«Just one more session, one meeting… Wait, what would my psychologist say to all of this?” We joke with Americans that each of them has their own therapist, but addiction to therapy also applies to Poles.
Monika (36), English teacher, teacher: – If I think about him a dozen or even several dozen times a day, is it wrong? If I was wondering, how would he react to this particular situation? I’m trying to guess what he would answer to the boorish taunt on the tram, or would he approve of my lack of assertiveness at work? No, it’s not really that my therapist is 40 and looks ten younger. That her eyes are as blue as the color of the sea in Malta. That he has a beard that I’ve never accepted with any guy, and he looks great on him. I just feel the safest with him. I have never experienced this to such an extent before. Or in the family home where my father drank more than often and my mother smoked cigarettes in the window, one after the other. Nor at the university where I met my ex-fiancé. Not even on vacation with wonderful friends, Beata and Kama. For some time now, girls have been wondering if I fell in love with my therapist, because I keep telling them what he told me or pondering out loud how he might react to this or that. But I don’t treat him as an object of sighs. I don’t miss him as a human. I just miss our meetings, I am counting down the hours to the next sessions. This has been going on for the third year now. Sometimes I have the impression that I am creating new problems so as not to hear from him that we can end the therapy. I treat him like a mentor, a guru. That `s bad?
Eight sessions
In the Goldenline business forum, a discussion arose, triggered by a user whose question was: “How do you know if you are addicted to the therapist?” One of the psychologists wrote back like this: “The easiest way is when your therapist mentions something about ending therapy, you feel REALLY bad for the next week and discover that you are REALLY not ready to quit.” Then a discussion broke out on the forum as to whether this is actually the case. Opinions were divided. Some found it too simplistic.
Perhaps because the phenomenon remains unexplored, too difficult to list. We know that Poles most often become addicted to alcohol, drugs (mainly marijuana), cigarettes, shopping, work, the Internet and gambling. At least that’s what the 2015 European Drug Report shows. But experts point out the growing number of so-called atypical addictions. Maybe they do not concern a large number of people, but they are disturbing, and – as they have not been fully researched yet – difficult to diagnose and (as a result) also to cure, pharmacologically or therapeutically. One of such addictions is addiction to therapy. Nobody knows how many people are affected. Only recently has people started talking and writing about it.
After all, one patient may need only a few sessions, while another one needs several years to work through problems or traumas. According to data published in the American Journal of Psychatry, the average American patient has eight sessions with his therapist and then tries to walk through life on his own. However, he often returns to the office with new problems. How quickly and how quickly to the same specialist again? It is not known exactly.
Familiarity or dependency?
Katarzyna Kucewicz, a psychologist, psychotherapist, runs a psychotherapy center in Warsaw: – When I was on a week-long vacation, some patients flooded me with tense text messages when I returned. Although they knew the term well, the tension and the need to ask me turned out to be stronger … After my return, this topic became the main material for our work. I don’t want to brag, but few of my patients become addicted; I have a strategy which is to make them as confident as possible. Sometimes I laugh that I will not let a patient out of therapy who will not be aware of his worth. Regardless of what personality he has, with what problem or addiction, it usually comes down to the fact that people do not respect themselves and do not trust themselves.
“There is a special strength and dynamics in the therapeutic relationship,” says Lynn Bufka of the American Psychological Association. One party pays for the meetings, while the other gets to know the secret corners of her soul in return. And, contrary to popular belief, the patient should feel that he is in control of this process. It is worth making him feel at ease both when asking questions and when raising doubts about the course of therapy.
Separation attempt
Some patients tend to stay in therapy for too long. This way – like Monika – they feel safe, comfortable, more lively. But does this immediately mean addiction? Of course, not always, but some disturbing signals are worth paying attention to. If you discuss all your decisions with a psychologist, from changing jobs, through choosing a leasing company, and ending with the date of the birthday party, it may mean too much intimacy and – hence – dependence. Worse, such patients often eliminate or diminish the remaining relationships in favor of talking to the therapist. The risk of addiction then increases exorbitantly.
Psychotherapy as a method of treatment is based on the relationship between the patient and the therapist, reminds Urszula Misiuna from the Association for Psychoeducation and Natural Sciences MOST in Kielce. Thus, the dependence of the treated person on the curing person already enters into it. This dependence is a condition for effective treatment, because we can only use, think, change in a relationship with someone whose opinion is important to us, valuable, etc. But it is equally important, according to Misiuna, to try to separate ourselves after modifying destructive ways of thinking and behaving. . Simply put: the point is for everyone to be able to use the developed ways of coping with problems on their own. And he did not run with them all the time to the same specialist.
