Is therapy worth the money?

[samantha19]

I still have a lot of issues and I am considering paying for therapy. But at 40 pounds a pop (on the inexpensive end of the scale) it ain't cheap.
I was thinking of doing it twice a month, totalling 100 pounds per month including my online social anxiety course.
That's a lot man. I'm on a pretty low income for that.
It is doable however. So I'm just wondering, is it worth it?
Can I achieve recovery on my own or will a therapist actually speed things up and help a lot?
It seems unfair to have to spend so much per hour just to talk to someone, but I know it's more than that. They work on your recovery and I guess they have to pay for an office or whatever.
I live in the UK so have the NHS but my experiences have been so tiresome, and not good, that I don't really want to go back to them.
So yeah, what's your experience, if you don't mind me asking? Is therapy worth the money 

[Alice97]

I don't have an answer for you, but thanks for asking this question. I've been wondering the same thing.

[radical]

I guess it depends where you are at, and the quality of the therapy.

I wouldn't have gotten through the past while without a good therapist, so it has been pure survival.  But it can be difficult to find a trustworthy therapist with the right skills who is a good enough match for your personality.  You need to shop around because it is a lot of money to waste.

My income is about minimum wage, but I don't have 'social' costs or other major expenses.  My hope is to pull myself out of the effects of the latest bout of abuse and it's outfall, and build on what I've learned.  I can't do that alone, without specialist help.  Some people can make their own way through.  Maybe it's worth interviewing a couple of therapists to ask about their skills, practice and experience ?  I think the first session can be free, but I'm not sure.

My goal is to be on my feet, and starting a new life in a different place by the end of the year.  If I can't get back on my feet, I don't intend to be around.

[snailspace]

Good question Samantha.    My last T cost me £40 also and it was a costly experience.
Hadn't thought of going fortnightly and wonder if there are any benefits for spacing the treatment out like this apart from the obvious financial one.  Some people go twice weekly for example.
Part of me objects to paying twice theoretically, already paying NI for inadequate MH services.  But have to think what's best for me.
Have you looked around to see what therapists in your area offer?

[annakoen]

Agree with radical. Therapy is totally worth it, IF(!) you find the right therapist.

I've been in therapy for years and it's only since I've discovered, on my own, that my mother has autism, that I have been able to search for and find the right therapist for me. The ones before that did help a bit, but not as much as this one, because her expertise is children of autistic parents.

So, it can be a hit or miss thing, but once you find the right therapist it's totally brilliant because you feel understood.

Ways to find a good therapist: visit support groups for your particular situation, if they exist, and ask your peers what therapists are good from their experience. Write down what your c-ptsd stems from and search for therapists with that exact expertise. Interview them: ask them to tell you what your peers struggle with and check whether the therapist is able to summarise what you struggle with in an empathic manner. Always check that they are registered.

Finding the right therapist is a matter of searching, sometimes long and hard,  don't let that discourage you.

Edit: Note that most decent therapists will be able to help you somewhat  regardless of whether they have expert knowledge and understanding of your situation, as long as they realise how deep your trauma is. Most will want to focus on things that don't even scratch the surface, like mindfulness courses. For me personally, this helped only a little because they (and I) did not realise I had not passed through the grief and mourning yet.

[woodsgnome]

Therapy competence and affordability are both huge hazards in this cptsd labyrinth. It can be a tough one to navigate, but my experience has been that in-person therapy can play a huge role in one's recovery efforts. But not the only role--therapy isn't something a professional does to you, but with you. It's a huge paradox that, like the medical community in general, the therapeutic one has gotten a little out of focus on the client's role.

Actually, for years I avoided therapy altogether, resisting the idea of someone else probing into my psyche. The fact that I live in an isolated area made that easier. I was in a sort of 'spiritual bypass' situation where I thought that my self-work (reading, meditating, workshops, etc.) was only needing a boost and I'd be fine. I didn't realize how bad off I truly was. What I'm calling 'spiritual bypass' was a smokescreen hiding my inner issues (there's a 'spiritual bypass' thread posted in the 'religious/spiritual abuse' section of this forum).

So I decided to see a therapist who also listed 'spiritual counseling' as a service. Within minutes of the first meeting, she sliced right through to the core of my situation, which she told me resembled ptsd of a high degree (this was before the 'complex' tag was widely used). This shocked me but I knew she'd hit on my real needs.

Okay; so the work with this therapist was rough but on target to where I found I needed to reorient and rescue my being. Financially, she used a sliding fee scale based on my low income. Unfortunately, she also soon left the area.

Since then, I went through a lot of therapists, but none were of her calibre; some were the proverbial blank wall sorts, while others had their own strange agendas and/or ego-based top-down ways of doing things; even allowing for burnout (something to watch for) their ideas were far off the pace of being mutually inclusive of the client's needs.

All this time I was still living very isolated, which is still the case. But therapy options have moved closer, and every time I've given up on it, I still felt an urge to try again--it cuts through the lonely pain to have that other voice. But it wasn't until recently that the search for results via the therapy route has shown promise, and I recently found an incredibly sharp practitioner who has good empathy and one-on-one communication skills plus the background in trauma-related issues and most important, the critical component to work with someone and not just throw out a bunch of jargon and spin.

It's helped that I qualify for low-income status to help on the financial side. So that's not as big an issue this time. It's still difficult to offer a blanket recommendation that one should do therapy at all costs. As has been pointed out in this thread, there's a huge range of what's out there in qualified help for one's individual situation.

So here's what I've learned from all this.

...a good approach seems to be to remember that this is about healing, not only treatment. Ideally, they can be complementary aspects of any therapy.

