share29.oct.25

It feels like every session he just tells me to share more. But what if there’s a point where there’s nothing left to share and there should be interventions for what’s already been shared? When will that point be reached? I don’t really know his plan. I can tell he IS competent honestly really good as a clinical psych and all the more important stuff has just been shared recently, so I don’t know what more he wants to assess. Ofc there IS more I can share, but every session just feels like me sharing then…what? I did ask this before multiple times if you can tell from the transcripts and the other time he’s said “to understand…I don’t know what we can do with that understanding but if we don’t understand we can’t do anything at all…” and “…to help you cope better in life.” And when I asked what do you understand then? He said a string of things about me so I can tell he is listening and he does understand, but I’m just a bit confused.

so is this just how he treats everyone generally? Just…ask for more clinical material, discuss it, maybe talk about how to counter it once then move on? Is that just his style? Or maybe it’s just me, I just hate the listen and validate approach, I hate validation (unless if it’s for my intellect or something adjacent to performance, but I’m dependent on it in this aspect so I’m trying to get rid of that dependency because it makes it the foundation of my self-concept and hence makes it fragile…), so maybe that’s another learning curve of being able to validate my own feelings, so I don’t have an issue there, and listening is a given, it IS therapy after all. And honestly I’m not looking for coping skills? per se, that feels too shallow to just take a skill and use it, and so only sharing some skills sometimes works for me (he did share box breathing, and etc.). So really, I’m conflicted. There has to be something that doesn’t feel as shallow as just giving skills or giving insights or a to-do (to reflect on xyz…I already reflect constantly, but this gives a guideline so honestly I’m grateful for that).

But I want a process maybe. A process on how to go about things. Which phase I’m at, I’m here, how do I go to the next phase, do I do something or wait or…but of course I know it’s not that rigid or structural, that the process itself isn’t linear, and to be frank I'm quite sure neither side is’t clear on what goals I’m working towards but at the very least he should know I don’t want my presenting issues to conflict with my day-to-day and to be able to be in a different state of mind while preserving myself. His bio does mention he works primarily from a CBT/Gestalt perspective though I can see that in my therapy sessions specifically he’s working more from a person-centred / psychodynamic lens, which is great, and I’m aware whenever he switches from it to ACT or values based work or that downward question thing, so honestly I can see the work flexibility, but I don’t get why it’s not working. I see this as me being a problem, but. I mean there were a few sessions where he did say “a lot of people…xyz” and that implies he has worked with similar presentations so I don’t know if that’s just a technique to show he’s competent, to normalise my experience, or to provide a relational baseline for “normal”.

Tbh I think part of why I’m fascinated when I see the other clients he has is because I wonder if the work is the same. I know it won’t be identical, everyone is different with different concerns, but the duration, the work itself. I see some of them coming back and leaving at the same times, and some never come back, which either means they’ve completed treatment, switched therapists, stopped going for financial or personal reasons, or maybe switched times. But I’m more fascinated by the completed treatment possibility. What does that look like for them? Is that even possible?

No, I don’t want a process. I don’t need a process to know where I’m at or where I’m going. Honestly, I just need to know I AM going SOMEWHERE. I don't know where that somwhere is yet, logically I know it's what I want to be "different", but I can't really envision that yet.