# therapy



## Guest (Jan 18, 2016)

any one else feeling like therapy helps only a little and despite telling everything, etc, doesn't change anything?


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## Chicane (Oct 8, 2015)

Yep, therapy proved to be a huge waste of time and money in my case. I specifically sought out a therapist who claimed to be well-versed in anxiety, disassociation and OCD, and who claimed to be able to teach CBT. So I would detail my symptoms to him very explicitly each week, telling him what I was struggling with and saying that I wanted to learn coping skills and self-soothing strategies. But instead of helping me he would continue to ask questions that seemed of little or no relevance, and after 10 weeks was still asking about my upbringing, relationship with my parents, etc. So I stopped going and don't really see a therapist at all anymore. That might not be the smartest move as I clearly need some form of ongoing support, but at least I'm not wasting money on ineffective methods.


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## thy (Oct 7, 2015)

i had 10 sessions of psychodynamic therapy (maybe not long enough) and 10 CBT sessions and neither really helped much. i asked here to hear if anyone had actually recovered from DP with therapy. didnt get any replies.

http://www.dpselfhelp.com/forum/index.php?/topic/52853-anyone-recovered-from-dp-with-therapy/


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## thy (Oct 7, 2015)

jus7 said:


> any one else feeling like therapy helps only a little and despite telling everything, etc, doesn't change anything?


what therapy are you doing?


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## Zed (Jul 25, 2015)

There seems to be a preconception on this website that the benefits of therapy should start being apparent after a few weeks. Unfortunately that's not the case. It can take years of therapy to get over something like this. It's a very deep seated illness. I've been told by brilliant dissociation aware therapists it can take more than 12 months for a patient just to gain enough trust in a therapist to be able to talk about some of the deeper issues that caused the problems in the first place. Trust is massive in therapy and most people don't seem to understand that. It takes a long time to build a trusting relationship as with anyone. Feeling safe is very important as well and that takes time too.

You can't possibly judge how effective therapy is after 10 weeks. Apart from the dpd itself there's probably a whole bunch of other issues to be addressed such as anxiety, social anxiety, depression, relationship issues, drug and alcohol use, concentration problems, eating disorders, etc. It's just not possible to deal with those types of problems in a matter of weeks or even months.

Therapy is the key to recovery for those who have a profound and debilitating dissociative illness. Medication should be viewed as a secondary treatment. Medication can stabilise sufferers in some cases but it won't cure it. Understanding dpd and working towards rewiring our responses (so as not to dissociate) with proper therapy is the most effective way to make the dpd subside.

It's also a matter of finding the right person to work with. Even if a therapist has a thorough understanding of the dissociative disorders - the still might be a complete tosser! So be prepared to move on and find the right person for the job. It's not uncommon to go through half a dozen therapists to find the right 'fit'.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2016)

thy said:


> what therapy are you doing?


Hey. I have a few psychologists and feel like i have told them most of my life history, been through my dynamics and only see it as some kinda "support" as this point for me. As for the type of therapy. Few people with a blend of "styles, etc. I was just curious about other people's experience.


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## Guest (Jan 19, 2016)

@Zedd, cool response. I have yet to meet any psychologist etc that is a expert in this. The last one I had had to come to this site to learn about it lol. I've put in a good number of time into therapy in all honesty. I agree about the trust part and you can't judge it after a short time. Just was curious about what other people have to say. One thing i do want to add. Most people will give up if it takes a dozen people. I've seen maybe six and i'm fed up. Not saying it doesn't work but thats my experience.


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## Surfer Rosa (Nov 27, 2015)

Get a Dialectical Behavioral Therapist, instead of a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist. Thier clients are often Borderline or PTSD, so they are good at explaining strange, but not quite psychotic mental phenomena.

Just a tip/guess based on my experience. Call them up and ask if they can help you with the DP.


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## tomenko (Jun 9, 2015)

Cure a dissociative disorder take times. Years, not months, and not weeks.

I smile when i read someone blaming that few months of therapy didn't make changes (but i get it, emotionally).

Re-constructing the brain-mind-body homeostasis it's a bit more complex.

I talked with some people who recovered and they told me they did therapy for years and then slowly see the benefits (not on a linear dynamics).

As they said: the first year of thearpy is the worst. And that's true, i agree with them: I'm in therapy almost since one year and i could say that i felt a shit lot of times. I thought to leave therapy (still thinking) because it seems nothing was changing, but..something it is.

I could smell better then before (somatic aspect are integrating), my suicidal thoughts are decreased (in intensity and frequency), i could take a train or an airplane without problems (at the beginning i wasn't able to move from home),etc.

So i could say that dissociative disorder therapy costs a lot because it's a long term one.

But that's the main road to recovery, IMO, and that's the best choice for someone who can afford it.

At the same time, in fact, i know that many dp sufferers here on the website had dp/dr for many years...but for what i learned they didn't do any kind of long-term therapy and just take meds. I'm not blaming them at all them, obviously, but researchers and people who recovered agree on this idea: meds could help but will not cure dp/dr. So: maybe some people have costant dp/dr because they don't tackle it with a efficient long-term therapy?

This is a neutral question, not a provocative one.

About the therapist: I think it's extremely important to find a good therapist and try to not change him/her every couple of months just because we don't see improvement (again: changing brain/mind pattern and neural pathways takes time..). Impatient and frustration are the worst enemy, thought.

For someone looking for a good therapist i would suggest someone who is specialized in dissociative disoder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, attachement theory, trauma-therapy and sensorimotor therapy.

Ahn, also a good neurofeedback provider expert in those field could be really helpful.

Small inquiry for all:

1- For how long did you have therapy?

2- Which kind of therapy you did/do?

3- How many therapist you had and why you changed them?

bye

t


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## thy (Oct 7, 2015)

i think if therapy for DPD is taking years, then its not working. Thats just my fairly uneducated opinion, I may be wrong. If i had seen/heard any success stories (directly, not 2nd/3rd hand) then I might be persuaded otherwise.


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