Episodes on Episodes: A guide to finding a therapist.
Therapy. It’s a bit like plumbing.
Understanding how plumbing works really helps when you’ve accidentally blocked the toilets at your mother-in-law’s house. Thing is, you can’t learn how to service or repair a boiler from watching a Youtube video.
At some point, you’ve got to call a plumber.
Therapy is the same. You can do loads of wee bits to ensure the best possible chances for your mental wellbeing, but when things are complex (they often are), you may need to enlist the help of a professional.
Like many, I was initially allergic to the idea. I wasn’t broken. I was quite high functioning I’ll have you know.
But I’d find myself panicking off my tits at the smallest of triggers, and I was jeaopardising my job by suggesting ‘PornHub’ as the Media solution to pretty much all briefs that came my way (Vodafone, you really missed out, it’s a cracker).
Although I needed it, the first rational barrier were logistical. NHS waiting lists were long, and it was going to take me more than 6 sessions to ‘fix’ me. Privately, it’s anywhere between £50 — £140 for the privilege of sitting in that chair to talk about where it all went wrong.
‘I’ll go when I get a pay increase’, I kept saying.
Deep down, the prospect of being misunderstood on repeat by a mental health professional also filled me with dread. This, as well as the idea of re-living the pain of the past, is another huge barrier to why people don’t go, because, well, it can be painful.
I eventually caved. I went to resolve a traumatic experience which plagued my nightmares to the extent I became scared of sleep. I left with the understanding that we’re shaped by all our banal everyday experiences from early childhood and not just acute ‘horrible things that happen to you’ in adulthood.
Here’s what I wish I knew before I started.
- Think about an approach which may best suit you
We’re all different.
If you’d prefer a short term, deeply logical approach which would help you rationalise your way out of intrusive thought patterns or specific issues, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy may be for you. There’s a fair bit of homework you’ve got to do to really see the results, and it takes practice to implement the new ways of thinking you’re introduced to. This might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
It could be that you’re aware of an acute trauma that’s happened in your life that you haven’t wholly processed. In which case, a practitioner who has training in EMDR could be helpful (I’ve got a separate post coming on that, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing is where a practitioner recreates REM sleep eye movements, enabling you to process trauma in a conscious, controlled and safe manner. It’s truly life changing. Would recommend).
Most psychotherapists have an integrative and holistic approach. Like a Swiss army knife, they choose the right tool for the job at hand. I chose a psychotherapist who specialises on the connection between a person’s physical and mental connection during treatment. It only felt right that you could be prepared for the feeling of being panicked off your tits, by treating and paying attention to how your triggers make you feel.
There are other approaches, from art to music therapy, which are also wildly successful. (This is helpful if you’re wondering about the extensive list of therepeutic modalities there are out there. There are loads https://www.psychotherapy.org.uk/psychotherapy-training/psychotherapy-approaches/)
We’re all traumatised in some way. The goal of therapy won’t get rid of it entirely (impossible!), but it’s outcome is best illustrated below.
2. Find a therapist you like.
It turns out: it really helps if you actually like the person you’re laying bare your life to. It sounds daft, but it’s almost impossible to trust someone you don’t like or warm to. From there, you won’t be able to vocalise the truth behind your thoughts, feelings and experiences. It makes the exercise almost pointless.
I once tried a therapist who used to just burn sage every time there was a silence. There were quite a few silences, so I stank by the time I left and was slightly concerned she would just go ahead and perform an exorcism if went back. Safe to say, healing doesn’t happen when you suspect your practitioner MIGHT be madder than you are.
Also, paying £70 an hour to chat to someone you don’t like is just a waste.
3. Try not to be too put off when they suggest it probably started in your childhood.
It sounds a bit like a cliched trope that therapists focus on ‘the terrible childhood’ you must have had, and extrapolate their conclusions from there.
It’s a trope for good reason: our childhoods, from how you’re disciplined to the amount of play you experience, shape all of our behaviours today.
I was fiercly defensive of my childhood. I was convinced that Mum being tough task and hard to impress made me a funnier, more resilient, self-depricating, high achieving human being. I was alright, really?
Digging a little deeper, it’s at the crux of my insecurities; it shapes how I react. I can never do enough or make people laugh enough. I’m sat there screaming LOVE ME, when really I end up looking like a desperado on all counts.
When I fail, the blow feels more like the end of the world than a learning experience. She didn’t mean that to be the outcome, of course, but here we are. The quicker I learnt this, the easier it was to see parallels between how I was conditioned to behave, and their outcomes.
Most parents are lovely (it’s not your fault, mumma!). They often just don’t have the tools to function as superhumans. While a baby needs for the world to revolve around them for them to be fully functioning supported adults later, it simply just doesn’t happen. This is why I think everyone would benefit from psychotherapy.
BUT: the sooner you play the role as ‘detective’ to your past, the better. Why? What happened to you in your formative years has a bearing on how you react to stuff. This often forms a pattern which may have helped you when you were little (and you couldn’t run away, change the situation or fight back), which are unlikely to help you now (like putting up with abuse). It’s only when you understand patterns, and learn how to self-parent, you can break them.
Science says it too. Like many experts, Dr Gabor Maté says adverse childhood experiences (even really minor ones) can distort development in multiple ways. He illustrates this with the example of babies born to Jewish parents in 1944. They cry far more than their other baby counterparts because they’re deeply connected to their mother’s deep stress, grief, fear and sadness.
Simply put, the more stressed parents are, the more developmental problems you will find in kids. And it isn’t limited to wartime situations. The daily grind is MORE than enough. (Parent readers, Phillipa Perry’s ‘The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read’, is brilliant https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-book-you-wish-your-parents-had-read-and-your-children-will-be-glad-that-you-did/philippa-perry/9780241251027)
I don’t think I’d have worked out these parallel without the help I’d enlisted. She has also helped unlock and heal an awful lot more.
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In short, if we neglected the plumbing like many of us do our mental health, your house is likely to be a smelly, clogged up, unpleasant and even dangerous place to live.
But when someone has helped you fix the boiler, they can give you a few tips on how the rest of it works. You can learn how to plunge a bog by yourself and know you’re not doing the wrong thing. When you work out that washing coffee grinds down the sink will clog your drains, and that limescale can mess with why your shower goes hot and cold, life becomes that little bit more manageable. And if your boiler goes again, you’ve got someone on hand to come back to help sort it.
I’m not at the end of my therapy journey just yet. That’s a game changer when you’re trying to work out why people behave or react the way they do. I’ve learnt that every behaviour is the result of an unmet need.The world could be a more compassionate place if everyone had the chance to go.
NB: The sad reality with therapy is: it’s hideously underfunded. The habitual need to go to it really haemorrhages your bank account. If you’re lucky enough to have health insurance, definitely see what they can do for you. If you don’t have health insurance but would set some money aside, many practitioners are happy to see people fortnightly. There are also means based low fees options, and the IAPT, which are definitely worth exploring too:
https://freepsychotherapynetwork.com/organisations-offering-low-cost-psychotherapy/
https://www.nhs.uk/service-search/find-a-psychological-therapies-service/
