Marcy – Late twenties, female, married, children

I have had counseling off and on many times over the past 22 years. Treatments varied from psychologists to counselors, and at one time a psychiatrist, though there was never one particular professional that I ever got any real help from. When I was in my teens and early twenties (when the eating disorders had basically overtaken my life) I had a lot of therapy that focused around food (kind of like I had to learn how to eat all over again) and implied that food was the issue. Numerous times I was prescribed anti-depressants, none of which I ever continued to use because they either had horrible side effects or they just made me feel like I was drugged all the time. I hadn’t had anti-depressants in years, but a year and a half ago when I sought help through my family doctor, the first thing he wanted to do was give me Cipralex to cope with the obsessional thoughts/anxiety. I knew that this was not the answer for me.

I had gone for quite a stretch of no major issues, but it is so true that if you do not deal with the repressed anger(or whatever underlying issue there is), express it when it needs to be, and when you just keep pushing things down, they eventually come back in some form of dysfunction, and this is what was starting to happen again. I actually saw a psychologist a year and a half ago that thought when I listed anxiety, depression,and obsessional thinking on my intake form that I had listed too many things. Needless to say that after two sessions (and a waste of time and money) I never returned. This particular professional just kept telling me exactly what I already knew- that what I was thinking was irrational, that I had to stop doing it, and to do that I had to put “mind over mood”. No mention of “why” this was happening or recurring, and when I told him about my past history he treated it as though it was irrelevant. (And he also recommended anti-depressants)

In my opinion, the traditional counseling I have gotten in the past has merely tried to help me cope with the symptoms of the much deeper, underlying issues that were in my life. Whether it was an eating disorder or anxiety, the goal of the professionals seemed to be to relieve that particular problem -not really help me find out the root cause- and almost always they wanted me on meds to effectively do that. Now that I think about it, the counseling I had in the past really just tried to patch up the scratches on the surface.

There was one counselor that gave some decent advice about seven years ago, but she did not push enough, did not have a plan in place on the steps I needed to take, and actually now that I think about it she was quite weak about it all and so I just kind of stopped going.

I would say the biggest difference between my experience with LP counseling and other counseling I have had in the past is that in our discussions you asked the right questions. By that I mean you asked the simple, hard questions that forced me to go deep inside and find the answers. This led to profound realizations on my part about the huge pile of dysfunction I had been living in for many, many years. These realizations gave me the strength I needed to be able take the actions I needed to take for healing and closure. And as far as actions go, you had a clear plan of steps for me to take right from the beginning, actions that were recommended only for my greatest good. I guess the big difference too is the context in which everything is considered. You took into consideration the whole picture of my life, including relationships past and present, to guide my process. It wasn’t simply about coping with the day-to-day anxiety.

Your guidance and advice was not only supportive of my complete healing, but also in a way intuitive, as everything I did or didn’t do played out exactly as you predicted. I definitely feel empowered and I think a key part of this was you helping me see the reality I was in, face that reality (at times heart wrenching and painful), and as a result I instantly became stronger and all aspects of my life became clearer. During the counseling process my anxiety decreased, my workplace anxiety disappeared, and eventually near the end I actually had no anxiety at all. And if I do feel uncomfortable in a situation I am able to take a deep breath and see the reality of what is going on around me, and I certainly do not panic. (I used to get the feeling that my heart was going to burst right through my chest, not anymore). Marcy