Guys... I think I need to be stronger. Stronger in my efforts to pursue recovery, if I ever want it to work for me. I have to be... assertive.

The thought terrifies me.

I need to tell my psychologist that I'd like her to refer me to a new psychologist, and also that I'm interested in going to see a nutritionist. She can, at least, actually do the first one -- and if she can't follow through with the second one, she'll be able to direct me to someone who can. I may have to go crawling to my GP for a nutritionist referral, but my GP does know some of my history, so I think she would refer me with a small bit of persuasion.

I need to see people who can actually help me -- who actually WANT to help me. Despite what my current psychologist may say, I don't think she is actually invested in our therapeutic relationship. She doesn't really care how often she sees me, or what we talk about. She'll see me once a week, once a month, or once every two or three months, and it's all the same to her. She could spend a whole session talking about completely superficial, irrelevant things and it wouldn't bother her at all. She also doesn't have any sort of specific treatment plan for me; and if I give the smallest indications of resistance, she backs away and doesn't ever touch the issue again. In short, I do not feel that she is at all committed to helping me, nor am I even remotely convinced she has any fucking clue what she's doing. Actually, sometimes I find myself wondering how the hell she managed to get a PsyD at all. (We'll ignore that she told me she didn't get into any of her first-choice grad schools, and then didn't get into ANY of the internships she later applied for, which was how she ended up in Newfoundland in the first place. Maybe I shouldn't be quite that mean -- although sometimes in the back of my head I feel like it.)

Many of you probably know that on Star Trek: The Next Generation (okay, I know it's nerdy -- stick with me for a second), Deanna Troi is the ship's counselor, and a formally trained psychologist. In one episode I watched recently, she said this, and it really struck home:

"People come to you with the problems they want to talk about, but what you have to do is get them to talk about the things they don't want to talk about."

Now, this is pretty much true, isn't it? I mean, isn't it? It's usually the unacknowledged issues that hold us back, and our inabilities to deal with certain issues which make us mentally ill in the first place. Yet my current therapist's approach is the complete antithesis to this quote. She will never, and I mean NEVER, try to pry ANYthing from you. If you say "I don't want to talk about that", she actually takes you directly at your word and never talks about it ever ever again, even if it's something that clearly bothers you, and which any competent psychologist would know you probably need to talk about despite immediate emotional discomfort or pain. It's like my current psychologist can't stand the idea of inflicting "more" pain on a client, even though dealing with the shit inside of them would, in the long run, probably help most of her clients a good deal -- far more than her stepping-on-eggshells way.

The truth is, that may actually work for some people, as her own anecdotal evidence would seem to indicate, but it doesn't work for ME. I need a therapist who will challenge me, who will invest in the relationship, and who actually has some idea of what kind of treatment I require. I need a therapist who cares if I don't call for an appointment for weeks -- who will express how often she thinks I need to see her, and might actually be concerned if I stopped coming as often. If she wasn't concerned, I would hope she could be honest with me regarding why she was not concerned -- honest as to whether or not she thought I even needed to be there, and if she didn't think so, honest about how we should terminate therapy. Honest, instead of keeping me on indefinitely, neither driving the therapeutic process forward nor terminating it, which is what my current psychologist does. There is no inertia in our therapeutic relationship at all; it is static, fuzzy, and completely incoherent and directionless. That does not work for me.

I shouldn't have to put up with that kind of bullshit when it doesn't help. Therefore, I have to work up my own assertiveness and tell her I need to see someone else. Get a new evaluation, maybe, and see if I actually need therapy, instead of having the psychologist basically tell me that whatever I decide is all right with her, because I'm not going to go home and take a whole bottle of pills or something right after we finish our sessions.

Therapy just doesn't work when the therapist says, "Leave... go... talk... don't... whatever. I don't care." Don't most therapists usually have opinions about whether or not you actually need to be there? You know? What kind of fucking psychologist IS this that I got landed with, anyway??

I need to get out of there... get out and find someone new.


Any support at all would be appreciated.

Please tell me I can do it. Please tell me I'm not crazy and illogical for thinking these things. I really need to hear that I am not stupid and that I am not wrong. I really need to not be stupid and wrong.

Please.