Have mental health professionals helped you?

[ellisonz]

[mopinko]

1. on average?

or any one ever? i think you poll needs more options.

[ellisonz]

3. On average.

[DemExpat]

2. Yes,

Not definitive or conclusive help, but each one helped me reach another step in understanding and handling my personal mental health crises and problems.

But I did pick and choose them, there were a few I intuitively didn't find helpful and said "No, thanks" to very quickly.

DemEx

[no name no slogan]

4. Some have, some haven't

It's been a mixed bag. I've had some doctors who've worked miracles and some counsellors who were truly gifted, but I've also had some who could best be described as quacks, too.

It's like any profession: some are great, some are okay, and some are terrible.

[hunter]

5. Yes. There are some very good ones out there.

There are a few bad ones too.

But mostly there are professionals who would be good if only our stupid health care system didn't make doing a good job impossible.

I'm lucky to have very good mental health care these days because my wife and I know the system, and we can afford it.

The majority of people who have mental health issues are not so fortunate. In the United States the social "safety net" for mental illness has some huge gaps in it.

On a personal level, my own mental illness comes with a huge amount of caginess toward mental health care professionals, and I'm a terrible judge of their performance until everything in my head is running smoothly again.

There's really got to be someone in your life you trust, friends, family etc., to provide feedback on how things are going, otherwise you can get trapped in some pretty awful places.

[Droopy]

6. For the most part, yes.

I've only had one bad experience with a mental health professional and that was with a psychologist I had right after my last hospitalization. I'd sit there and gab for an hour and she'd say next to nothing. After about 8 such sessions I decided I was throwing money down the drain and ended that arrangement.

[mopinko]

7. i had one like that.

i hate that. if i wanted to hear myself talk, i would just take longer showers. i sound better in there.

[AngryOldDem]

8. I've had a few and I guess I just know how to pick 'em....

...because most sessions have been some of the most frustrating times I have ever spent. If I want to spin my wheels I'll drive my car into a mudhole somewhere. At least it won't cost $100 an hour.

I actually got into an argument with one therapist who wanted me to deconstruct my family history going back beyond my parents. I had, and have, no effing clue as to any of that and she wouldn't believe me -- I asked her just how all this related to the issue I was in counseling for (a particularly traumatic work experience that resulted in a lawsuit) and she really had no good answer. She then wanted me to speculate as to my parents' and siblings' thoughts and actions...that's when I called bullshit. If I want a fishing expedition, I'll go down to the river.

I went to this person for several months and then quit when I realized that I was actually feeling WORSE than when I started.

If anyone has any suggestions as to how to find a good therapist, I'm all ears. I've come to the conclusion that it's just easier to muddle through by myself.

[DemExpat]

9. I kept looking until I found the good ones.

But a word of warning - you certainly can feel much much worse sometimes in therapeutic processes, is my experience.

And psychotherapy can be a fishing expedition into hidden family dynamics from the past, :-) but if you are looking for specific event counselling, this is a different, more short term approach, I think.

DemEx

[bertha katzenengel]

10. oh. hell. yes.

cliche or not, i wouldn't be here.

[InkAddict]

11. One, in particular, taught me just how those

"defense" mechanisms work to hide our true selves.

Imagine, if you will, seeing a human mental health professional with a passion for the chaos, turmoil, and inhumanity that will insure big bucks in his/her pocket, before, ongoing, and foreever after. Who would have thought....Invasion, rendition, torture...no problemo; just go along to get along.

It's all good and will end eventually. You'll know yourselves better, boys and girls. Oh, and in the meantime, just chill...that little conscience can be drugged, manipulated, and retrained into integration. Those collective and personal actions that accummulated into that IED of hate and body bits...one can deny them, distort them, project them, reframe them, rationalize them, sublimate them, all away. HEROS, LIVE WELL IN WAR AND AFTER!

How could that person even purport to have empathy for those losing their Constitutional protections, their employment, their home, their relationships, for those that would bring that kind of evil excitement right into his/her lap? For money!

Same deal! With a whole lot less trust because this one irrepairably damaged the reputation of their profession to me.

[Forkboy]

12. Not at all, despite their best intentions.

There's a line in the movie The Departed where the lady psychologist says the Irish are the only people impervious to psychoanalysis and I'm starting to think that's true.

[Roon]

13. I love my physcharist

We spend 50/50 taking turns talking. I have to see her about every three months otherwise she won't re-up my meds. She is so good,just being in the same room with her and she can tell if you are doing well or not.