Should I stop going to therapy?

Thanks user.

Maybe I should try other online forums like the other user posted. I am at the point where Jow Forums is pretty much my only social interaction outside of co-workers who are pretty nice actually. I am tired of spending so much time on Jow Forums too.

perhaps you should try group therapy or whatever it is called?

There is no reason you can't do both finding friends and stick with your therapist. The thing is, even if you manage to find friends they can't be your therapist. Forcing your friends to be the people who you vent all of your problems and frustrations to will make them avoid and abandon you. Dropping your therapist and getting friends isn't a solution, its merely transferring the burden of supporting you from one person to another. Hitting a rut with therapy is exceedingly common. Express these feelings with your therapist and continue to use their support to build a plan to address your concerns.

If you depend on a therapist for social interaction, then I highly suggest talking about this in therapy. Your therapist needs to guide you into social interactions if you don't know where to start. Group therapy might be an option to look into.

I agree on volunteer work. Just be careful if you're working with the homeless. Not to speak ill of them, but some of them aren't friend material. However, "paying for a friend" is a meme that needs to die. You're paying for a tool to use and it's up to the person to utilize this tool instead of talking about trivial things like what's on Netflix.

If you think psychology is pseudoscience, then you know nothing about it.

All the best, OP. It's up to you to get out of the situation you're in. I think it's a good idea to keep attending therapy and taking medication (if applicable), just be sure to do therapy right. Don't talk about vidya, talk about your issues.

>If you think psychology is pseudoscience, then you know nothing about it.
Get a load of this faggot.
You are completely right OP.
You are basically paying for someone to listen to your problems, and tell you its ok dont worry we'll fix it.
Get friends like you said.
They're (mostly) free, and will call you on your bullshit without being afraid of losing a client.
They will make fun of your shortcomings and soon enough you'll be able to laugh about yourself again too.

I don't necessarily want friends just to vent but to have people that care I exist and want to spend time with me.

I just think most of what I get out of therapy is someone who listens to what I say and shows me empathy or gives me relaxation tips and advice that is helpful but a lot of times pretty obvious. I'm not sure anyone can really get me out of depression except for me.

OP imagine if you said that about a physical therapist or any other healthcare professional that you saw weekly. You might want more friends but that doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you need therapy. You should bring this up with your therapist.

I think it’s time to start looking for a new therapist. If it gets too friendly it’s probably less helpful.

>I'm not sure anyone can really get me out of depression except for me.

You're exactly right. Your therapist needs to provide you ways to be able to do so. No one can do it for you, but remember, you're paying for a service that you should be using. Talk about your lack of friends and what to do about it.

These are things you need to talk about. Relaxation tips and meditation techniques are a fraction of what your therapist should be providing. Seriously, be upfront about your problems and avoid talking about anything that doesn't pertain to your issues. It's a waste of time and money otherwise.

>You are basically paying for someone to listen to your problems, and tell you its ok dont worry we'll fix it.
That isn't even remotely close to what therapy is.
>They will make fun of your shortcomings and soon enough you'll be able to laugh about yourself again too.
Holy shit, everyone, this guy is a genius. Everybody alert the world that the cure for mental illness is having a group of people make fun of you.

>I don't necessarily want friends just to vent but to have people that care I exist and want to spend time with me.
Without a reliable support base, OP, that's exactly what will end up happening. You say that therapy taught you how to open up and be honest without holding back but being able to hold back is what sustains friendships. If you suddenly lose the outlet that you've been using to vent to and replace them with friends then, as I said, all you're doing is transferring the responsibility of supporting you from one person to the other. The only difference being that one person is a paid support whose job it is to engage with you and the other is a person who out of self-interest will terminate a relationship with you when the burden gets too great. Its great to want friends and to want people to spend time with you but learning to separate these relationships is going to be important. Therapist is for venting and working through your problems with, friends are for hanging out and having fun with. I'm not saying you can't depend on friends for emotional support but the ice in that department is very thin, OP.

Maybe I will mention it to my therapist. I just feel like things haven't really improved much and it's been 6 months.

