Tag Archives: Therapy

Oct 31 2012

Group Therapy?

So many ideas, so little motivation. My drafts folder is overloaded with stuff. I think of an idea, whip out my iPhone and note the idea plus some basic points about it down, then get back home and stare at the closed laptop in contempt, and go and do something else (until yesterday, that was mainly playing Dish0nored, although I’ve completed one ending of it now. Gamer? Go and buy it if you haven’t already done so!). Or, more frequently, nothing else.

I go through periods like this quite frequently, so if you’ve heard nothing from me on Twitter, on your own blogs, via email or in response to comments left here, it’s because I’m hiding from the world. It’s not that I’ve lost interest in any of I'll Be Backyou – never that. It’s just that my social awkwardness often extends into the online world, particularly when I’m feeling low. I wouldn’t describe myself as depressed as such, but I recognise that the symptoms of an episode are wider ranging that just mood. Not that I would describe said mood as sublime, having said that. Does that ever happen outside a manic episode? I don’t know what I believe about that any more – a subject of one of these billion unwritten posts, indeed. Anyway, sorry. To coin a cliche, it’s not you, lovely people; it’s me. The whole SAD thing doesn’t exactly help matters.

Anyway, I’ll be back!

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Sep 25 2012

Psychosis vs Dissociation

I have 13 draft posts sitting in my WordPress dashboard (including, from 1st June, one entitled ‘Everyday Feminism’. A response to a wave of posts on feminism on other mental health blogs, this article was conceived and drafted well before I learned of the excellent ‘Everyday Sexism‘ project, which highlights exactly the same things as I’d set out to write about. Given the huge success of that site, I clearly missed a trick there 😉 Oh well; it’s entirely my own fault.) So, rather than try and complete one of those, I am of course embarking on an entirely new post. Obviously.

My therapist and I irritated each other today – indeed, he commented at the end of the session that it was “almost like we were arguing.” I responded by quipping, “you should have seen me arguing with my last therapist then.” It was intended as a compliment as it happens; my last therapist had a propensity for being an arsehole, and my current one generally doesn’t. I used to scream at, laugh at, sneer at, insult and on one occasion even threw something (my glasses) at my ex-therapist. I have never felt thus inclined with the current one.

However, as I was walking down the stairs out of the building, I realised that if anything I’d insulted him by reminding him of how volatile I could be with my ex-therapist (and not him). If that sounds perverse, then hear me out. My ex-therapist had (eventually) access to all of me; the good, the bad, and the very, very ugly. My current one often comments that he only occasionally sees any anger in me, yet he knows it’s very fundamentally there. He never sees psychosis, dramatic outbursts, personal attacks, blah de blah, and he wonders why.

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Jun 6 2012

Guided Imagery in Therapy – Part Two

This is the second post in a series I am writing exploring the use of guided affective imagery as a psychotherapeutic device. Each post is/will be, broadly speaking, a free-writing exercise based on my experiences of this technique in my own therapy sessions. The first post in the series can be found here.

The door is open, and I can now see inside the house. There is a corridor – well, a hall I suppose, but it feels more like a corridor, as it’s not particularly homely – stretching out in front of me. It’s a musty brown in colour, though it feels as if I am looking at it through a lens of grey. It doesn’t feel frightening as such, but there is something about it that urges caution in me.

What leads off from it? the voice enquires.

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May 29 2012

Guided Imagery in Therapy – Part One

The following is the first of a series I intend to write on guided imagery – also known as guided affective therapy or katathym imaginative therapy – as a psychotherapeutic device. Although punctuated and (hopefully!) free from any major grammatical errors, it’s essentially a free-writing recollection of my therapy sessions in which this technique was used.

I am told there is a house on a hill. Can I see it in my mind?

Close eyes, lean back head, breathe deeply. But eventually…yes. Yes, I can.

And am I willing to agree to a guide taking me around the house, but let my own mind decide the specifics of the house’s aesthetics?

I draw breath, and close my eyes briefly in contemplation. But yes. Yes, I am.

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