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Trust in your therapist


Guest ammark

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Hi There,

I am a sufferer from Pure-O (OCD) since 1992 and had shown up to various psychiatrist when living outside the UK. I haven't used congnitive beharvirial therapy and was always faced up with medicine therapy. I came to the UK in 2004 and researched for best OCD therapists here. I eventually visited ocdcentre.com and decided to pay a visit to India Haylor who is using Dr.Jeffrey Schwartz cognitive behavirial therapy methodology.

I have been visiting India Haylor from OCDCentre.com for the last 3 months. She is a fairly expensive therapist (charges £100 for a visit) and I have paid her 5 visits and have found her methodology quite effective especially for combating my kind of OCD....Pure-O. She has a model to address the cognitive belief system of an OCD sufferer.

My problem is that because of various failed therpies, I have an obsessive doubt about the capabilities of the therapist. India is very good, but due to my doubts, I start thinking that she is not formally trained as a "psychiatrist" or "psychologiest", so whether my recovery is actual or an illusion and will it persist. I start thinking whether a formal "psychiatrist" is supposed to treat you or can it be a former OCD sufferer turned into therapist like India.

What do you say?

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Guest scorpius

I'd have a lot more faith in a therapist who's actually experienced OCD than one who hasn't, no matter how highly qualified they are.

Psychiatrists rarely give CBT themselves due to the pressure to see the hundreds of other patients on their list who are psychotic and need continuous review of their drugs eg schizophrenics. Clinical psychologists usually use a CBT based approach, but if they haven't suffered from OCD they are applying techniques from a textbook. That can be fine if they're experienced though.

But no, if your therapist has actually beaten OCD herself I think that's a pretty good qualification in itself! You also said your doubt was obsessive - maybe you should tell her and you could address that aspect in therapy as well.

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Thank you all for your kind replies.

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Hi Ammark,

I started seeing India Haylor in July last year. I found the therapy very helpful :thumbup: and as you say, really effective for the pure o side of things, etc. I also had similar worries to you, re the therapy etc, the type of things they were saying, etc, as I was having to trust them and believe in it. I think ultimately, this is just another form of doubt and therefore OCD and therefore, you have to take the risk it is really helpful and your are not deluding yourself.

I agree that you should talk this issue through with India. I told her my worries about this.

Before I started at the OCD Centre, I had never had therapy before and worried about what if the OCD Centre couldn't help me then what would I do, etc, etc.....

Then when I improved, I worried what if I didn't have OCD really, as I've improved and should still really be struggling, what if it wasn't really OCD to begin with ......

Then I worried what if the therapy is incompatible with Christianity (I'm a Christian).....

It was just my OCD was taking a new form, seeing as my "old" issues were being quiet as I had worked through them recently. There will ALWAYS be something new to worry about, something you hadn't previously worked through or considered, that seems really important to work through THIS TIME, but once you've done that, another one crops up. You have to take a risk that this one is just OCD, (or at least once you've discussed it with India). It's so hard to do this, I know.

Take care,

Alpha

P.S. I still have doubts now and then that I actually do have OCD. This is despite going to the OCD Centre for therapy!!!

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