Thought about therapists/counselors that I wonder what people think of

But arnt you paying for the expertise of the therapist? They went to school for 4-6 years to learn that stuff. Its a job and a service just like any other.

What about mentors, life coaches, doctors, coaches, personal trainers, masseuse, mecahnic ?

By the way, your therapist sounds fucking FANTASTIC! Stick with this person or people.

Iv seen a psychologist myself and and I too though what if I see her on the street? My next thought was well she cant be stopping every time she sees a client on the street. I would just say Hi how are you and let her go with her in mind. Our time is our most precious resource, its something we will never get back and therapist cant be concerning themselves with ALL or any clients problems or life outside the practice. It would be time consuming and not fair on him or her. The thing with you is you have a need of your therapist and want his or her time but thats why they get paid, its a job like any other, they are not a charity, they need to eat and live as well. Think about your mechanic, if you seen him would he ask how your car was? Look, your therapist would give you the time of the day, he or she would ask you how you are, but to ask for more than that I think is too much to ask. If say you needed to get a job and then they see you they may say "are you working?". But there not going to get personal or go deep because if they are out they are there for a purpose, shopping or what ever and then they have to move on to there family, friends, life, house work, cooking, kids, exercising, what ever. Stop over thinking things, your therapist sounds like he or she really cares about you, to say you feel like the centre of their universe and many other comments is so good. I felt like my psychologist wasnt as invested in me as much as I would have liked but I put it down to her and thats her service and she invested into me as much as she would have anybody else. She was good.

 

Hey this might be interesting. I have a bachelors in applied psychology. Would love to work in the field, but it is not working out right now. I am working on getting in a job in this field. I like to help people on their way. To be there for people in a significant way. This a very rewarding experience. I could certainly do this as a volunteer. And this would be a very rewarding thing to me. However I also have to pay my bills. Pay for a place to live, food, etc. So I need a job. So to get paid to help someone else in a real and significant way, would be fantastic for me.

Additionaly a good reason for it being a professional thing is the distance. I have someone close to me, that suffers from something serious that is officially described in DSM-5. (Diagnostic Manual of Mental Disorders). I try to be the best help I can be for that someone. But I can't have the role of therapist/counselor, even if I was fully trained. I am too close to that person. There is too much history, too many emotions. If you are too close to someone, you cannot really be their therapist.

Taking these things into account, it is not that strange that you pay someone for their services to listen to you. I hope this makes sense and helps you feel less weird about your counselor.

An alternative might be a self help group, where people talk to eachother by sharing their experiences on similar problems. This might seem less 'unnatural' to you.

 

I think this might have to do a lot with voluntarism. You and your therapist voluntarily come to an agreement on what you are exchanging, value for value.

• Your therapist gives you value in the form of self improvement and you give him/her value in the form of income. Win-win.
• Friends exchange value for value as well. You both enjoy each other's company. Win-win.
• Saturday, you help your friend move and Monday that friend cuts your grass while you are out on a trip. Win-win.
• Your grocer provides you with groceries and you provide income to the grocer. Win-win

These are all voluntary interactions.

It logically makes sense that you "should" feel normal right? This used to drive me a little nuts as well so I think I get where you are coming from..

I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I bet you didn't have those win-win voluntary exchanges growing up.

I'll give you my experience with this.
My dad would "ask" me to do his crusty dishes "please" - often the dishes from the entire week (I was at my mother's house). If I didn't do them before he got home from work, he would yell at me. When I asked him to rinse his dishes so they were easier to wash, he didn't. When I asked for some sort of compensation for my chores, he denied.

If I had had a jar of marbles to represent my relationship with my dad and..

1. A marble was added for every time he helped me with something, mentored me in some subject, gave me useful life advice, etc.
2. A marble was taken out for every time he yelled at me or was irritated by my words or actions

That jar would be less than empty.

So here we have an interaction that is largely involuntary. You can choose your friends, your therapist, and your grocer, but you can't choose your parents. I didn't choose to get yelled at and chastised for being lazy if I did't do what someone else wanted with no exchange of value. Considering the long-term consequences, I received negative value. Win-lose

Instead of negotiation, bullying tactics were used to get what he wanted. And this happened all the time. Of course he was very nice when we wanted the same thing.

So naturally, a young child brought up with win-lose interactions will feel downright uncomfortable in some win-win interactions.
"He's not giving me anything in return for dish washing", "Is it really about my work ethic?", "Does he love me or does he just like that I clean up after him?" naturally turn into these corresponding questions:
"Am I being screwed over by this person?", "What's his motive?", and "Does he really care or does he just want the money?"

I guess what helped me get past this was a lot of podcast conversations and Real Time Relationships. I think asking the question "Do I want X for Y" can be useful, but I still have trouble determining if I really did want the exchange or whether I was doing it because someone else wanted the exchange to take place.

Anyways, lengthy... How'd I do?

 

I should add that maybe you don't feel like the exchange is worth it. You may feel resentment for your therapist even though you are free at any time to cancel your sessions.

I will add that I think a therapist is a great idea, particularly if they are a good one! I think the future improvements you gain can lead to improved income opportunities because of an increase in healthy function. I think this video could be useful if you wish to watch.

 

The idea of seeing a therapist/psychologist both intrigues and terrifies me. I've always said the only thing about me that works properly is my brain, obviously that is a joke but I've genuinely started to worry about my mental health since the start of this year. I'm equally worried about finding out that, as well as my plethora of physical health issues, I may have some mental health ones too. I'm proper on the fence about it.

 

Sorry if this sounds harsh, I'm exaggerating the drama to get my points across:

#1:

If you're going to criticize therapists for getting paid, how about starting with yourself. What's your job? Why aren't you building houses (or whatever) for free out of the goodness of your heart? Or do you only care about helping people have a home, if you're getting paid for it?