Finally heard
Andrzej (55), garden architect: – After my divorce, six years ago, I felt extremely lonely. I started refusing orders, just wanted to lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. I used to drink alcohol almost every day. I was blocked from everything. The empty apartment depressed me. I had no idea how to enter into a new relationship. I was afraid of it, and at the same time I really wanted to relate to someone. It was my daughter who took me to her, as it turned out, therapist. I opened myself to her, even though she was only a few years older than my daughter; I started talking about how I feel. For the first time in my life someone listened so intently without interrupting me.
The ex-wife never had the patience, she accused me of speaking too lengthily, of too many digressions. After two years, I had more jobs than before my divorce, I couldn’t look at whiskey. And then the therapist said that I was ready to go on without her help, that the depression was over. She also added that she will become a mother in a few months. I was terrified that I would be left alone, that she would go on maternity leave. I asked my daughter to find me a new specialist. I started going to both of them at the same time, I kept it a secret. I finally felt heard. Suddenly I realized that for years I just missed a conversation, so long and serious, without judging, ridiculing. Recently, I have only one therapist. But once a week visits aren’t enough for me, so I found an ad: a psychologist next door, we made arrangements to drop by when I needed. My daughter has no idea about it – and she keeps accusing me of alienating myself. My two attempts to create a new relationship failed, they wanted to get married right away, move away, and I feel better and better alone. For now, the most interesting conversations about life are with the therapist, soon a psychologist will join me. I don’t want to change it because I don’t see the reason.
The scheme of trust
Psychologist Katarzyna Kucewicz: – There is a certain group of patients who, in their relationships with different people, tend to be dependent, to “hang” on someone who is perceived as smarter, better. They often surround themselves with people who advise them what to do and how to live, and explain what is right and what is wrong. And when, under certain circumstances, they begin to lack this authority – because, for example, the mother dies or the husband goes away – they come to the therapist. They expect him to answer all their questions, and they want him to be reliable; that he may be like a parent to turn to for advice and who will always be comforted. If someone perceives a therapist as a remedy and a treasury of knowledge about the world and about himself, he will easily become addicted. Thus, he will stop looking for answers in himself, he will stop learning to rely on himself, because he will “give” these skills to the therapist. And here, unfortunately, a malpractice occurs, especially in novice therapists, because you can choke on this condition: feel like an oracle. The wisest, the admired. Meanwhile, as soon as we notice the symptoms of dependence on the therapy in the patient, we need to “pacify” them and show him that he is repeating the pattern of trust and giving his life to someone else, not himself.
Friend
Wiktoria (42), violinist: – Already in school, I was the girl who supported the walls during the break between lessons. I felt misunderstood by my surroundings almost all my life. And the psychologist was the only one who was not surprised that I collect pieces of wood and glass fished in the sea, that I wear green, and that I had to soundproof the walls of my apartment, because I only play at night. And so on. I found her at the most difficult moment in my life, i.e. after my father’s death. A few weeks earlier, I had lost my job at school. My husband could not talk to me honestly, my son was entering a difficult age. So I went to the psychologist’s office. Over time, I started running there like on wings. I found that I like to talk about myself, I usually didn’t. Once – I remember we were both laughing a lot about something – I felt like I was sitting with my friend. I spontaneously invited my psychologist to come to our house for wine. She immediately stopped smiling, our relationship grew colder. She decided that I had crossed a certain line. Soon she discontinued our therapy on some unreliable pretext. I felt a growing void. I found myself counting down the days to my office meeting, and then sadly I thought it was already out of date. I read in some British magazine that more and more people are becoming addicted to therapy. Could it be me? When I said it aloud at home, my husband and son chuckled for five minutes. Panic grows over me and I look for a new therapist. I’m sure it has to be a woman. I still don’t have a friend, so it will be a perfect alternative …
Reach the source
– Is addiction to therapy the same as any other addiction, such as marijuana, shopping or playing poker? – A bit like that – says Katarzyna Kucewicz. – It can be considered a dependent personality, characteristic of people who are not sure of their opinion, are constantly humiliated, e.g. in childhood, who do not even trust themselves. They are often guilty of unconscious parental harm, such as repeating to the child: “You can never have a nice friend, always some weirdos!”. Addicted to therapy also have trouble with authorities. They blindly trust that someone older or more experienced is an expert on their lives.
How to cure addiction to therapy? Therapy? After all, this may sound paradoxical in this context. Katarzyna Kucewicz says that work on such addiction also takes place in the office, and consists in “awakening” the patient’s self-confidence, teaching him to rely on himself, as well as the awareness that all answers to life questions are really in him, and not in the therapist. – And that it has a source of life wisdom that only needs to be found – adds the psychologist. – We, therapists, light the path and hold our hand to make it easier to reach this source.