Therapy and why is it so expensive

[manticore]

Did a couple of hypnotherapy sessions at £45 a go. She was pushing me to agree to a whole series of sessions during the first meeting which really fucked me off. I told her I wanted to see how I responded, also worried about my precarious financial situation and how it can suddenly change. She was having none of it. Insisted that to get the most out of it I had to come back. Went back for one more but it just wasn't doing anything for me.

My God, just the same experience about 30 years ago. All the pressure tactics - you must commit yourself to a full course of 'treatment' right from the first session, before I've even hypnotised you once - some mild moral blackmail as well. She was a real saleswoman.

Like the mug I was I agreed to another session even though I didn't actually like her much on first impression. She hadn't prepared the cassette player with the new age music and found she had to rewind it, at which point she muttered 'shit' audibly, which didn't exactly help induce the right ambience. Then she did her thing to put me under and it didn't work, so continuing my pattern of imbecility I acted it so as not create an embarassing situation, pretended to be regressed to the age of five or seven or something, and fooled her completely acting out a scene at an imagined birthday party. 'You showed all the signs of being under'.

Did not return for the next session. I wonder how many private hypnotherapists aren't grifters, at least to some extent?

[zomgmouse]

I pay $170 a session, and in Australia 10 sessions are year are partly subsidised (about $85) by the government.

[Endicott]

Then she did her thing to put me under and it didn't work, so continuing my pattern of imbecility I acted it so as not create an embarassing situation, pretended to be regressed to the age of five or seven or something, and fooled her completely acting out a scene at an imagined birthday party. 'You showed all the signs of being under'.

Did not return for the next session. I wonder how many private hypnotherapists aren't grifters, at least to some extent?

Hypnosis is balls isn't it? You've basically explained every stage hypnotist's act there, and surely all the private ones as well.

You really needed an evil hypnotist, they're the only decent ones.

[MuteBanana]

Hypnosis is balls isn't it? You've basically explained every stage hypnotist's act there, and surely all the private ones as well.

You really needed an evil hypnotist, they're the only decent ones.

Its not hypnosis. Which is what I wanted. Or at least mine wasn't. All she did was make me do all the work. Telling me to imagine a peaceful garden and shit like that. When what I really wanted was for her to stick a verbal screwdriver in my brain and waggle it about it a bit. I wanted to be put under some kind of trance and then wake up feeling different.

It was just relaxation techniques that you can probably learn from a library cassette for nowt.

[Sorry Monkeys]

Oh wow, co-counselling, that takes me back. I used to babysit for a a bunch of people who were heavily into co-counselling in the late 70s, including looking after their children while their parents were doing sessions upstairs. They were mostly very nice people with mostly nice ideas and I know they felt some real benefit from it but the whole thing has some somewhat cultish aspects to it, starting from Harvey Jackins' association with Dianetics in the 1950s. 'Psychobabble' by RD Rosen has an excellent chapter on how it was in the 70s (not a hatchet job).

Still it is mostly free, but I'd advise extensive research before anyone gets themselves into it.

I wonder if it is quite a 70's thing? I tried to get into it, but it was a bit like trying to enter a cult that had already decided it had enough members. Lots of phone calls that never went anywhere. Probably for the best.

[Sorry Monkeys]

I've also experienced this pressure from a hypnotherapist. Lovely expensive office in leafy Chorlton. He was telling me that I could be cured after just nine sessions with him. I didn't buy it, my neurosis is a hardy beast. He seemed incredulous that I didn't jump at the offer. Like, I was choosing to live in misery rather than the super-fast, super-expensive COMPLETE CURE he was offering.

Just typing it now, reminds me of a friend who was... how shall I put this? He got into raw foods and Ecstacy, and he started having dreams that God was telling him he was Jesus Christ come again, which is all fine, except he believed them. He was telling me, insisting, that I could live without ever experiencing emotional pain again, if I just put my Faith in him and his massive doses of therapeutic Ecstacy. Same deal- the Big Cure with the Hard Sell. No dice, Jesus!

[manticore]

I wonder if it is quite a 70's thing? I tried to get into it, but it was a bit like trying to enter a cult that had already decided it had enough members. Lots of phone calls that never went anywhere. Probably for the best.

From googling around it seems there are indeed still patches of co-counselling, but yes I think it was definitely quite a 70s thing, like all the 'personal growth' and suchlike movements. The thing that distinguished it from those things though was that it had an overtly social and political stance, related to Harvey Jackins being an ex-trade union organiser and activist, which made it more attractive to some people with left-wing leanings.

From what I saw I can see how it could become exclusive, because all the people involved in it seemed to associate a lot socially, and the whole theraputic process involves a huge amount of emotional release, which the co-counsellor has to absorb and accept as well as question sometimes. That has to create strong feelings of attatchment and I would have thought dependence. 

I don't want to be too rude about it though, because the people I knew who were into it seemed like mostly genuinely nice and well-intentioned people, even including the osteopath.

