What do you think it means if your therapist says he's not

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I know one way to get rid of sensory issues. You should experiment with different diets or supplements that treat autistic symptoms. Fun stuff like special interests didn't go away for me. The main thing that went away was sensory issues. I used to have horrible sensory issues as a kid(don't really remember), but now my sensory issues are barely there. I still have to deal with pretty bad sensory issues once in a while, but it's rare enough I can call in sick when I have them. Even when my sensory issues are at their worst they're still not bad enough to cause meltdowns. Imagine being a able to call in sick whenever you have sensory issues.

This probably doesn't matter...but I did not mean soothing music makes me more ok so much as that sometimes it is confusing how sounds that aren't welcome upset me but similar sounds at a different time might be fine. The neighbor playing music when I want to sleep is difficult, as is noise from the car next to me, but I expect loud music if I go ice skating at a public rink and am able to focus on the skating. I understand it is much harder for you.

I think maybe it is worth mentioning things you would likely have tried for others who may come to this topic and are looking for answers for themselves. There are a few things to try like:
Threshold on the door
Weatherstripping
Caulk
Noise dampening or insulated curtains or tiles not only over windows but over walls
Rugs and carpets on floor
Rug or quilt hung decoratively on wall or in a wall shaped frame
Rubber matting
If it is your home there are ways to treat the drywall and adding a second wall but this is a major project
I'm sure there are more strategies including being ready to move to another room or basement if there is noise coming in

I'm sure there are other strategies, too

I agree with you and others that it is very difficult for someone who has never experienced an intensity of sensory experience being overwhelming to try to fathom what that feels like...when someone tries for the first time I believe it overwhelms. We are used to this and consider it normal and for you it is....but for your therapist (I know it may be wrong to make these assumptions and am sorry if what I am saying is disturbing or not appropriate; and am not saying be more understanding; the opposite....wait for him if you like because to truly help, I feel he needs to really grasp IMO what your daily experience is like or he will forever be tiptoeing around the outskirts of the pressure and pain you live with every day leaving you never truly being heard and forever alone in his presence and when you think of him.

Also if you need to sit on the floor sometimes pressure helps and if you can squeeze against a corner or some furniture, use pillows etc, you may find comfort if pressure helps you....or maybe your therapist needs a weighted blanket!! I am not joking I do feel these things to regulate ones sensory system can make a difference when you find the right things to help and maybe not for everyone but for many, strategies to help sensory dysregulation in children with sensory processing disorder and autism may have value.

I hope your therapist finds I'm
Himself the ability to empathize and your faith he can speaks volumes....trust yourself, at worst he will fail....not you.

"What do you think it means if your therapist says he's not equipped to help you?"

I think he means exactly that. If he doesn't feel he is qualified to be your therapist, then that's that. I can see how you would view this as a rejection, but it's not. It's a statement of fact. I also understand that you have found your sessions helpful and had a trust for him. That's good, but it doesn't mean he will be with you for the rest of your life. I think you should think about this positively. In my own experience with mental health professionals, I find it's better not to emotionally bond with them. They are like any other doctors and shouldn't be thought of as friends. Who knows what the next one will be like.

If I were you, I would tell him this. Let him know how important he is to you, and how detrimental to your mental health and progress it would be if he left. I'm in the same boat. What I find helpful in therapy is less about the strategies and coping mechanisms, which I'm already pretty good at, but rather, the consistency and predictability of having another person there to talk to every week, and the reassurance that they will accept all of me, not just the socially acceptable parts of me. Good luck Skibum, this is hard stuff you're dealing with, and I hope it ends up okay for you.

I think everyone would like that, but it's not the purpose of therapy.

I thought the same thing, Bea.

Therapists/psychiatrist are human. Humans have limits. Whether it be schooling or temperament.

Skibum, maybe your therapist doesn't want to learn from you. He has his limits of what he can handle, and seing a grown women doing distressed, child like behavior is out of his league. Most therapists do not see that behavior in their office with the average patient population. They see the tears and many be rocking, but not not things like hand biting, scratching, slapping self (I don't know what you did there).

You may be an emotional drain that leaves him spent, and he has another 6 clients after you. This therapeutic relationship isn't working for him.

My psychiatrist friend does not see borderline personality or eating disorder patients. He feels his skill set isn't quite right for them. They leaved him drained and he takes that home with him. That isn't healthy. It isn't healthy for the person PAYING (remember, therapists are friends, it's a business relationship), or for the person providing services. If every time you show up for a session, and the person is mentally doing a FML (even if he is totally appropriate with you), that's not good.

You need to talk about the abandonment issues, like tomorrow. You don't want this therapist to roll out a 6 session plan to transfer you to someone else and not address this. You doing want him to get fed up and send you a very polite termination of services letter. You also don't want him just seeing you, just because. That isn't good therapy either. Insurance will question what he is doing therapeutic wise with you. If he is scrambling to write something useful down, that can catch up with him too.

You need to have a very blunt, brass tacks discussion of what is NOT working for him. Being told you are a deep thinker, and feel emotions deeply tells you nothing. You are probably not the only client who is like that, so why would that be a barrier to therapeutic model?

My two pennies, whatever you did child like behavior wise in that last session really spooked him. Remember, what you think is self soothing behavior (slapping...gently biting your hand...) comes across to the rest of the NT world as something isn't right. The last thing you need is a full bore meltdown with this guy calling 911, thinking you are a danger to yourself.

