Have you participated in psychotherapy?

[Pekka]

Did it work for you? How long did you go? What issues did you have? And did you really want to kill your father in order to have sex with your mother?

Did you marry your mother?

[BeBMan]

I only had physical therapy as a teen after breaking my finger.

Fun fact: It was the right hand middle finger, and after the plaster (? is that the eng term ?) came of it was basically stiff so I had to do excercise for some weeks to get it moving again.

No XP with psychotherapy or mother-marrying, but hehe, never say never.

[Proteus_MST]

Thanks to my study in Neurobiology and Biopsychology I was close to psychology ... and also invaded dead peoples brains.
But I never invaded a living persons brains or have some living person invade my brain

[rah]

Just for a little bit in college since I needed on to sign off on dropping a class. Nothing serious but a couple of short 2 minute conversations.
Otherwise, never saw the need.

But then having a twin brother probably helped. If I needed to talk about anything, he was usually available.

[Lorizael]

I've been seeing the same therapist for the last four and a half years. I've also seen a variety of mental health professionals going back to my teenage years (who didn't help, which was usually my fault). My current therapist helps me mostly with issues of depression and social anxiety, and she's been tremendously beneficial (but more for the depression than the anxiety). As the psychotherapy she practices is primarily cognitive behavioral therapy (the type of talk therapy that does best in studies), there's none of the psychoanalytic bull**** about wanting to **** my mother or whatever the **** else Freud pulled out of his ass.

Therapy has been helpful for me not because we reach major insights about my true self and then have a good cry and everything's better... but because my therapist teaches me skills that I can employ to combat the many unhelpful habits/attitudes/beliefs I've developed living with mental illness for most of my life.

[ZEE]

AAHZ sees both a psychologist and a psychiatrist. You see, I am certified and authentic Schizophrenic and Bi-Polar. Medicated. 51/50'd and the REAL DEAL. No fake crazy here to try to look scary. No self-diagnosed horse****. AAHZ as true as the sky is blue. A TRUE lunatic. a psycopath. a nutcase. high-risk. just plain-old, goddamn DERANGED.

'sup.

[Jon Miller]

Never.

I might have needed it, but handled my father's TBI and later death without the need for it.

I and my wife also saw a relationship counselor only once (I went an additional time by myself). We definitely need to see one (and I should be seeing one without her also).

JM

[Aeson]

For about 3 years in my late teens. Starting on recommendation for a sleep disorder from a regular doctor and ending up with 5 hospitalizations, a couple suicide attempts, a litany of medications, and ultimately ECT.

For me therapy was counterproductive, as were all the various medications. ECT was useful, just not in the way it was sold to me and my parents. It gave me about 3 months of kinda blank space whereby I developed intellectually on my own without interference from my previous intellect. Perhaps more importantly, It lead to me going cold turkey from meds and shrinks. Sober for over 20 years now.

[Pekka]

What is ECT? What did you find counterproductive with therapy?

[Aeson]

Electro-Convulsive Therapy. It's where they send electric currents through the brain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroconvulsive_therapy

[Aeson]

As for therapy, one of my problems was a deep seated feeling of guilt that wasn't attached to anything specific. I just always felt it from early in life. So going to a psychiatrist and not seeing any results quickly became something that guilt latched onto and gained traction with intellectually. The whole idea of needing help was difficult for me to handle. Thoughts like "you're just wasting your parents money on this" and "even with professional help you aren't able to just be ok" ... became stronger and stronger.

I also think turning over responsibility (in part) for my mental health over to someone else was very detrimental just from the standpoint that I lost some of the strength I had built up when dealing with those same issues entirely on my own. I didn't really handle them well, but I could deal with them. After it took me years to build that back up to where I, on my own, could deal with just living.

[Jon Miller]

I think that the 'change of mind' is both more needed and more difficult than commonly held. I can really think of two in my 'adult' life... both involving mental decisions, a physical/chemical component and emotional distress. I would say that both were strongly impacted by and strongly impacted my spirituality.

The first was, as stated, after my dad's death. i was already very unhappy with my direction, and wanted to change to be both a better and different person. I had also become less rules focused and more relationship focused in my spirituality. I am not going into all of the details; I quit attending church for a time and started drinking (sometimes heavily - there is the physical/chemical component) and became much more friendly. Afterwards I was a much different, in some ways better and in some ways worse, person.

The second time was only three years after the first... I was unsatisfied with my life. I decided to start attending church and exercising and working hard. The radical change in my lifestyle did cause problems, I passed out at least once and maybe more times (I think this was also a physical/chemical change, like the alcohol). Afterwards I was again much different, I think purely a better person (still relationship focused in both spirituality and with friends, but also healthier, more dutiful and goal oriented (something I had loss at the second change)).

I was quite happy with this third me.

(I am going to cut it there)

JM

[Pekka]

I think that the 'change of mind' is both more needed and more difficult than commonly held. I can really think of two in my 'adult' life... both involving mental decisions, a physical/chemical component and emotional distress. I would say that both were strongly impacted by and strongly impacted my spirituality.

The first was, as stated, after my dad's death. i was already very unhappy with my direction, and wanted to change to be both a better and different person. I had also become less rules focused and more relationship focused in my spirituality. I am not going into all of the details; I quit attending church for a time and started drinking (sometimes heavily - there is the physical/chemical component) and became much more friendly. Afterwards I was a much different, in some ways better and in some ways worse, person.

The second time was only three years after the first... I was unsatisfied with my life. I decided to start attending church and exercising and working hard. The radical change in my lifestyle did cause problems, I passed out at least once and maybe more times (I think this was also a physical/chemical change, like the alcohol). Afterwards I was again much different, I think purely a better person (still relationship focused in both spirituality and with friends, but also healthier, more dutiful and goal oriented (something I had loss at the second change)).

I was quite happy with this third me.

(I am going to cut it there)

JM

By change of mind you mean what? Thinking differently or being a different kind of a person? Or those two being the same thing? Feeling better, doing better?

[Jon Miller]

Becoming a new you, a different person in a real way.

Aeson described it as developing intellectually without interference from his previous intellect, which resonated.

in my early 20s I would say that I was basically the same as I had been since early childhood. There had been a slow development, not for the better, and responses to the outside environment, but I felt very much as if I was the same person (same feelings, same reasoning, etc). Now, looking back both at the early me and the grad school me... they really seem like different persons. I don't think the same way anymore.

I don't mean that they are entirely foreign. I have memories/etc and still many of the same beliefs and relationships. There is just a disconnect. Similar to how I view the perspective of some of my relatives (Obama is an atheist communist kenyan muslim).

JM
(I do also feel like I could become the old person again, and I very much do not want to, which guides some of my behavior.)

[Bereta_Eder]

psychodynamic 2 years.
the doc studied at an austrian uni no less. you can't get more freudian than that.

It solved the problem.

[Bereta_Eder]

CBT as well as meds are bull and short lived.

Oh you feel bad? here's some farting excerise that will take your mind off it

[ricketyclik]

I try to go for a good, long motorcycle ride as often as I can.

[ricketyclik]

Walking's good too.