I decided to quit for now …

At $100 or four sessions I had planned to re-evaluate whether or not my current pyschotherapy plan was right for me. I ended up going for five sessions, but deciding maybe it’s time to put a pause on things. My next scheduled session was for a week from Friday, but I called to cancel that appointment and not reschedule at this time — with the thought maybe I’ll reevaluate come the autumn when I have more free time and things are back closer to normal at work.

It became a drag on my life with no real plan

It came down to the fact it became a drag on my budget and time-off from work — five hours of sick time and $125 in co-pays over 2 1/2 months isn’t the end of world, but I didn’t like how it was always on Fridays when I wanted to get out of town. While I was getting some good advice out of each sessions, things were moving slowly and there was no real plan on how to move forward. It’s nice to say, we’ll explore it further in future, but I didn’t like how putting things off while sessions were filibustered on stupid things, like talking politics while ignoring my problems. I tried to get things back on focus, but I felt like I was doing more prompting of my counselor then what he was doing for me.

A failure to communicate clearly

Part of the problem was I had no real idea what I wanted to talk about or what where my concerns. I don’t think me and my therapist quite clicked, we couldn’t see eye to eye or understand what my concerns were. There was a failure to communicate on my thoughts, explain my concerns clearly, but also communication requires both parties listen, which I don’t think ever happened. The problems in my life might not be acute as some people seeking psychotherapy, but I do wish I would have been listened to more. After all, I am the paying customer. Sometimes I didn’t have all the answers or even known where to start, but I feel like in a session when I am working on my own problems in my life, I should be doing much of the talking and being asked questions to be more introspective.

I also didn’t like the anything goes attitude of my counselor. If you not assaulting little old ladies or shooting up heroin in the parking lot, that’s fine with the counselor. You should have any moral qualms about your actions if they are bad. But I would have rather had a more introspective look — why do I feel the way I do about things? Where do my values come from? While I get the benefit of a straight on comparison of the pros-and-cons of any one action, what happens if I look at it from other way? Just because something is relatively low-risk and unlikely to come out to be particularly bad, doesn’t mean you should continue that way.

What’s next?

For one I want to spend some more time this summer thinking about what I want to talk about, whether or not I go back to that therapist or somebody else. I feel like I’ve overcome a lot of the anxiety I had in the spring and I want to spend some more time trying to meet new people and learn new things this summer. But I think there is more I do need to address in the future like my pyromania, and maybe as a more prepared individual, knowing what I can expect and get out of counseling I can go back in the autumn and find ways to address my remaining concerns in my life not already addressed.