#2:

Stop giving a shit if they actually care about you. You're not paying them to be a caring friend that listens to everything you say, agrees with every opinion you got, and chat nicely over a coffee in an office, you're paying them to do a job: Help you resolve psychological stuff, so you can be more effective at accomplishing (or finding) your life's mission.

If they aren't helping you become more effective, then why haven't you "fired" them and found someone who can?

How do you know if they're effective? Are you happier the longer you've seen them? Do you have an easier time getting jobs, get higher raises, finding more dates, stronger relationships with the same (or more) friends, feeling more confident over time?

 

BTW, I've seen a psychoanalysts type of therapists, and found that to be really helpful with figuring some stuff out, and good independent questions/opinions about my introspections.

So I recommend them, but it'll totally depend on who you try out. I know people that have seen therapists for years and have nothing to show for it.

 

Do you realize how good that is? Iv already gone over it, time is our most limited resource, why should your therapist get into details outside of the practice? Is that fair? Come on, we give our time freely to our family and friends and for our own life, its not fair to expect a therapist to give you time outside of the practice because If one issue comes up that could open up a can of worms. Eg, how haveyou been? firstly im sure they will ask, but you start getting into things and right there on the street you cant get into details of why you havnt been well and whats going on in your life, these things take GOOD TIME, like 30-50 minutes JUST TO SCRATCH THE SURFACE. Thats the reason why if there is 5-10 minutes left they wont get into another big area because its not enough time to explore it. Make sense bro?

Again, life coach ? Mentor? Doctor?

Lets go a bit deeper because I am a good thinker and a good journaler, let me play the psychologist for a second.

You want your therapist to want to care about you out of there own time because they love you and care about you. You feel strange to pay them for emotional support because you feel/think without money they would not care for you.

Guess what, we have to go back to that time thing I was speaking about and im not sorry about that. They are not a charity. Good luck finding a proffesional who is going out and saying "anybody that wants to speak to me I will listen and care for you". There may be people trying to break into the industry but my point being who do you help? Is it first in first served? Do you realize the back list? Holly fuck there would be a waiting list on 12-15 years minimum.

I'll tell you something right now, I hope your listening because you gotta get it through to your head and or heart. Your therapist Really cares about you, just making that statement about being the centre of your universe, can you not respect that? Your problem is you want this person to feel that way about you for free in their own time, when you are a stranger to them, a client, why should any psychologist involve themselves in the suffering of other people outside of the practice? Can you imagine how shitty there life would be? Would you? Not if you where a self respecting, self loving person you would not, so you cant expect people to be caught up in a non family non personal friend that they dont know and they likely dont even go that deep for friends, even family dude, they just would be more open to give there time to a family member.

Thats interesting, you keep hearing it, but you deny it. Your right, the trained therapist is wrong, im wrong. Im sorry but your over thinking things and jumping to conclusions. For your own benefit I think you should stop jumping to conclusions, I use to as well because of my drug use. My advice to you would be to tell yourself maybe im wrong and when you hear the same thing over and over by trained proffesionals and someone like me (giving myself credit ) you should listen, im from the outside looking in and I can see things you cant, do it for yourself and just accept that you over think things. I dont want to anger you man im sorry but I wanna help you. You sound a bit like I was. See with me, im being a bit silly now and giving you my time freely because I dont have the self respect and self love that a psychologist working in the field does, I should not be wasting my time on this forum helping people. I have my own life and my own problems to overcome, and your psychologist does too, he or she is not a perfect omnipotent human being and has challenges and a life that they have to deal with like every other human being. See the difference between me and your psychologist is your therapist sees how many people a week? How many people a month? How many people a year? How many people over 3-5 years ? 10 years? And you want her to care for you and your problems and your life in his or her own time? Come on bro..

I'll tell you this, with certainty, your psychologist will NOT judge you a bit. You should feel comfortable to tell him or her anything. They will NOT make you feel uncomfortable or make you disclose anything you dont want to. There job is to listen to you and make you feel comfortable. Yeah? They are train proffesionals, they know how you feel and they know what to do, say not say, not ask. But the more you reveal about yourself the more you gain. You dont have to disclose it all in a session but you dont want to end it with thing you should of said but didnt. What ever it is your afraid of, they will not judge you as a loser or moron or anything like that. Psychology is about understand why, and for example there is a reason why we use do fap and watch porn and its less about libido than it is emotional issues, wanting to escape. If for example you wehere to tell your psychologist about NoFap, which I dont think you will and neither have I but they would work out what emotions are you escaping from. What is going on in your life that is making you escape to porn and fapping. They would never think "this guy is a wanker, he watches porn and jerks of" no, never would they be so judgement, psychology is about passing judgement and understand why and the greatest human need is to be listened to and understood.

 

Well it looks like you do have some people that want to talk voluntarily! I don't even really have this myself. It would have been very beneficial to have that support growing up no doubt.

There are new counselors that do this for free to get hours, although my experience was not great with one. I got in within a week. Almost nobody wants to admit that they need help and actually go to counseling.

How do you know? The only person that can figure this out is PMO Addict.

Did he not tell you that this is annoying? I have to agree! "You're not allowed to use your brain to analyze your life!" Fuck off.

Everyone judges the world around them at all times. "Don't judge" is an impossible command to follow.

"Should" I? According to what natural law?

Well.. I had one that did. And I quit going..

You put a lot of trust in a title.

If you say, "I'm sorry but.." you can usually eliminate the first three words because you admit you aren't sorry once you say "but." He also told you he didn't like being told this. What are you doing? Hell what am I doing here.