How To Be 'Good' At Therapy

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▼ Timestamps ▼
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0:00 - It's not your job to know what to do
1:40 - All you need is a starting point
3:09 - Therapy is not a passive process
5:27 - Be honest if it isn't working
7:25 - Therapy has many varieties
10:02 - Conclusion/Recap
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[Haghenveien]

One very important thing: set boundaries. With my first therapist I didn't know I could do this so I felt pressure to answer whatever they asked me even if i wasn't prepare, to talk about things I didn't what to talk. etc. With this second therapist I have learnt that I can say no. And that makes a huge difference because it puts me in control. I think that being active in therapy it's also about this.

[wouterverbeken]

Men will litterally bingewatch Dr. K videos for 7 hours instead of going to therapy

[Hafaechaes]

My first therapist latched onto anything I said vigorously, working hard to make me think it's "THE trauma" and "fixing" it with EMDR.
My second one loved the "you tell ME, you're the expert of you" shtick, even when I desperately asked her to help me navigate.
My third would forget almost everything I tell him by the next session, so I was repeating the same stuff week after week making no headway.


All these had something in common, namely that they had capacity to take me right away... . My next therapist took me even though he was at capacity - lo and behold, he's actually a capable therapist. All this time people kept telling me that I just had to find the right match when it comes to therapists and I kept believing it, but even though I did "find a match", in hindsight the others were probably shit matches for anyone.

So if you're having trouble with making therapy work, absolutely explore the possibility that the common denominator is you, but sometimes if it quacks like a duck, it's a quack ;)

[alexia]

The concept of "It's not your job to know what to do" really helped me. I knew the "you need to put in the work" but was worried because I don't have a full picture of the entire roadmap of therapy, and hearing that that's literally the point of going to therapy and I'm hiring someone with expertise I do not have to help me do that helped me let go of a lot of stress

[PathForger_]

So, mytakeaways:

- Be transparent
- Understand that both the therapist and the patient work towards bettering the patient.
- Understand that the process takes time - but every interaction is an opportunity for progress.
- Be reasonably open to new perspectives and ideas - but also not so much so that biases are being temporarily glossed over. If biases exist and are seen as problematic then they do eventually require address - reducing the odds of 'rebound'.
- One-size-fits all is not really how things work.

[flawlix]

My old therapist fired me as a patient after persuading me to do a sensory deprivation chamber, which he insisted would help my anxiety. When I did it and then told him I hated it (boring! I can’t be still that long! Made my thoughts feel louder than normal! Felt like a waste of time!), he got real sulky and told me the next session that he didn’t think I should continue therapy with him. I agreed, cuz clearly we were a bad fit.

[philippkeysers]

A problem with trying all those different "cuisines" is that there's often a really long time you have to wait until you can actually meet the therapist and start therapy.

[Fixtin]

Ive been in therapy of a good while now, and how i see it is that I am a ship sailing in the open sea, i am the captain, i choose where we go, how we go, and am the one who is responsible that we get there. My therapist is the navigator, its her job to know where we are, and the way we have to go to get to my destination. Its not her responsibility to make sure the sails are working, its not her job to make sure the hull is clean, its not her job to do any of that, only tell me which way to turn the ship in order to get to where i want to go.
Now if i cant make sure the sails are in order, or the hull is clean, then i need a larger crew. So i hire a personal trainer to fix the sails and then i can clean the hull while making sure the ship goes the rigth way.

[indiesongwriter]

I'm a therapist and I would say one very important thing is to tell me if something is or isn't working. I always ask clients how it's going regularly, and a few times I've had clients not tell me that they wanted to focus on something else or go in a different direction. I do realize that if someone's problem is asserting their own needs, that this is difficult at times in therapy, but it's so important.

[GabeWilliams]

I had a therapist that would expect that I had something on my mind to talk about and I’d end up having to overthink it and figure out what to talk about when I got there. Glad to know it wasn’t really my fault lol

[modern_eel]

I've had 3 different therapists, the first one was able to teach me CBT, but eventually CBT wasn't what I needed and we came to a close. Then my second therapist was really good at helping me heal my sense of connection to others through EMDR and that eventually came to the close of what I needed and I was OK for a while. But trauma is often like an onion and I needed therapy again. I'm healing totally different things than the previous two were able to, and a huge part of that is that I'm not ready to heal those things.

Therapy isn't a one-stop-shop. We're fuzzy, wiggly things with fuzzy wiggly problems, and it may take some time for therapy to touch and heal all the pain.

[partysqud]

Whenever I go to a therapist or a psychiatrist, they keep bouncing me around to different colleagues who "are more experienced with the issues I want to work on" or they just outright say that they don't know what to do with me or where to begin.
I think my favorite dismissal was a psychiatrist saying "You're not a patient; you are a liability."
That being said, I really appreciate the videos that you make, Dr K. There is a lot of great advice that is rather general, yet still applicable, and the past few weeks have done more good for me than the past decade of searching fruitlessly for more personal help. Thanks for all that you do.

[TheDhammaHub]

That is one of the paradoxes of therapy... on average, it works fantastic for those who are already doing pretty good while yielding mixed results for those who _really_ need it

[justsomejojo]

TIL that being silent and letting the patient talk for an hour is a Freudian approach. Huh.

My old therapist did it like that. I never brought it up since I was new to this and needed to pour myself out anyway. Haven't been there in a while though, partly because of Covid, partly because our approved sessions ran out and also partly because that approach actually hrlped me a ton in getting better. Not only did I get out a lot of pent up stuff, but with the few comments he made he also gave me the feeling of not everything being my fault (I blamed myself for EVERYTHING bad in my life)

[thomaslizzi]

I'm a 26 year old becoming a therapist, who is also a client in therapy, so I love these videos. Having a therapist isn't a grad school requirement to be one (it should be), but it's still alright to ask your therapist if they've experienced being a client.

[jennw]

I did bring up my concerns, to disastrous results. I was with a therapist for nearly two years and it was a session about how the therapy was going -- some things had changed, but I observed that the core of my PTSD had not -- that seemed to cause her to have countertransference and terminate me. I believe this happens a lot more than it should - clients are terminated for the therapists' convenience.

[nightingalebard]

I really respect what you're doing. It's wonderful that someone could be considering therapy but they're scared, or they don't know how to go about it, and they can find you online. Suddenly, the concept is that much more realistic to them and they feel safer to get help. Thanks for taking the time to make content online!

[Hollow-tyqm]

I think it's important to remember that there are good and bad therapists. Sometimes you have to try different ones tp find a good one. I've had some really shitty therapists and now an amazing one that's really helped me a lot.

[paulmoore]

As someone who currently goes to therapy, one thing I would personally suggest is don't be afraid to ask your therapist questions. I know a few people go into therapy expecting the therapist to just explain everything to you and only have the therapist ask you questions, but being completely transparent with them also means asking questions for things you need help with or things you want answers too. In my personal experience, I have gotten more help from my therapist and the best advice from them by me asking them a question about something

[rachellewatson]

There are so many experts, including a lot of therapists, who subscribe to the idea that the client should know what they want/need when they present. This has unfortunately become the standard of care across different professions which is so disappointing. One of the most meaningful parts of my job as a therapist is explaining the rules of the game and how therapy/the mental health care system works. Just a few minutes goes such a long way. Love this video!