they learn in school. Yours sounds like a psychodynamic therapist, which means talk is all you'll get. If you want a more active anti-anxiety therapy, you can try cognitive therapy, which will offer specific anxiety treatment and exposure therapy. No technique is proven to be better than any other, but cognitive therapy is believed either rightly or wrongly to be the quickest treatment for anxiety. And also remember, all therapy will take some time, and each patient will need a different amount of time than another patient. What this therapist is trying to do is get you to focus on making your own connections between your thinking and your feelings, whereas cognitive therapists will direct you to specific affirmations and relaxation techniques and then push you to expose yourself to anxious situations. Good luck.
Thanks Paxiled, this helps; maybe at my next appt I will try asking her about her approach so I can understand it better. If that doesn't help I may seek a different therapist, I'd like to feel that I'm doing something more active.
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