>I just feel like things haven't really improved much and it's been 6 months.
As I said, hitting a rut is extremely common. In any kind of growth, even physical, we as humans are prone to getting comfortable. We hit certain milestones, revel in our progress and then suddenly we lose the urge to keep pushing ourselves. We get too comfortable with the accomplishments we already have and find ourselves either unable or unwilling to keep pushing forward. This is something that happens all the time. Mentioning these feelings to your therapist is definitely a good first step. As I'm sure you've figured out by now therapy is not a magic pill. Therapy is, essentially, a piece of exercise equipment. It is a tool used to investigate and examine parts about yourself that you wouldn't be able to do alone. While forming the habit of venting to someone and talking through daily stresses can feel good the process of making tangible, long term progress in addressing deep seated issues can be difficult, especially when you leave the therapist's office and the responsibility is now to practice the skills you learned. Don't lose faith, OP. You've hit a plateau but if you keep at it you'll push past it just like you pushed past the difficult you had when you first walked into the therapist's office. Bring it up with them.

>That isn't even remotely close to what therapy is.
That's exactly what it boils down to.
>Holy shit, everyone, this guy is a genius. Everybody alert the world that the cure for mental illness is having a group of people make fun of you.
It's not making fun of you, it's making you realize you're not so special and your faults aren't either.
But hey, you're a genius because psychologists today are very well-read in all the important literature and wake up every morning caring very very much about others peoples problems because they're like qualified to help you fix them and they have nice clothes and are licensed!

>6 months barely any progression
The hilarious part is that there's a very big chance that the improvements you DID make had absolutely nothing to do with your psych.

Listen OP, I realize I'm playing devils advocate and generalizing here but the rest of these faggots are pampering you for whatever reason.
I really do hope you find peace with yourself friend. Godspeed and don't fall for the cuddlers, they'll smother you to death.

>That's exactly what it boils down to.
Not even remotely.
>It's not making fun of you, it's making you realize you're not so special and your faults aren't either.
You're an absolute moron if you believe that anything you just said has therapeutic value.
>But hey, you're a genius because psychologists today are very well-read in all the important literature and wake up every morning caring very very much about others peoples problems
My favorite part about you "psychology is a pseudoscience" brainlets is that you shit on the collective work of thousands of people who have spend hundreds of years studying, cataloging, observing and quantifying human behavioral patterns yet you offer no alternative. You genuinely believe that simply being a smart ass and saying "psychology is a pseudoscience" is somehow a logical basis for dismissing the collective works of scientists much smarter than you or I. The fact of the matter is you just have no idea what you're talking about. Even if you had some legitimate qualm with the study of psychology you are either too dumb or too lazy to even articulate what it is. So, if you think you have a better theory and solution than the hundreds of thousands of people over the course of human history who have dedicated their lives to the behavioral sciences then please, share it with the class. Show us your study. Show us your degree. Show us the evidence and observation you've used to base your opinion. If you can't give us that and all you have is shit-posting then your advice is useless and you should toss yourself and anything else you have to say into a dumpster where it belongs.

>You're absolutely right if you believe that having real friends instead of paid feelgood shamans have therapeutic value.
Ftfy
I can understand if you can't relate though, you sound like you're just too well-read and put together for this stuff to work on you. Your intelligence is just too high.

On another note though OP;
How much has this therapy cost you so far?
What did you get in return?
Would you say it was worth it? Reccommend to a friend maybe?

Whatever your issue with therapists isn't based in objective reality. I'm not sure what your personal beef is with therapy but it has nothing to do with OP and, obviously, any reasonable person is obligated to step up and speak out against uninformed windbags like you who encourage other people to be mentally ill simply to validate their own irrational crusades against mental health professionals. Also, the fact that you resort back to sarcastic shit-posting and fail to address a single thing I challenged you with says everything I need to know about your intelligence and capacity to even comprehend the subject you're speaking about.

A few thousand dollars at least. Mostly because my insurance is a high deductible plan.
I do feel like it helped me to admit to myself I really do have a problem with depression and anxiety and it isn't my fault but I know I still have to fix it myself. I would say it was worth it but I'm not sure if it is helping or just making things worse now. I would do it if you feel like you have nobody else to turn to and like you might actually kill yourself someday.

>I would say it was worth it but I'm not sure if it is helping or just making things worse now.
Then you somehow have to answer this for yourself.
>I would do it if you feel like you have nobody else to turn to and like you might actually kill yourself someday.
If you think it helps you keep going. Maybe consider switching to a different one, but if you do make sure he has the info from your previous one.
Also this other guy seems to think I have some personal vendetta with psychs which to clarify isn't true, I am generally a person who is hard to convince of things he cannot measure, so maybe I should see a psych myself for these obvious shortcomings.