...inquire deeply at the first meeting(s), trust your gut (I 'went along' a couple times; fell into the trap of going against what felt right--perhaps even because I did have that first good therapy experience).

...continue to work (read, etc.), independently of the therapist. Relying on that one occasional hour only chips at the surface, it seems, no matter how competent the therapist. It's still your recovery process that's important, but therapy can provide that anchor provided the therapist is willing to learn from and with you, too.

...find an alright financial take on this. Sporadic or spaced-out sessions may seem a stretch, but worse would be breaking the bank at all costs. This is where one's independent work can indeed be critical.

So it's a guarded process, and it's hard to offer a blanket recommendation; but in my experience the benefits outweigh the risks. That other voice can be a difference-maker in keeping one's sanity, but it comes with cautions worth considering. 

[Three Roses]

a friend of mine and i are going to give this a shot! i find i am overwhelmed with the idea of going to yet another therapist after moving, and slogging thru all the details again!

Pete Walker on "Co-Counseling" (taken from his website http://pete-walker.com/coCounseling.htm)

If you are not able to find or afford a "good enough" therapist, and/or if you want to supplement your current therapy as my wife and I do regularly with each other, you can look for a safe partner who is willing to work with you to mutually evolve a co-counseling relationship. There are many forms of co-counseling. Here is a simple structure for establishing a safe and healing co-counseling relationship. I have used this model and derived great benefit from it not only with my wife, but also previously in two different long term counseling exchanges. Please feel free, of course to adapt the model to fit your own mutual needs and agreements.

1. Meet weekly and exchange 30 or 60 minute sessions.
2. Begin with the counselee talking about all and any of his her concerns and with the counselor refraining from intervening other than to practice, Active Listening, to enhance the counselee's process of full verbal ventilation [See Chapter 5 in my book for an elaboration of verbal ventilation.]
3. Active listening is based on an attitude of "unconditional positive regard". It uses non-directive, non-intrusive verbal feedback to let the listener know you are paying attention. This includes responses like "un hunh" and "mmm-hmmm" and a technique known as mirroring. Mirroring occurs when we repeat key words or phrases that the counselee utters to let them know we are really paying attention to them. Advanced mirroring occurs when we paraphrase in our own words what we hear, but is only helpful if we make an accurate translation of what's been said. Finally, the use of open-ended questions is perhaps the penultimate active listening techniques. Questions such as "Can you tell me more about that?", "What happened after that?", and "Do you have other thoughts and feelings about that?" can be very helpful. Individuals vary in the amount of active listening they find helpful. Please try to be open to giving and receiving feedback about how much you or the other would like.
4. In order to establish safety and build trust, begin with a commitment to refrain from advice giving, criticism or any kind of unsolicited feedback except active listening. If and when the desire for feedback comes up, it is best to let the counselee determine when, what kind and how much they want. Do not give any feedback unless it is clearly asked for it. The counselee often does well to be specific, and even set limits about the type of feedback desired; e.g., "I'd like to know whether it seems I'm perceiving my boss clearly. and I'd like to just verbally ventilate about my relationship, but don't really want any feedback about it other than active listening". With enough grace, luck, respect and compassion, mutual trust can eventually come so far that you both agree to change the structure to allow for spontaneous feedback at certain times in the session. Don't rush to get there, and always reserve permission to invoke the no- feedback guideline for any given issue, session or indefinite duration of sessions. In this vein, my wife or I might say to each other: " I think I'd just like active listening today. I'd like to just extensively free associate on and explore this anxious feeling in my chest without getting any input about it."
5. Practice therapeutic confidentiality. Let what is said in sessions stay in the sessions.
6. If both partners read my article:" Relational Healing in Complex PTSD", prior to commencing a co-counseling relationship the use of these principles will most probably be enhanced.

[Danaus plexippus]

What a lot of really great advice! Everyone should read this thread. I'm not able to improve on it, but I'm grateful to have found it. My first T & shrink were free through church. They over medicated me and left me feeling judged. My next T was excellent but at $150 a pop, I was not able to see her often enough. Currently I'm back to free assistance thanks to the Zadroga Act. My meds are close to perfect and my group is super supportive. If I had the money I would add private T sessions, but I'm enjoying the camaraderie of the group T. 

[kateykay]

I am brand new to the site and thIs is a wonderful question!

I have been going to therapy off and on for about 15 years. I have had at least five, and what has been said here is correct. There are good ones and bad ones. Finding "the right one" can be difficult. My last one was- well, not so good. The one before (I had to stop because she was $150 a week but was worth every penny) was the best I had of all of them! Very insightful, incredibly educated (Masters in both clinical and developmental and a doctorate) and very, very experienced.

However, what she did was NOT "normal" therapy. Over the years she has decided that the - what -practice? of something called EFT (Emotional Feelings Therapy -sounds crazy, doesn't it? It isn't.) would be something she wanted to do. It was an amazing experience. I hope to be able one day to return to her. It (and she) were incredible. She even taught me to do it myself.  She is also the person who said - flatly -C-PTSD was an issue for me. I can't believe the others didn't see that. I had an abusive, personality disordered mother, was sexually abused, have eating disorders (make that "was formerly participating in") etc. etc. * of a childhood.

I think, like anyone else, the good ones find things they like and use and stick with them, so what they offer may just not work for you. That's not you doing something wrong. It's just what they do.

So you don't have to do particularly anything, I don't think, just find what might work for you. And you may be able to at a price you can afford.

There were things the last therapist did that were good, the just weren't the majority of her practices. She also was quite narcissistic, which I think kept her from being very insightful (which is important).

Best of luck. Therapists can help immensely -or not help much at all. Just keep looking until you find the right one.