My therapist wants to put me in an intensive outpatient program

Has anyone ever been in anything like this? He says seeing him for an hour once a week isn't enough. Oh, and he also believes I need to be medicated. I am very reluctant to do this outpatient thing. Basically, it sounds like I'm going to sit in a room with a bunch of other crazy people and be lectured to in condescending tones by a shrink for 3 hours a day.

• Don't know your specific diagnosis, but these programs can be excellent. They include group and individual work and can get a LOT accomplished in a relatively short period of time. Highly recommend it. Have seen many people make great progress after such a course of treatment.

• Are you one of the Dataloungers who spews obscenities at posters who disagree with you? Do you call them shitstains, dried up cunts and call for them to eat old people's excrement and die in a grease fire? Do you automatically assume everyone who doesn't tow the line in side your head is a freeper? If so, your therapist is right. You actually need an inpatient program and Thorazine., but let him start out slowly.

• The most important thing is, do YOU think that seeing him for an hour a week isn't enough? My belief is that a good therapist will work with you to achieve your goals as outlined by YOU, and not just insist that you do what they think is best all the time (even when it conflicts with what you say you want). You're an adult who is paying another adult for a specific service, not a child who needs to learn how to be more obsequious to authority. I don't really know anything about your situation so I can't say anything too profound. I just know that I can't stand therapists who act like it's their job to be an authority figure over their patients, and it sounds like that might be at least part of what's going on here.

• [quote]The most important thing is, do YOU think that seeing him for an hour a week isn't enough? No, I don't. [quote]I just know that I can't stand therapists who act like it's their job to be an authority figure over their patients, and it sounds like that might be at least part of what's going on here. I can assure you that isn't what's going on. I do not take kindly to that kind of thing at all, and likely wouldn't have made it through one session if that were the kind of person my therapist is.

  OP

• You better do it because the next step is an inpatient program.

• what is your diagnosis?

• Intensive outpatient settings certainly aren't for everybody; it may be too much. On the other hand, it may be too little for more advanced symptoms. You have to feel right about the environment and really want to make your situation better. Contrary to popular belief the practitioners are magical healers, thus these IOP programs are only as good as their methodology. There's absolutely nothing wrong with checking things out with an open mind. If you find that it isn't going to work for you, then that's fine. If you end up getting more out of it than you thought you ever would, then that's great.

• I wouldn't like it, OP.

• R6: panic disorder and major depression

  OP

• Best thing for you really; your therapy was going nowhere.

  H.

• Try inositol for your panic disorder... You can buy it cheap online, it's very safe (gas if you over do it) and no bad taste - about half as sweet as sugar. They carry it at Beyond-a-century. It basically eliminated my panic attacks.

• He needs to put you on a heavy regimen of BENZos.

• I take inositol, too. It helps me have a deep sleep and I feel somewhat calmer. When I initially started taking it, it really upset my stomach. I found out I was allergic to dairy and cut all dairy out of my diet (this was unrelated to taking inositol). Now that I'm dairy-free, Inositol doesn't upset my stomach. Anyway, good luck with whatever you decide to do.

• A friend of mine had to do this in highschool and she was suicidal and having horrible panic attacks at the time, and it did help her. I agree with R5 I'd do it since you don't want to wind up in a mental hospital. I've never been there but friends of mine have and in some cases they're worse than jails or prisons.

• Sounds like your therapist thinks traditional therapy is not working. I'm betting you are resistant to change. Sounds like you do well immediately after a session but tend to lose your focus as time passes. And then you come back to therapy, the therapist puts you back on track and you repeat the cycle. Perhaps your therapist thinks you will benefit from intensive therapy that will instill good habits in you over a sustained period of time. Of course you are resistant to the idea. You don't really want to change.

• Is OP Brandon??

• What are you panicked about? Are you young? Maybe you need some years on you - soon nothing will matter enough to be panicked about. So hang on until ennui sets in. Depression can be an acquired taste. Some people manage quite well - just not happily. But then happiness is so overrated. Good luck, OP. It's your life. You get to direct it.

• I entered an intensive outpatient program last year for two months. I went five days a week initially then eventually went down to three days a week. I learned a fair amount, which helped me with the anxiety and panic attacks. Took Pristiq and Abilify, which made me pack on about 60 lbs. and raised my blood sugar sky-high. Changed to Effexor and I've lst all that weight and more without exercising. Seeing a different therapist now.

• It's TOE the line, fucktard.

• Rumpy?

• OP, try it for one week. If you hate it, tell your therapist that you want to stop. It's not ail. You don't have to keep going if you don't want to.

• Ail = jail

• OP here. My therapist wants me to try it for 2 weeks, which is what I've decided to do. It's 3 days a week for 3 hours a day.

• Did any of you verify if Brandon killed himself, as he promised?

• As a chronic paranoid schizophrenic, you best friend is having insight into your current condition. If you can detect when you need help and can act of your own accord.. you will be a survivor. Know when it's time to medicate, know when it's time to go in for a while.. I think it can be detrimental to be around other mentally ill people though, and asylums are very "low stimulant" environments that leave you stir crazy.. it's hell really. Never underestimate the power of mental conditioning and uplifting company.

