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  1. #1
    sanspants's Avatar
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    Therapy with a near-peer

    About four months ago I started therapy with Kip, a guy whose age is within about two years of my own. I find that as we progress, I've internalized his hopes for me, and turned them into my hopes for myself. It's more like "coffee time with Kip," since it's all about putting life into perspective. I won't cross the boundary by asking him too much about his personal life, but it's pretty easy to guess, based on his reactions to the words I've said. It's as though he's an alternate me, whose life worked out. Mine could still slide downhill due to circumstances outside of my control at this point, whereas his is very much under his own control. I see how he is living and tell myself, that's what I want, and I'll do whatever I have to do to in order to get there. It's not that I want to be him, so much as I want to be as positive as he wants me to be. It's all a little hard to explain.

    When it comes to social anxiety, Kip sort of expected me to get past certain barriers on my own, and eventually I found I would challenge myself without even thinking about it.

    What I basically want to say is that it can be very helpful to have a therapist with whom you can identify, to a certain extent. Someone you can relate to and admire. I found I made my own advice, rather than needing it from him, because I wanted him to know that I held the same points of view about my life as he did. The same hopes and "can do" attitude. That's one of the reasons I'm staying the course with therapy, and will probably still be in treatment long after the storms in my personal life are over.

  2. #2
    QuietCalamity's Avatar
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    It's interesting to hear from you on this because my therapist is also not much older than me, and in addition she also works in partnership with my workplace (which I did NOT know when I first contacted her and scared the crap out of me at first but it's cool), so she is almost like a co-worker. I had a therapist a few years ago who was older and I had a hard time opening up with her because I just did not trust people who were old enough to be my mom.

    I only started therapy in Sept but I'm starting feel like talking to my therapist is almost like talking to a friend or mentor. It helps that she self-discloses her own experience with anxiety (eg. she is also on SSRIs and struggles with panic attacks), plus I also want to be a therapist one day. She gives me very applicable career/school advice because she has recently been through the same things.

    Generally speaking though, the best part of having a therapist close in age is that it's just easier to be myself. I can speak in my own language because it's the same language she speaks. It makes therapy 10000x more comfortable.

    I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. -- Maya Angelou

  3. #3
    sanspants's Avatar
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    Quote QuietCalamity View Post
    It's interesting to hear from you on this because my therapist is also not much older than me, and in addition she also works in partnership with my workplace (which I did NOT know when I first contacted her and scared the crap out of me at first but it's cool), so she is almost like a co-worker. I had a therapist a few years ago who was older and I had a hard time opening up with her because I just did not trust people who were old enough to be my mom.

    I only started therapy in Sept but I'm starting feel like talking to my therapist is almost like talking to a friend or mentor. It helps that she self-discloses her own experience with anxiety (eg. she is also on SSRIs and struggles with panic attacks), plus I also want to be a therapist one day. She gives me very applicable career/school advice because she has recently been through the same things.

    Generally speaking though, the best part of having a therapist close in age is that it's just easier to be myself. I can speak in my own language because it's the same language she speaks. It makes therapy 10000x more comfortable.
    Exactly! Sometimes there are thoughts we need to just blurt out, and our therapists are the people who need to understand us without a secondary explanation. Plus, I think we internalize our therapist's comfort levels with us-- which are greater when they can relate to us too. Mine curses about as often as I do, just because sometimes it really is warranted, at least in our vernacular-- and that's somehow so natural. I think younger therapists tend to show more of themselves, and understand that they can totally keep a professional boundary while being real with us.

    Like you I've often thought of becoming a therapist, and my therapist seems to think I'd make a good one as well. We do a lot of education about the process and how it works, which gets him excited to talk about what he loves. It's a great (and probably rare!) thing to have a common interest in not only humanistic approaches to wellness, but the very one developing through the dynamic of the two of us.

    It's hard to explain to most people that my therapy is education, and my education is therapy, yet it's entirely enjoyable while challenging. There are moments when it becomes yoga, only on both cognitive and emotional levels at once.

    Sorry for the super-delayed response, and thanks for yours Please feel free to share any other thoughts you have, or to let me know if anything I said was confusing to you.

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    How do i find a therapist? Really wana kick start my anxiety disorder . Cheers g

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    Quote Georgie View Post
    How do i find a therapist? Really wana kick start my anxiety disorder . Cheers g
    Your doctor should be able to give you a referral or at the very least give you a few names.

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    Thank you ��

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    UndercoverAngel's Avatar
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    Hi Georgie, I just wanted to add that you can call the number on your insurance card. They can give you a list of therapists and doctors if necessary, that accept your insurance. Then you can look them up and check them out for yourself, and see who sounds like they would be a good fit for you. Good luck to you.

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