How to Ensure You Feel Safe with Your Therapist

 

Seeking mental health is a difficult process for many. This could be made more difficult if you are unable to find someone who you click with or someone who you feel doesn’t understand you or wants to help you work through whatever issue may be happening at the moment. Here are some quick tips to assist you in ensuring you are finding the correct therapist for your mental health needs and your growth:

·       Ask the therapist what their specialty is and how it can benefit whatever need you may have

·       Ask the therapist what interventions they use, and how they help with your diagnosis

·       Make sure to always talk with the billing department about how much your sessions cost and if the therapist is covered by your insurance

·       Ask the therapist how they build deep relationships with their clients (i.e. rapport)

·       Does it matter if the therapist has a religious affiliation? Then ask them. If it’s important for you, you shouldn’t go against your values

·       Do they support you fully in both your gender preference and sexual orientation? The right therapist will identify you as you want to be identified as, and will use the correct pronouns with you at all times.

Some red flags to look out for in a therapist.

·       Therapist is talking more about themselves than about your concerns.

·       Therapist is interrupting you to invalidate you. Be aware some therapists do interrupt to assist you in being able to think in a more healthy manner, but if it is disruptive or unhelpful make sure to tell them.

·       Any inappropriate behaviors from therapist. Your boundaries matter! If a therapist is behaving sexually towards you, immediately leave and tell their supervisor or their board of licensure.

·       Therapist has violated your confidentiality. As a reminder, if you are suicidal or homicidal and you have a plan, a therapist will need to break confidentiality for your safety. But if they are talking with their family, their friends, or people in general who have nothing to do with your treatment, this breaks confidentiality.

·       If you don’t feel safe enough with the therapist to open up about your thoughts and emotions.

·       If you feel judged or shamed by the therapist.

·       If the therapist pushes you or forces you to talk about something you aren’t ready for.

If your therapist does any of these things and you fear they may be causing their other clients more harm than good, please reach out to their supervisor for proper guidance on what to do next. Just because they are a therapist, doesn’t mean they are a good one.

PTSD

 

We are in a world that has been stressful and had a lot of trauma for people this last year.  With all this going on people are at risk of developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). When there is a lack of predictability we can feel immobile to act and move, and we have a loss of connection to others, numbness, no sense of purpose, and/or a loss of sense of time or safety, and so we can develop PTSD.

There are things that we can do to help us avoid getting PTSD.  When it comes to lack of predictability we need to work on creating our own predictable schedules, such as organizing our life and having set times we get up, go to bed, and eat meals.  We need to have certain actives that we do/practice at certain times. Creating a schedule helps us have things to look forward to and make our own life predictable even when the world is not.

Our bodies have stress hormones that build up to get us to move and protect ourselves and they are set for fight, flight, or freeze. If we freeze we are more likely to develop PTSD or to develop or engage in destructive behaviors, such as losing our tempers, having anger outbursts, or acting violently. We need to activate our bodies and do things with them. We need to control our actions. Research shows that yoga, tai chi, mediation, mindfulness, and breathing exercise are very helpful for regulating emotions. There are great sites that have free classes that we can get involved in that will help us to be mobile and learn to regulate and connect with ourselves. Doing these things can help to reduce the stress hormones that build up.

We are collective creatures and need to be intensely engaged with others. We need to have ways that we regularly connect with others. The interactions with other minds, brains, and bodies, as we are in synchrony, fundamentally shape who we are. The primary way that we regulate ourselves is in having a rhythm with others. We get a response from others as we laugh and cry, and the sounds, facial movements, and the synchrony of the rhythms between faces and voices keep us feeling alive. We need to have family meals, games, storytelling, music-making, and virtual contacts. We need to create a constant way to have contact and connection with others. 

Traumatized people can often feel unsafe inside their own bodies. They have warning signs that they try to control by becoming numb of their own awareness and begin to hide from themselves. The best way to be safe with yourself is to participate in  self-calming practices. You must find what makes you feel safe, such as music, books, certain places, etc. The most important part of safety is the way that we are touched, such as the use of blankets, lotion, massage, and other kinds of safe touch. Everyone needs a safe and private place to which to withdraw and retreat.  When feeling overwhelmed use this place can help you to regulate yourself.

To feel that your body is safe is essential for being in touch with yourself and in synch with others. We need to learn to notice ourselves, and if we don’t we are just creatures that respond to any input automatically with anger, fear, and/or irritation.  As you observe what is going on with yourself you can start being able to make choices.  You need to have mindfulness with self-compassion. See the angry part of yourself and acknowledge what the anger has done for you, seeing it as a way to manage the unbearable things, and help you get to things done. Ask yourself, how is it helping you to survive?

Trauma can also bring about a loss of sense of time. We feel like it will last forever. We need to learn to see that things are changing all the time. As you meditate notice uncomfortable sensations and thoughts, then notice them shifting to something else. We are continuously evolving, and everything passes in time. An important part of dealing with potential trauma is to live with an inner sense that every moment is different from the next.

Often traumatized people forget that they matter, feeling as if they have become invisible.  You need to notice yourself.  What irritates you?  What makes you happy?  Do things that confirm who you are, engage in hobbies, journal and tell your story, cultivate awe and gratitude with a list of amazing things.  Find a way to help others each day.  Set goals that help you to take a step forward each day.

Doing these things will help us to avoid developing PTSD, or some other dysfunctional coping skill, as we face this changing and uncertain world. 

 

This information came from a training Kristy had with Bessel Van Der Kolk MD.

 

Kristy Goodson LCSW