I have had psychiatrists do this. I have bipolar I. The hand writing is on the wall. Eventually, you will be forced to move on. It will be "reduction in client load", or some other benign excuse. I only had one psychiatrist who was up front, and said between my medications that needed constant tweeking and my personality, I was more than he could juggle.

Remember a therapist is a job. Sometimes the client is more work that the office bill is worth. I don't know what this guy's deal is, but rumblings about "not helping" usually means a therapist change somewhere down the road.

Well, I think it can be ... it really depends on a lot of things.

"Supportive" therapy aims to use no specific techniques but just to provide a safe, supportive place to work through some things. Insurance companies balk at funding this long-term, because there aren't goals that they can chart. So not everybody has the opportunity to use this kind of therapy environment long term.

I had a relationship with my therapist where I saw her once every 3 or 4 months (because that's all I needed) and I felt the consistency was very helpful. I am debating whether to try to do something like that with someone else, now that she retired. I probably should, but starting over is a little daunting. Will I like and trust her as much as the last one? Plus you hate to have to cover the same ground all over again.

I disagree with some of this. Normal people say things that they think and feel in that moment which are not meant literally and I feel that the therapist you are seeing should not be responded to as if he was on the spectrum unless that is the case. This may be the end, or a temporary moment of him feeling helpless and needing to know how to respond helpfully.

I hope things get better Skibum. I think they may. Just remember people have different ideas what therapy is and that does not mean you are wrong for you.

Just to clarify, Waterfalls, who are you disagreeing with?

I can't imagine it being covered by Health Canada. It seems like a luxury more than a health necessity.
I'm not talking about the OP's situation here, as I think she may need more support rather than less.
But seriously, if you're therapist tells you they can't treat you, that's pretty much the end of the discussion.

My Aspie husband got a reduction in therapist office visits from our insurance because they deemed "supportive therapy" was not covered under the mental health policy.

If the therapist is paid via health insurance, those vermin do chart audits after so many office visits. They are looking to see if the issues you are coming for help are being addressed. It's really a two parter. How much work are you doing on your end to get better, and what is the therapist providing to make that happen. That is under the glorious heading "quality control".

The therapist has to chart eventually that some progress is being made. The therapist can only creatively fudge so for long, about how your progress is going. All therapists do this because insurance will only cough up 8 office visits more major depressive episode. That's not enough time do to squat. You may be suicidally depressed, and nothing has magically happened in 5 visits, the therapist has to justify why you should get more than 8. It's a lot of creative writing skills according to my friend.

My husband didn't understand this, and told the audit RN that he was still going because he needed someone to check in with and keep him grounded. Well, paying a psychiatrist $250/visit wasn't flying for our insurance company. They told him to look into a support group like in real life like NAMI, if all he needed was human contact.

Now he is in the middle of another major depressive episode, so of course, the insurance is paying for therapy. Had they paid for a once a month visit, I don't think he would have spiraled down so fast. Next time we may just eat the $250 visit fee to avoid this. He can get away with a once a month visit.

If you pay out of pocket, the sky's the limit on how long therapy is or what your therapist does.

It's possible that insurance will cover supportive therapy in some cases. For instance, a woman who has to have a mastectomy is facing surgical trauma, body image issues, the anxiety of a potentially life-ending disease, perhaps psychosexual issues ... and in cases like that, "supportive" therapy with no other technique than supportive listening might be approved for a set number of sessions. The person I was seeing was a rehabilitation psychologist (not drug rehab, but in a physical rehabilitation clinic) and I have a physical disability to cope with. I didn't even have to get insurance approval. I could have seen her more often, just didn't care to.

It all depends on the specifics of a situation as well as the type of insurance.

I'm sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with you. I was disagreeing with the idea of taking everything another person says literally and the idea what Skibum says she wants and needs is wrong. Insurance can be difficult but there is a lot of desperation and hints of thinking of suicide in what Skibum wrote and the therapist seems to be suggesting more, not less, is needed. I don't think Skibum is wrong and I think therapy sometime is about finding and experiencing internal and externally some level of acceptance. To some therapy is about concrete solutions. That may do little for the adult burnout issues and shutting down that may occur. And also I have experienced people being freaked out by me for crying and being upset, nothing worse, no screaming or hitting myself or anything concretely different....just their sense I am different despite every effort to conform to social expectations, and so I believe the same could happen to Skibum. You can appear weird and scary without doing the things Tawaki mentions just because you aren't typical so I was disagreeing with the idea she necessarily did something concretely disturbing when she
may simply have been herself and upset to where it was hard to communicate and that can be taken as scary.....but don't believe it's doing something wrong just because someone is uncomfortable. Sometimes, yes, and I think that's been her experience. Sometimes no. And it bothers me to assume that others discomfort may be a result of concrete aggression when my experience is that people get scared of all kinds of things including just not putting words together well enough. That's what I was disagreeing about.

Thanks. I did not feel personally challenged, but just wanted to clarify what you were disagreeing about.

These threads can get pretty complicated sometimes. I don't like to "quote" massively because that bogs down the reading, so sometimes I just mention the person's name I am responding to.

Anyway I hope skibum feels she has been listened to in this thread and got some useful feedback.... I think she did say that above. (but I am not quoting!)

I like being able to quote even if it's just a bit BeaArthur but I'm surprised it let me quote you there.....the captchas have been impossible lately and I had to remove what I tried to quote to post earlier in this thread, so it's been harder to make sense.

Maybe cloudflare will be quieter now. We can hope!

Probably that he doesn't understand most of your thinking and behavior and he finds it hard to relate to you to be able to help you in therapy.