What the heck does this therapist mean?

[Arch]

A therapist that I'm considering in my area has this as part of his description (I guess it's his methodology, if that is the correct word): Mindfulness-based, Authenticity/Inner Peace/Vitality.

I don't know what this means. What does it mean that his therapy is mindfulness based? Is this the sort of thing that would be incompatible with an nonspiritual, atheistic, empirical science-lover? I'm very suspicious of touchy-feely approaches, and I have to say that this sounds like exactly that.

I was supposed to receive an e-mail list of likely therapists from the LGBT center here in town, but it hasn't arrived yet (what is the holdup???!!!), so I've been doing a little Internet scouting on my own. I've only found two people that I might be able to work with--this guy is one of them--but my contact at the Center says that there are four. I don't want to look into any of these people for real until I get that list.

I'm going crazy waiting. When I finally decide that I want something, I have no patience.

[PolarBear]

As far as I understand it, mindfulness is about being in the here and now. Not letting yourself get distracted by thoughts and feelings about tomorrow, or even the next hour or second. Not thinking about yesterday. Just the here and now. And how you feel and think right now. What the now means to you.
Or something.
It's not spiritual, it's not about God or deities. It's asking yourself who you are at this moment. Not being defined by your past.
There's a whole lot of information about mindfulness on the internet, it is a subject that is very popular lately.

Of course, you can always call that therapist and ask them about it.

Good luck with choosing a therapist, I hope that email arrives soon.
PolarBear

[Arch]

Okay, I'm stupid. It sounded too...fakey to be a technical term, so I didn't even think of looking it up. Now that I have looked it up, some descriptions still make this type of therapy sound like something that is incompatible with my way of looking at things. Some descriptions make it sound sorta okay.

I suppose my main problem is that I swore off therapy a long time ago--I vowed that I would never go through that hell again--and I only changed my mind about two weeks ago, after I had my big breakthrough. So I'm still a bit touchy and suspicious about therapy in general. And I hate, really HATE any kind of warmfuzzy rhetoric about getting in touch with my feelings and all of that.

At the moment, I feel absolutely ambivalent about therapy. I can't wait to start because it's the route to fully achieving who and what I am. Yet I loathe and detest the very idea of going in and spilling my guts to yet another shrink.

I've been through extended counseling maybe five or six times in my life. The penultimate time, my psychiatrist was so fascinated by my three-way marriage (well, we considered ourselves married) that he lost track of the issues that I had gone there to work on. For other reasons, I felt that I could not fully trust him, so I stopped going. The last time that I was in therapy, I saw a psychologist. I was at a very low point and extremely vulnerable--too raw to be objective or critical about how he was handling things. The guy asked me what my objective was, then he totally disregarded it and substituted it with one of his own--pretty much the exact opposite of my objective--but without telling me. It took me a couple of months to really figure out what he was doing, and by then I was so messed up that I didn't know which end was up. That's when I decided, NEVER AGAIN. He set me back a couple of years.

I wasn't seeing any of these guys for GID counseling, so I suppose I'm entering into new territory now.

I am scared spitless.

[Lisbeth]

My first guess, Arch, is that your therapist is from the humanist, client-centered school of psychology and that it is highly likely that he practices ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy).  None of this a bad thing.

To demystify it and put you more at ease, ACT is about paying attention to what your feelings and self-talk are telling you, accepting that those emotions, because they are just emotions, are okay, and committing yourself to a path of growth, which would include stopping saying bad things about yourself to yourself.

[sneakersjay]

No idea.

I'm a pretty linear/logical/concrete thinker rather than a touchy/feely/emotional guy, and my therapy sessions have been mostly questions and answers kinds of things, with no flowery inner-self stuff.

Maybe it means that the therapist will actually listen to you (be mindful) and be helpful rather than thinking about what they're going to have for lunch, or worrying about the decorator showing up on time, or their hot date after work, while you're jabbering away @ $150/hr.

Jay

[Elwood]

I've been told that one must be "well grounded" before the Standards of Care will allow them to transition. Because I have high anxiety, panic disorders, amnesia, obsessive compulsive thoughts and depression, my doctors don't think I am "stable" enough mentally to transition.

[NicholeW.]

I've been told that one must be "well grounded" before the Standards of Care will allow them to transition. Because I have high anxiety, panic disorders, amnesia, obsessive compulsive thoughts and depression, my doctors don't think I am "stable" enough mentally to transition.

Elwood, please read this and discuss it with your therapist. I'd suggest discussing it here first as you read it. Your therapist may well be very right about you're waiting. OTH, waiting may be making those symptoms worse.

Nichole

[Elwood]

Yeah, I'm going to bring in a copy of the Standards of Care so we can go over it. I've read it, and well, supposedly I have to be "stable" enough for T. At least that's what it implies...

Maybe we should make a new thread about this.