Slingshot Progress in Therapy

Sometimes progress doesn’t mean moving forward. Progress, I think, is continuing movement on the path one is destined to walk. And, in my experience, falling into the deepest hole is sometimes the staging ground for incredible growth. Of course, we don’t often recognize that when we’re in the hole. We don’t say, “Oh yeah! I feel so badly, but isn’t it great?” More often it’s, “I feel like crap, and I don’t think I can take much more of this. I just want to quit.” Most of us don’t quit, and it is finally in retrospect that we see growth.

I experienced a tremendous example of this with my previous therapist who I saw for approximately ten months. We were not a match, but I didn’t realize this until much later in our work together. The signs were there, though. Apparently I wasn’t paying attention. Or I didn’t want to believe them. For the most part, therapists are warm and friendly, so in those first handful of appointments, it feels like the relationship will be successful.

The first warning I ignored was about trust. Something T said didn’t ring true, and it seemed such a little thing that I dismissed it as insignificant. But there continued to be more and more of these “little” instances. Whether it was my own insecurity projected onto T or actual deceit on her part, I don’t really know. Regardless, the fact was that I continued to share my story with someone I didn’t trust. And my attachment grew.

At the same time, I experienced almost hostile rejection. The interplay was so bad that I admitted myself to hospital-based intensive outpatient treatment on four occasions. The relationship had become toxic to me. I felt despondent, suicidal, desperate, hopeless. In the last months, I would leave a session thinking I could not survive one more hour like the one that had just passed. Then throughout the week, my resolve to terminate would soften, and I’d return to my next appointment, hopeful. Only to have it happen all over again.

Those months took a toll on me. I paid in huge amounts of anxiety. Huge deposits of self-doubt. Not to mention the additional ca$h it cost for the intensive outpatient treatment I needed to deal with my “non-intensive” therapy sessions.

I was finally able to terminate, but it has taken longer to disengage. And while I am confident that leaving was absolutely the correct action, I still feel residual effects of the betrayals. The damage shadows the relationship with my new therapist.

Yet, it has also taught me one very important lesson. I know it is crucial that my relationship with T is rock solid. I must attend immediately to the slightest anxiety about her. Letting it slide just lets it fester, and the longer it festers, the harder the recovery. My commitment to practicing the lesson of this horrible experience has been instrumental in securing a working relationship with my current T. A very, very good relationship. But I truly don’t believe I’d be here if it hadn’t been for my terrible experience with previous T.

 I’ve come to think of this as the slingshot effect in therapy. First being pulled way, way back – almost to breaking. Then the release and an incredible hurtling forward – the leaps and bounds of progress.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.  - Frederick Douglass