On therapy and intrusive thoughts

In the 80s and 90s the kind of therapy you see in movies where you lie on a couch and talk about your childhood became very popular. That is called pyschodynamic therapy. A lot of it is based on building certain dynamics between the patient and therapist, and so in a lot of ways it builds a dependence on the therapist. A lot of therapists feel pretty strongly against it, and that there are a lot of bad incentives at play. I agree with them. I also think this kind of therapy can even be regressive: it tends to focus on making the ego strong rather than flexible. I'd be willing to bet that was the kind of therapy your family members received.

Those who are doing the kind of therapy I'm talking about (some CBT, mindfulness & meditation, acceptance practice etc.) tend to be focused much more on skills than history. The point is not to figure out that you react to situations in a specific way because of some off hand comment your mother made when you were 5. The point is learning to recognize those situations, and to learn to have a goto way to deal with them. If you stay in this kind of therapy for more than 2 years it's probably a mistake. From day one my therapist talked about getting me out the door.

So my advice would to make sure you go in with a plan, focus on skillset building, not personal exploration (which can be useful in small doses, but also is extremely egocentric and can easily exacerbate issues imo). Have a timeline in mind (doesn't have to be strict, but like your family my parents were in therapy for decades - that's ridiculous and exploitative). Keep it goal oriented. Look for people with a lot of CBT experience.

And of course, the major caveat: I didn't go in with anything but general depression and anxiety. If you have major depression, PTSD, etc. I think the rules are probably pretty different (although my impression is that generally pyschodynamic therapy is not appropriate for that either).

I believed in Therapy, and really wanted it to work. It didn't work in the slightest. It actually made things worse. I didn't learn any fancy tools. I didn't find any out anything about myself, that I didn't already know.

I will say this though, if I didn't go through therapy; I would always wonder if I could have changed my destiny. In my case, I needed medication.

I found no difference between the PhD, and the MFCC. I did talk to a psychiatrist about my unsuccess in therapy, he said I didn't do it long enough. I will never know if he was right?

Because I was feeling so bad, for so long, and those Therapy sessions were expensive, I was completely honest in therapy. I devulged my innermost secrets, thoughts, warts, everything. In my case, it just didn't help my condition.

Drugs, time, and exercise helped my condition. I'm still not the person I used to be before the breakdown though. (I was told not to use word breakdown, but my brain just decided to breakdown. If I said anything different, I would be lying.)

I don't want to discourage anyone from seeking the help of a Therapist, but if you are a well adjusted individual, happy, going to school, or working, and don't have any real complaints, but one day your brain decides to bust a gasket--I would try to see a Psychiatrist. But even then a lot of them want you to go through therapy before they medicate you.

And if you decide to go through the medication route, realize you might be on the drugs a long time? Especially the benzodiazepines. I'm not sure if what I know now about addiction, I would have ever used them, but then again they are better than self medicating with booze?

It's a shame we still know so little about mental illness, or even how the brain works. I really thought we would have made huge strides in treating the mentally ill by now, but they haven't.

In general mindfulness and meditation are great, and if you can't afford therapy as well, they can be great on their own (and are free!).

Freudian theory is the basis of pyschodynamic therapy. I'd encourage you to try a different type, as I don't think all are equal.