I don’t think I can come up with words to describe how terrifying it is to me to not feel like I have a stable therapist situation. I don’t want to go back to my cycle of firing a therapist every few months but I also don’t want to be hospitalized. When therapy is unstable, the risk of me doing something impulsive that gets me hospitalized becomes much higher.
I wrote in my last post about #28 https://psychologytales.com/2013/09/16/lay-off-with-the-psychoeducation-28/
I feel like I’m taking a million emotional steps backwards.
I did about the best job imaginable explaining to #28 where the problems are in therapy with her. But still nothing has happened to give me even a tiny glimmer of hope that it could work out. To make matters worse we have to skip a week. So I have another week of being a mess and terrified about my complete lack of any support. I can’t stand the uncertainty about if this will work out.
I am too busy to have time to be this much of an emotional mess.
I think I would feel better if I had a referral I could hand on to to know it’s a option if nothing works. I literally can not find a single psychiatrist on google in my area who is not affiliated with my training program. I don’t know if I even have any other options at all, let alone one who will be a good match.
Tales of a Crazy Psychology Major 
That sounds really scary. I’m sorry #28 doesn’t seem to understand what the problems are and you feel so alone and isolated. I think that can be one of the most miserable and distressing feelings.
Have you looked at all of the clinicians? Are you looking specifically for a psychiatrist? If not, maybe there’s someone of a different area (social work, what have you), that you could try?
Sorry this is so difficult for you :/
I am on some meds so ultimately need a psychiatrist and also find split care does not work for me. The lists are overwhelming and they have to be unaffiliated with my program which makes it so hard because that isn’t search option. I think a referral is the way to go because the info online can’t tell me if it might be a good fit. A lot of therapists don’t like working with me because I don’t want to stop self harm.
I hear you. I don’t have any interest in stopping self-harm, either. Most therapists don’t want to work with me because I make them crazy, I think.
It makes sense why you would want a psychiatrist because of the meds, and having two therapists to juggle could definitely be a problem. I agree with the referral idea. Can you ask #28? Would that be weird?
This seems awful. A therapist that gets sarcastic and defensive is completely counterproductive as is the stance of so many on self-harm. I’m sorry you have to go through this (again) and hope you have good luck with referrals.
Yea. To be fair I think in our recent meeting where I laid out what had gone wrong she was receptive to listing to the feedback. The problem is I don’t know if anything useful can be done with the feedback.
I find this type of situation so unacceptable. I agree with you, at the heart of every therapeutic alliance is a need for Rogerian positive regard, warmth and empathy – which sounds like it was clearly missing here.
I’ve gone both ways – had a therapist and psychotherapist concurrently, and also just saw a psychiatrist who handled both the meds and the therapy.
My therapist is an MSW rather than a PhD or PsyD. My experience with working with different MSW level therapists is that they have a significantly higher level of Rogerian-qualities that seem to be somewhat inherent to the people who choose to train as clinical social workers.
Feel free to email me if you want to chat further.
It’s tough because I feel like a psychologist will have fewer professional degrees of freedom away from me. I know there are awesome MSW level therapists out there, but when I’ve tried seeing them before I’ve freaked them out a bit too much. I like the MDs all have some degree of big hospital ER experience and I think that makes them a little less jumpy. But I agree that the type of people who do MSW degrees are probably warmer and more personable on average but I feel like the other aspects of their training don’t meet my needs.
SM and I have a deal about monthly phone check ins. I think he’s intentionally not returning my calls and waiting until that time for us to talk. Feels like too long to hold out but feeling obnoxious if I leave him another voicemail message (already left 4).