"Pausing of Therapy Soured Whole Experience"

I had been attending Adult Psychology for years, which I appreciate is significantly longer than most patients, which I acknowledge and am grateful for. I acknowledge that I wasn’t the easiest patient to work with due to how extremely strong my DP (Detached Protector) was, which included being very difficult to get me to open up, and subconsciously self-sabotaging the work. So, it took a while know what my goals for therapy were.

Throughout the years the psychologist did mention that it may be necessary to pause therapy, which I initially interpreted as therapy ending and said as much the first or second time. The psychologist made it very clear that it would just be a pause and they would be happy to continue treating me.

My main goal which was to tackle my feelings of defectiveness was retained, and when originally setting the goals, the psychologist suggested including reducing/removing the Detached Protector (DP), however the psychologist explained that in order to tackle my defectiveness it was necessary to remove the DP first which I accepted only on the understanding that my main goal was tackling feelings of defectiveness.

As layers of the DP were removed, my feelings of defectiveness became more acute, my level of distress increased, which resulted in my psychologist recognising I needed hospital treatment of my physical health and to stay safe, which I myself didn’t recognise, so I appreciate their efforts in keeping safe. I'm not sure if improving distress tolerance was ever formally added as a therapy goal, but it did become part of the work, which I recognised as being necessary, and have no complaints about.

As I did want my therapy to end (after completing the goals) rather than it being ongoing, I did regularly push to move onto tackling my defectiveness. The psychologist would say my detached side was still too strong, which I would accept until my feelings of defectiveness became more acute, in which case I would push to move onto tackling my defectiveness again, and again I would be told that I was still too detached.

Then, in I believe in late-2021/early-2022, my psychologist made it clear that if I didn’t make progress that we would need to pause therapy, which I wasn’t happy about, but I could fully understand as it had been a number of years, and would be a better use of resources to work with someone they could make progress with, rather than continue with me and no progress. The required progress being that the detached protector was further reduced, and my distress tolerance improved.

I achieved these goals in the Summer of 2022, and it was finally time to start tackling my defectiveness, week 1 of this I shared my third significant defect.

Throughout the work on removing the detached protector, I shared a few minor defects, and three what I consider to be significant defects (at least the defects that cause me the most pain), unfortunate the experience of sharing the last two (at different times) significant defects were not a great experience.

The first significant defect shared was overall a good experience, and did some work (I think either the same session I brought it up or at the next session as well), which helped but didn’t fully tackle the defectiveness, which I wasn’t expecting it to and I believed that we would return to this after we had finished reducing my DP, which I was fine with.

The second significant defect shared resulted in not been tackled at all, and was a bad experience when I brought it, and when I persisted at the following session it was also a bad experience, but I appreciate in the follow-up case that was due to me misinterpreting the psychologist’s motivations/actions, but did result in being tackled at all.

Third defect, the session I brought it up was a good experience, and psychologist did try to tackle it, but these weren’t landing, however I could see that they were trying, and I was optimistic that at the following session we would make progress and that the psychologist would be working with me as part of a team to tackle it.

However, following that session, the psychologist decided to pull the plug and pause therapy, one reason given was that the psychologist was unable to see my emotions, and so thought I was still too detached. Another reason given was as the result of me deciding to be more fully open and honest with the psychologist, and as it was given as a reason to pause therapy, I feel as if it was used against me and I was punished for being more open and honest. The psychologist also highlighted that because I had been in therapy for a number of years that a gradual exit process would be required, which made sense.

The not being able to see my emotions was due to these sessions having been via the Near Me sessions, and I believe this was subsequently shown to be the case.

Following this, I was able to at least have a review meeting, where it was agreed that I would receive 6 sessions of using imagery to help tackle the defectiveness and then a further review, the success criteria for the review was not discussed. It feels like the intention was to always end after the 6 sessions, and that the 6 sessions were instead of my exit sessions. Throughout these 6 sessions and at the review sessions, the psychologist again made clear it would be a pausing of therapy.

I was only given one exit session, and at this exit session for the first time the prospect was raised that therapy may not resume. Leading me to question if I can trust anything the psychologist has said over the years.

I thought that I could reluctantly manage for another year of having reduced DP before resuming to tack my defectiveness, but I am finding it extremely challenging & difficult without support.

Treatment