  Itsgoingtobealright

• I started the program this week. The therapist who leads the group looks just like Matthew Morrison, only more of a hipster. I seriously felt like I was in an episode of Glee.

  OP

• [quote] I seriously felt like I was in an episode of Glee. OP try breaking into song during a session. I dare you ;-)

  double%20dare%20you%20with%20a%20cherry%20on%20top.

• I would do what your therapist advises. I am going to assume that you are not happy and in trouble. Do what an expert advises. Can't hurt, right?

  charlie

• So I went for a whole week. There are three different therapists, and one is a huge cunt. She's very combative with the men in the group; it's like she has something to prove. I'm waiting for her to show up wearing black lipstick and patent leather boots, brandishing a riding crop. She has a very "Asian dominatrix" look about her. We'll see if I can get through another week, but it's only a matter of time before she tries to talk to me the way she's talked to the other guys in the group.

• Can you simply excuse yourself from her sessions? I would. I had panic attacks (as does everyone else in my family). I'm the only one of my sibs not on meds for it. I handle it by walking away from situations that are stressful. This is all within reason of course. I have a rather stressful job where I have to deal with surgeons, who can be complete assholes, and obviously if I walk out on my job then I'd get fired. Even if work got to be too much, I'd quit. Life is too short to spend time around toxic people. It takes awhile for the panic attacks to stop OP, but in my experience I had to get the fuck away from the source of the problem (REALLY toxic boss). I should have been a librarian or something. I really don't like people. Good luck OP. I hope you find peace.

• R11 and R13, what dosage did you take? I have SSRI sensitivity (they make me worse) and looking for alternatives other than Xanax. I quit my therapist after being threatened with ECT (fro depression, aanxiety, panic, PTSD). I've tried Kava Kava, 5-HTp, and Melatonin. Vitamin D seemed to help the most. I had not heard of inositol for anxiety.

  %20

• Do it.

  Bengali in Platforms

• FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE SHIT IN MY MOUTH??!!!!

  R2

• I had no idea ECT was still used. R31, are you in the U.S.? I thought that kind of barbarism went out with lobotomies.

  OP

• R34 ECT is still used in the US. Carrie Fisher has had it done to cope with being bi-polar, and says it has helped immensely.

• [quote]Can you simply excuse yourself from her sessions? I'm not sure, but I'm thinking not. To make matters worse, my regular therapist seems to have basically abandoned me to this group, even though I only told him I'd try it out for 2 weeks. He appears to have decided that I'm staying for the whole program, and that he's not seeing me at all while I'm in it. What he doesn't know is that I might not go back to him when I'm done with it. Another issue is that it's not a "closed group," and people cycle in and out. I'm not comfortable with disclosing my personal issues to a new batch of people every week or two.

  OP

• OP did your insurance pay for this treatment?

• No, R37.

  OP

• I think it's MUCH better than being admitted as an inpatient. It's a few hours of your day, but I bet they have coffee and snacks. In an inpatient unit you will feel like your liberties are taken away- because they basically are, although usually it isn't meant to be mean to you, it's to maintain and order and therapeutic environment on the unit. You'd be sleeping in a bed that isn't your own, and eating food that you might not like. Nope, intense outpatient treatment is better for cases that aren't so acute that are dangerous to you or someone around you. Your insurance company will thank you for it too.

• Please read the rest of the thread, R39.

  OP

• ECT is back and is a proven treatment for folks with depression that doesn't respond to medication and/or psychotherapy. It's nothing like what you see in old movies.

• I suppose lobotomies will also make a comeback soon.

  Rosemary%20Kennedy

• It beats the hell out of being in an inpatient program.

• My apologies, OP. I didn't read the rest of the thread so I didn't notice you bitching out a previous poster for saying this. Please don't hit me.

  r43

• It must have cost you an arm and a leg, OP.

  R37

• So, can we address the Asian dominatrix cuntress I mentioned, please? Or the fact that my regular therapist dumped me into this group?

• Yes, it's expensive, and I'm starting to wonder if my therapist got some sort of kickback for referring me, but I suppose I'm just being paranoid because I'm so pissed at him.

• OP you should definitely work out your anger with your therapist in therapy. If not, maybe it really is time for a referral.

  But%20he%20didn%27t%20get%20a%20kick%20back%2C%20I%27m%20pretty%20sure.

• His e-mail to me said that we would not be seeing each other again until I completed the program, but if I wanted to see him while I was still in it, that I could let him know and we could "talk about what that will look like." It was very cold, and I was especially annoyed at the douchebag MBA language he employed at the end. I'm not sure what I should do. This group therapy bitch seems to love telling men what to do (she doesn't do this with the women in the group). Will she get defensive and "state her boundaries" if I call her out on it? My regular therapist knows her, but I'm not sure how well. I'm afraid he'll get defensive, too, and tell me he can't help me. He was pushing this group therapy thing pretty hard.

• .

