Getting Treatment in a small town

[Staying]

So I've been in and out of counselling since I was 16 and in that time I have had some truly awful counselors. Which I will try to go into as little detail as possible because I don't want to scare anyone off getting help.

So how on earth does on get the treatment they need? while still staying in control of their treatment and still working with their counselor. This has been as question I have been asking myself since after first counselor I quit working with (the worst one I ever had) and since then I have gone through 4 counselors; the last one I actually liked and only had to stop using her because she was a private counselor and too expensive. I am now on the waiting list again for a counselor from the pubic health unit and before I was put on the woman running the mental health team at the hospital, last time I was there said that I've made myself a black sheep with the number of counselors I've gone through. I wanted to get up and slap that patronizing look off her face.

After the first counselor I had (who if you really want details just ask), I promised myself I would never allow myself to be told: that because their the counselor I have to follow them blindly. The next two counselors were not as bad as the first but had the same philosophy: that I should follow them blindly. Even if the treatment was not working they would say I wasn't trying hard enough. The last one I had was an amazing counselor and I wish I could continue working with her it's a shame she's so expensive.

So my question is how do I balance working with the counselor and what I want? Because despite what the people at the mental health clinic think I'm not just throwing them out if they don't agree with me I really do try to work with them and try to find alternatives. the counselors don't work with me.

Ummm reading this over this maybe should have gone in the rant thread

[Staying]

No that's fine Auror I didn't explain myself properly :)

So I can think of a few examples

Counselor 1
Wanted to make lists of everything and a timeline of when things; in this case school, should be finished by. The worse I failed at this the harsher the consequences got until we were at the point where she was telling my parents to throw me out of the house. Even when I suggested it we did not deal with the problems preventing me from going to school in a different way (although I did not push hard because I was still under the allusion she was always right because of her position). She insisted on using exposure therapy which went way too fast and did nothing but scare me and make me my anxiety worse. The only thing that I took from my time with her was the education on my condition which wasn't even from her they were just looking for something the student doing her practicum could do.

Counselor 2
This was my first counselor in adult therapy. She was very into new age techniques which do work for some and I even found a few that worked for me however she was very stuck on this course she had recently taken about a new form of therapy which after seeing the short video she showed me it was not so much a philosophy or idea to help you live your life by it sounded almost like a religion. When I tried to say that it wasn't for me she ran and told my mother who at the time I still thought needed to be part of my therapy. whenever I disagreed with her she would shame me or call my mother in the room and basically tell her the plan that she had not gone over with me, often doing the opposite of what I wanted with out working it out with prior discussion. She managed to do this in a way that still held my confidentiality and made me agree with whatever she had come up with that week because I didn't want to talk about what we had gone over with my mother in the room. Eventually I just got sick of this and told my parents I was not going back.

Counselor 3
This one I had problems with prior to working with because I was in her therapy group which was supposed to be a DBT course but in reality; it was two hours of people complaining about specific events related to their illness which they should have been going over with their counselor. During the group we hardly focused on the work and was only given reading material which we were supposed to learn how to apply to our lives from the class. When I didn't want to go to these classes anymore she suggested private therapy with her. I was hesitant because I had already found I didn't like this woman she was prone to gossip and made comparisons of mental illness that were insulting or wrong. But I went ahead with it anyways; this did not go well, she insisted from starting from the beginning again which at first I was fine with until I learned her teaching style she literally spent an hour every week reading to me and occasionally asking me if I understood what she was saying. When ever I brought up how to apply these methods in real life or situations I tried to apply them in she would give a vague answer or tell me we should continue reading needless to say she did not last long before I quit and just researched the methods on my own.

Counselor 4
I really liked this counselor she worked with me on what would be best way to treat my illness instead of; telling me what we were doing and saying I wasn't trying hard enough if it failed. She even went out and did research to better help me. She challenged me will still treating me as a person. and most of all she respected me which I did not get that feeling with any of the other counselors and in turn they did not earn any respect from me.

this was another long post but I hope that helps to explain

[Juella]

I can't give much good advice at the moment, but I just wanted to wish you luck and tell you I can very much relate to sad cases of counselors #2 and #3 on your list - I dealt with similar people.
Counselors are educated about human souls and sometimes it is reasonable for them to push things patient might not initially agree with. But they are merely human and like in any other profession, not all of them are good at their job. Unfortunately, it might take some time (and money) to find a right counselor.