From: templin@grayling.CS.Berkeley.EDU (Fred Templin)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology
Subject: When is it time to fire your shrink??
Date: 22 Jul 1992 21:24:42 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: grayling.cs.berkeley.edu

I'm posting this question hoping that people can give
me some suggestions on how to make an informed (rather
than emotional) decision for myself on this subject.
My situation is that, when I moved to California in Nov.
1990, I immediately looked into finding a therapist
to help me reach my potential in sports and relationships.
(I had just moved from NH, where I had been seeing a
therapist for six months who I felt was helping me make
great strides in those areas in the aftermath of a very
upsetting broken relationship.)

Anyway, I found the number of a psychologist referral
service in the yellow pages and, when I called the number
and explained what I was looking for, the person mentioned
that she had experience in those areas and would be happy
to have me in for an appointment herself. Part of me was
a bit suspicious that she elected to see me herself and
not refer me to another psychologist, but I rationalized
this by telling myself that "she's the authority, so I'm
sure I can trust her".

Well, now after over close to 2 years of seeing this same
therapist, I'm finally starting to have extremely suspicious
feelings as to whether she's been helping me or simply
stringing me along. First, since I've started seeing her,
I've actually become less active in my sports, almost to
the point of leading a sedentary lifestyle. Second, I've
made no progress with my love life; I'm as frightened as
ever of approaching women who I'm attracted to. Instead,
my therapist's tract has been to very deeply explore my
parenting issues, which I'll admit have been many. Her
emphasis has been on getting me to feel my pain and get
out my repressed anger. Also, her approach has seemed very
businesslike, clinical and cold to me. In any event, in
my life now I feel very frustrated, upset, and depressed
a great deal of the time and don't seem to be getting much
of the "blissful living" which has all along seemed to me
to be that "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" I've been
striving for by choosing to go through the therapy process.

So, my question is, what questions do I need to ask myself
to make an informed decision as to whether it's time to
fire my shrink? Do I trust the part of myself that's yelling:
"This doesn't feel good to me, and it hasn't felt good since
I've started". Or, do I continue on in the (almost) blind
faith that this therapist has me on the verge of a significant
breakthrough and that happier times are just around the
corner? How can I even know what her intentions are toward me?
(i.e. whether she's trying to get me fixed up and out the door
or whether she wants to keep a good paying customer on the
line to keep the cash flowing in??)

Everything right now seems so open-ended to me, and seeing all
the things printed these days about becoming addicted to therapy
and therapists who have abused their parent/doctor relationships
and movies like "Basic Instinct" (my therapist just happens to
be a very attractive woman who studied psychology at U.C. Berkeley
just like the main characters in that movie :-) ) have aroused
my suspicions and have caused me to seek out the opinions of
others. Thanks in advance for any you can give...   
-- 
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	Fred L. Templin
	(templin@grayling.Berkeley.EDU)

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Newsgroups: sci.psychology