Why do Psychiatrists and Psychologists only ask questions?

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What annoys me most about psychologists, psychiatrists and other therapists is their tendancy to stare at you for a couple of seconds without saying a word. It must be some kind of therapeutical tactic or something but I can´t figure out what they are tring to achieve with it. Am I supposed to reveal something important, are they expecting a major breakthroug? What am I supposed to do when a therapist stares at me like that? The only effect it has on me is that I'm unable to utter another word.

Therapy is like a visit to the dentist as far as I'm concerned and to make matters worse: it doesn't have no effect on me whatsoever. As soon as I get home I forget all about the therapy session and focus my attention on matters that I have a genuine interest for.
I wonder how long it will last before my current therapist gives up on me. Not too long I hope.

Last edited by pokerface on 08 Oct 2011, 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Spend your money on some ivory backscratchers and snuff if you can't appreciate the service

STEP 1: Find out what is really going on.

I have already got a backscratcher. Bought it on eBay right after a therapy session. It's not made out of ivory though, I do have some principles.

Last edited by pokerface on 08 Oct 2011, 7:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Another thing that annoys me about psychs is some of them just don't seem to be very "flexible", and are sometimes selective at what they take in from you. Say they're convinced you have xyz but you're sure that isn't a correct Dx due to other symptoms, or things just don't quite fit. But when you bring these other things up they ignore them and continue on with the therapy they think will fix you. So I often walk away from a session thinking: "what's the use of asking me all those questions when you won't listen to and factor in my answers?"

I mean, the last shrink I saw was convinced my problems were due to some traumatic experience in childhood. From day one I mentioned my AS traits but she wouldn't even write it down. "Oh no, everyone that feels like you obviously has had some traumatic experience as a child. Let's do some age regression hypnodwaddle". Fool.

I have a good psychologist, she is specialized with autism and she's not only asking questions but it also sharing my interests. So she introduced the "cymatics" to me...I am very interested in sounds and waves and next week she borrows me a book about it. When I cannot speak for some reason - it happens - she lets me be silent without pushing me. She doesn't want to "heal" me from Aspergers but tries to find out how I can have a life which "suits" me so I can be happy (because I failed in that part until now).

Second thing I do is Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) to release all sort of stress. It's a technique where you tap certain points at your face and hands while being in stress of remembering a stressful situation. These points (I tell now the short version) send signals to your amygdala in the brains, the area, where your rational thinking has no influence, but it's part of the limbic system. This tapping of the points (and also saying special sentences according your fear or any emotion) causes an over-stimulation, so you can dis-sociate a certain fear from a circumstance. It helps a lot!! When you work with an experienced EFT-practitioner, they ask you about happenings, but they immediately start the tapping-procedure to release the strong emotions around it. It's not only talking but working on issues.
Here I also work with great people and they know about my autism but they see me like a person with special gifts (well, I don't have many...) but I can ask whatever question I want (how the world is working for other people) and they always answer me honestly and don't judge me for anything at all, because I often do really react differently than they are used from other people, but even there they are honest and tell me.

I'm glad that I got to know these people, because they all don't want to change me, but they said they want me able to be happy just as who I am.

in the future probably beyond our time they will hook our minds up to machines and be able to tell us what is wrong i believe.

if only we were born in the future -.-

What do you expect them to do? Crack your head open so they can lick your brain to see if it tastes crazy?

mmmmmmmmmmmmuuuuurrrrrrg ... brrraaaaaayyyyynzzzzz ... hurrrrrrrmmmmmmmooooooorrrrreassspiieeebraaaaayyyyyyynnnzzzzzz...

There is something wrong with your keyboard Fnord. I think it's time to go back to the original topic!

Is that a literal question or a rhetorical question ambiguously hinting at a sincere resentment of the implications of that very idea?

You're supposed to reveal them only if you want that someone's support to address your secrets or want that someone's support to address a difficulty that stems mainly from your secrets.






I immediately tried to imagine if Fnord's response could be similar to the ways a post could look like if someone had this happening to them:



...then I remembered that responses on a linearly presented topic do not necessarily refer to each other in an abnormally orderly fashion from top to bottom.

I don't get all the hype behind psychiatrists/psychologists either. I went to one for about 3 months (was forced to because of low grades in math/depression) and it really didn't help me. In fact it made me worse for a while. I vowed not to go to one ever again after that.

I wanted to write something more involved, but b9 covered it succintly. If I don't give my medical people the information they need, how can they determine anything about me?

Wait... can they do that?

Well ...



The wonder of the internet is that I got that just by typing "Sylar" into image search.

Because you pay them to fix your bad monkeys.

We could all have a whip around, but a sock is way cheaper