[The Boston Crab]

I know quite a few shrinks and they don't seem particularly bright. I went to one when I had tinnitus and was going to waste my entire postcode and I could see the moving parts inside his brain as he struggled to apply his shithouse textbook learning to my situation. I said I'll save your time and my money, I'm mad, I always have been, always will be and I'll just get on with it. Big deal. If I decide to one day go absolutely fucking mental, I will probably have a good enough reason, pal. And I skateboard straight out and did a grind down the bannister.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

A good comeback I always think is ".... You're the mental one....mate!"

[ASFTSN]

I went to one when I had tinnitus

This implies tinnitus ever goes away - I was under the impression it didn't. Mine hasn't, anyway.

[yesitsme]

I went to see a Hypnotherapist to see if he could stop my night terrors.  He said he could, of course he did and very quietly told me I was going down down deeper and down and the more I relaxed the more deeper I went.  Deep deep down and down down down...after about five minutes of this I told him to stop.

He said he could try a different method and asked me to 'see an orange'.

'Do you want me to imagine I can see an orange?'
'No, I want you to SEE one.'
'Do you have any oranges?'
'No.' 
'Well, how can I see one?' I wasn't being funny I just wanted to know exactly I was supposed to do with this sweet sweet imaginary orange.

He gave me a CD of mind numbing mumbo jumbos and took £25.00 off me.

That was the real trick.

The reason 'therapy' is so expensive is because it implies it works doesn't it?  Whack the suffix on any word and you're half way to a brand new Audi.

Tell you something else that's horse shit - chiropractry.  May as well go and see a witch doctor than one of these charlatans.

*edit.  I've just had a thought.   I'd not been up here that long and perhaps he was using the Glasgae meaning of the word 'see'.  I may have misunderstood what he wanted.  He may have just been asking me a question.

'See an orange?'
'Aye pal, what aboot 'em?'
'They're bastarts.'

Power of the mind.

[yesitsme]

A good comeback I always think is ".... You're the mental one....mate!"

As in 'You're the tosser...pal!'?

[Paul Calf]

I went to see a Hypnotherapist to see if he could stop my night terrors.  He said he could, of course he did and very quietly told me I was going down down deeper and down and the more I relaxed the more deeper I went.  Deep deep down and down down down...after about five minutes of this I told him to stop.

He said he could try a different method and asked me to 'see an orange'.

'Do you want me to imagine I can see an orange?'
'No, I want you to SEE one.'
'Do you have any oranges?'
'No.' 
'Well, how can I see one?' I wasn't being funny I just wanted to know exactly I was supposed to do with this sweet sweet imaginary orange.

'How many fingers, Winston?'

'Four. I suppose there are four. I would see five if I could. I am trying to see five.'

'Which do you wish: to persuade me that you see five, or really to see them?'

'Really to see them.'

'Again,' said O'Brien.

Perhaps the needle was eighty -- ninety. Winston could not intermittently remember why the pain was happening...

[The Boston Crab]

This implies tinnitus ever goes away - I was under the impression it didn't. Mine hasn't, anyway.

It doesn't necessarily go away but it certainly gradually tuned out both from an auditory perspective and in terms of the anxiety it caused. I saw an audiologist at a bit of expense who said 'enrich your sound environment, avoid silence and loud noises, listen to audiobooks or radio in bed, while people shit themselves that tinnitus gets worse and worse until it's unbearable and you will feel suicidal, in 99.9% of cases it plateaus and fades in intensity because your brain will gradually either tune it out or neutralise that tone to some extent if you try to get on with normal life and routine and gradually you will realise that you can cope and live with it and that will also gradually reduce the anxiety it causes which is the main problem rather than the actual tinnitus itself, and this in turn reduces the actual sound.'

Proved to be true for me and a friend with whom I shared this advice and insight. While it's momentarily come back when I've had a cold or ear infection or been knackered or whatever, getting on with normal life and realising that I can still enjoy life even with tinnitus has been one of the greatest breakthrough moments of relief I've ever experienced. It basically may as well not be there, it just seems like a natural function of my body and brain like breathing or my heart beating or having thoughts. Most days I don't notice it and when I do, I tend not to shit myself and it's gone before I've remembered it was there. I obviously can't promise anything but I've had it for six years and it's not troubled me for nearly four now.

[ASFTSN]

That's interesting, I do notice mine lessens when I am feeling particularly content. Also I've noticed I can sort of 'tune it out' manually by thinking about it and trying to increase the pitch until it's nearer to the threshold of what I can't 'hear'. Which sounds insane and is probably a complete placebo effect but it sort of works.

I'm also glad you've directly quoted your audiologist as talking about their patient as 'shitting' themselves, good stuff.

[Satchmo Distel]

Most therapy is a placebo. If you improve it's because you've convinced yourself it's working.

[mrpupkin]

Good enough for me :)

[Lost Oliver]

Anyone who goes to see a therapist needs their head examined.

[Lost Oliver]

A throwaway line but true I guess. If you go to see someone you're actually telling yourself that there's something wrong with you.

Like others above I'd love to see someone but I just can't afford it so like many others I'll just suppress whatever it is that's making me so miserable until I collapse in a couple years time.

[yesitsme]

When you have the misfortune to see a hypnotist (right up there with ventriloquism as a form of entertainment) the people who always end up thinking they're chickens or riding motor bikes or gobbling off Mr Le Mezma are never the full shilling are they?