• bump

• Brandon, stop bumping your thread.

• I'm not Brandon.

• [quote]I'm not Brandon. Maybe you two should meet.

• [quote]Maybe you two should meet. In a cage match

• You know a lot of mentals r14. I think it's you

• [quote]In a cage match LMAO

• OP, I think you should stick it out. And you shouldn't be nervous about what that dominatrix MAY say or do to you, as you have no idea what her past interactions with others in the group have been like. Just try it for a few weeks and if it's not your thing, you can always find a new therapist. From what I understand, it's a lot like meds themselves, you have to cycle through sometimes until you find the right one. Good luck. I have depression issues too and they are debilitating but I'm not doing anything for them right now. Easier just to lie around and pull out my eyebrows.

• Just get a different therapist. Yours really sounds like a lazy and unhelpful dick, at least based on this thread. I have to say, I'm honestly surprised at the number of comments here that have said to just stick it out and do what the expert says. Therapists aren't omniscient. If you don't want to do something they suggest or if you have a bad feeling about it, pay attention to your instincts. I wasted six months seeing someone who I now regard as condescending and kind of an idiot. Oh, and she was full of suggestions for me that I wasn't into. I'm so glad I fired her ass and started seeing a therapist who is a better match for me and treats me like an adult instead of just blindly following her stupid suggestions that my gut was telling me to ignore.

• The cunt threw somebody out of the group today. He might have deserved it, but I still don't like this woman. It made me very uncomfortable and it stressed me the fuck out. Isn't feeling *less* stressed and anxious the whole reason I'm going to this group to begin with?

  OP

• OP, based upon your schedule, I'm assuming that you are not working. Is that due to your mental illness?

• R59, it's pretty clear why you're in therapy. And the point is, if OP's judgment was all that great, he wouldn't need intensive therapy. A two-week commitment isn't that long and then the therapist has indicated that OP can make up his own mind. No doubt there will be discussion, but the final decision is the OP's.

• Outpatient programs, like any form of treatment, can be good or bad. It depends on your diagnosis, your treatment, the type of patients in the group, what the goals are, etc. If you are being resistant to medication when your symptoms warrant immediate attention, that can be a sign of a lack of insight into your condition. Group therapy can be helpful in meeting others who are also in treatment and to help gain insight. I will say, however, that accurate diagnosis is the key here. If you are misdiagnosed, then you can spend a lot of time in the wrong treatment mode or an ineffective treatment.

• [quote]If you are being resistant to medication when your symptoms warrant immediate attention, that can be a sign of a lack of insight into your condition. Who's lack of insight?

• OP, you committed to 2 weeks. Toward the end of the 2 weeks, I'd email the therapist, remind him of your agreement to try it for 2 weeks, let him know that you are dissatisfied with the approach if you still are. Then let him know that you had planned to come back, but if he feels like he is not capable of treating you, that you'd like a referral to another individual therapist. I was in therapy many years ago. This therapist was highly recommended and I liked her, but after several sessions, she put me into a group. I really didn't like it or find it helpful, but kept it up for a few months. Then I just dropped out. I do have a mental health background and was never severe enough to warrant medication, so dropping out was less of an issue.

• R62, it's "pretty clear why I'm in therapy" because I had the common sense to fire a therapist who I strongly felt was not a good match for me and find another one who was a better match? The fuck? The OP of this thread has done nothing but say negative things about the group therapy experience and express anger towards his therapist for pushing it on him since he started the outpatient therapy program. In short, it doesn't sound like all of this is going very well - not to mention he is paying for this whole thing himself. But it's "clear" that I'm some sort of whack job for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, this particular therapist might not be the right one for the OP? Just because someone is in therapy doesn't automatically mean that they're some stupid little lamb with absolutely no worthwhile instincts of their own.

• In the long run yes. While in group? Not really. It's going to be fucking PAINFUL. Good therapy is HARD. And it is exhausting work. Getting you to sit there and suffer with your pain instead of running away from it or burying it is part of the idea. Maybe next time it won't hurt so much. The people telling you "there, there" are basically protecting you from your own feelings, which any decent therapy group will tell you is unhelpful. It's like emotional eating. It's just another way to hide.

• Oops, I meant to quote you at r60 OP.

  R67

• OP - have you considered the idea that you are projecting? If you are truly wishing to overcome your issues, actually seeing which issues are yours is a good place to begin. I've had a bunch of therapy and was shocked to find just how much of my issues with other people (especially care givers and other authority figures) was actually projection.

  good%20luck

• I've found parts of the program helpful (mainly, the ones that aren't facilitated by this cunt), but I don't have a lot of patience, and this woman doesn't help. Yes, I have issues with authority figures, and I'll be the first to admit it. That doesn't make this woman less of a cunt. I honestly don't know how long I'll be able to put up with her.

  OP

• The ideal scenario would be for you to work out your feelings about the woman in therapy. I think you--and your therapist ----might be missing out on valuable data/insight.

• One of the other guys in this group is fucking nuts. I mean, totally psychotic. I bet he's hospitalized before the end of the week.

• Brandon?