therapists who don't like labels?

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Does/did anyone here ever go to a therapist who doesn't like labels? Do you feel it is/was helpful? Did you ever feel invalidated by it? I would like to read people's various opinions/experiences regarding the issue. Thank you!

Yes, two of them. They annoyed the crap out of me. Not helpful at all. I use labels, which are based on science and biology, to explain things. Therapists often like to explain everything by relating them to life experiences and trauma. They don't like "labels." They say that everyone is the same. Well, no, they aren't.

My life experiences have changed me, but they don't explain a lot of symptoms that I have, while labels actually do. If I'd listened to the last therapist about how "everyone is the same," I'd still be wondering what the heck is wrong with me, and making the same mistakes.

Now I get to actually work on my executive functioning problems, sensory issues, and poor social skills directly instead of trying to explain it all away by my traumatic life experiences, while improving nothing.

Yes. My therapist (the only therapist I've seen) doesn't seem to like labels. She hasn't said it explicitly, but she seems to prefer to deal with specific problems rather than to label. She did ask me if it would be useful to me to have a "label" and I said it might be a little cathartic to have a label, but we seem to have left it there for now.

Shaybugz,
I guess I could describe it as:
It's when a therapist doesn't like to understand your difficulties in terms of ASD, but rather chooses to handle your problems in the way he/she would treat an NT, without recognizing that there is a difference between a genetic pre-disposition and a learned disposition.

But this isn't the only issue with labels....I think that a label issues a sense of permanency--that things can't be changed/that you can't learn to be an NT, or that you can't learn to be straight or gay, etc.

I am really finding people's responses helpful so far! Thank you!

Yes, I had a therapist who only used labels if she thought it would allow access to services that were needed. It really helped me learn to see things less in black and white. This is something which has helped me in situations from university, to work to my marriage.

I actually did have trauma and although it made me a little uncomfortable at first, it was actually extremely helpful for not worry which set of boxes into which didn't quite fit . My time there was allocated based on my needs across a holistic set of problems (no you've reached x goal for anxiety, so you'll need to wait for y problem about dissociation). I was there for 18 months.

The therapist I had was brilliant. Even though there were some things that she hadn't really seen before (which I mentioned after we'd already been meeting a while) she went and got training to be able to help her. She helped me manage being in a relationship and talked me through different ways to cope in different situations. I had 'attachment problems' before and could never have managed a relationship without the help.

She also went out of her way to help me - often extending my sessions by a few hours, to reduce the chances of me being hospitalised. She even too other 'risks' (with input from her management team) to make sure I stayed out of hospital. These were definitely things that she could have reasonably have refused.

In short, I learnt many things from her. I made my first secure attachment. I learnt how to better manage my emotions. I learnt that it was possible to talk about my problems. I reduced my anxiety. I even gradually learnt alternative techniques not to self harm. In short, my therapist not only kept me alive but also helped me to a life worth living.

I've met therapists who use labels and are s**t and therapists who use labels as tools and are good. I think the same goes for not using labels. Of course, if you're looking for a particularly dx, for example ASD you're not going to have a great experience.

If you're wanting therapy to help cope with difficulties, then (as research shows) therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest reasons linked with success. You don't want someone with no idea what they're going, but there becomes a point where them getting a little extra training can lead to better outcomes than the best trained clinician about. If you have the opportunity, look around for someone you feel comfortable talking to.

She used it in a very accepting way - in her view, there was nothing abnormal (or 'crazy' as I had feared) about me, just some difficulties I needed help with and other individual differences which were valid parts of me.

I see two sides of this.

Some therapists have narrow training and others very broad. My preference is very broad. Sometimes when a therapist doesn't want to use labels for a client's issues, it reflects narrowness of perspective on their part. They want everybody to fit into whatever narrow school of therapy they were trained in, whether it fits or not. DISLIKE!

At the same time, I see participants here at WP sometimes focusing on specific narrow symptoms or on their diagnoses, which may or may not be a fruitful approach. They can get hyperfocused on these things, meanwhile ignoring general coping in life, such as maintaining social ties and having good hygiene.

In that case, no, I haven't and I don't think it would be that helpful at all. Autism is a different brain-structure than neurotypicals, so different approaches are needed. I could see someone doing that as highly annoying me for insisting that I am something I am not, and not understanding me at all. I don't think I'd be able to put up with it.

I have never been to any therapist who didn't use labels. I think labels can be a bad thing because when they use a label, all they see is the label and blame everything on it you do and act like it describes you and make assumptions and quickly jump to conclusions assuming it's based on the label. But there are always down sides to using labels and downsides to not using them.

In my case, my therapist dismissed my concerns and said something about me trying to label myself. It was also said that labels aren't important or necessary, and that everyone feels the way that I did.

So I brought up very real feelings of being different, of being unable to relate to others, of being very sensitive and easily distracted, and my concerns were dismissed. No matter how I tried to explain that I just knew that I was extremely different from others, I wasn't taken seriously. I wasn't trying to "label" myself; I wanted answers.

I'm sure that the assumption was made that I just feel isolated or different from others because I'm lonely or depressed. That likely is the case with a lot of people. So the technique to reassure me by telling me how everyone else feels just like me perhaps would have worked, had that been the case. But it wasn't the case. I'm not stupid; I know very well how different I am from others, and not being taken seriously pissed me off.

It wasn't until I explained my sensory issues in great detail that it struck her as unusual. Therapists must think all patients don't know themselves well and exaggerate symptoms. When I say I'm really sensitive to touch, I mean it. When I say I'm really different from others, I mean it.

Labeling myself was a way for me to figure myself out and try to solve my problems, not a way to excuse my behavior or to feel "special." I'm also not a hypochondriac.

So I had to go myself to find a therapist who would evaluate me for ASD.

Another therapist that was trying to help me get over something in particular went into the whole "I don't use labels" nonsense. I never went back.

As Yigeren wrote, "They annoyed the crap out of me".

The two most useful therapists I've seen were able to allow me to define labels for use in our sessions and then use them. It saved a lot of time getting to the more deeply buried issues. It wasn't complicated; they simply wrote down my definitions.

I had one that refused to allow me to talk in labels or any other abstractions for that matter. I also noticed they did not write anything down, nor even appear to own a notepad. I eventually reminded them that I was hiring them for their skills and if those did not include abstract thinking and the ability to use labels I would have to find another therapist. I mean, they would interrupt and correct me in mid sentence as if I was a dog they were training - in retrospect I am amazed they didn't start using a "clicker" on me.

You have to understand the labels are used based on symptoms but they don't define an individual as a whole.