question

[cheshire-house.livejournal.com]

hi.
i don't think i've been in this community before...if i have, umm...someone let me know. thanks.
if you haven't noticed...i'm a little nervous. it'll pass...i think. *shrugs*
don'na worry...mostly nervous because of what i'm wanting to ask.

am agoraphobic, bipolar, and multiple, also fugue states.
am considering sniffing out a person for official diagnosis stuffits and talk-through helping...whatever that's called. :)
occasionally things get too much for me to deal with, and it's starting to affect my functionability, which is Not Good.
is affecting my current job search.

was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for "how to find a (what are they called, anyway?) therapist" because i'm going into this in new city with no references, no suggestions, and nothing but instincts and bad past experiences.

previous psychs either stood me up on appointments (i have a problem with being forgotten when i'm ON THE BOOKS) or done little more than drug me up and monitor the side-effects. (some of those have been nice people who sincerely cared...but i really don't like pills. at all.)

anyone have some advice on how to find a decent psych just for talking to?
preferably without breaking my already ailing bank account? (haha)


if this is inappropriate to ask, esteemed Mod, i don't mind if you delete the post.
we can try, though. :)

Comments

Head Doctors

[fireincarnation.livejournal.com]

This suggestion was given to me and has worked well for me under similar circumstances. I wrote a list of the following information:
What I have been diagnosed with
What illnesses I suspect I have and why
What my past experience with therapists was and what I did and did not like
What I expect to get out of therapy
What I am absolutely under no circumstances willing to try
A list of things that if the therapist does will result in me never going back.

I live in a college town, so I went to the University and asked them where to go for free psych help. They were able to help me quite a bit. You might get some help if you call the suicide hotline or some other sort of mental help hotline. Like out here, we have a gay/lesbian hotline. Any sort of self-help hotline should be able to refer you to what you are looking for.

i like this

[kaleidescope.livejournal.com]

I would add - for us at least - a list of things that won't result in us never going back, but will result in us setting some very clear boundaries.

Like... our last therapist failed to show up for our appointments, and called us to reschedule us, and so on, a number of times - and we finally found out we WEREN'T on the books when she was like "I'm sorry! Look, I'm writing you down now!" after about ten of these incidents.

Now, I think if a therapist failed to show up *once,* we wouldn't dump her (if we were satisfied with her work so far) but we would make it clear that she was getting dumped if it happened again, and we would ask for a free sesssion or something. And if she were late, we would talk about not getting charged or getting a cheaper session that time or something, especially since part of the session would involve talking about her lateness.

Stuff like that. But just in general, we're working a lot right now on being present enough to notice when something bothers us, and to say something about it. And that would help a lot.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

You might try Many Voices Webnews: http://www.manyvoicespress.com/

Many Voices Press publishes a newsletter by and for multiples, and a resource guide called Many Voices/Multiple Choices. The resource guide sometimes includes the names of therapists and clinics who specialize in multiple personality. Write to Lynn Wasnak, managing editor, at lw@manyvoicespress.com. The postal address is PO Box 2369, Cincinnati, OH 45201-2639. Call her at 513-751-8020 or fax 513-751-8060.

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

Yes, you have. (http://www.livejournal.com/community/multiplicity/50188.html)
You guys were posting around the time we started posting on multiplicity, and were active for a few months if I remember correctly. Anyway, it's all there in the archive (http://www.livejournal.com/community/multiplicity/calendar) if you want to check it out.

are you an abuse survivor that you know of?

[kaleidescope.livejournal.com]

i don't like to assume! but a lot of those things are connected to abuse. especially fugue states and agoraphobia. i don't know that much about bipolar things - everyone I know who's bipolar was abused, but then sometimes it seems like everyone I know at all was abused!

anyway, if you were or are questioning, you might try looking for a local survivors of incest anonymous (http://siawso.org) meeting and asking folks there if they have any personal experience with decent local therapists. or information about local therapists in general. I have the international meeting directory, so i can give you meeting info if you want - or anyone else for that matter - but they don't have meeting schedules online yet.

Other than that, i like the suggestions here so far and would add that what has been very important for us in finding therapy is researching all the different kinds of therapy out there. The various kinds of talk therapy mostly doesn't work for us, sandplay and art therapy haven't in the past although they are fun (and it depends on what you want to get out of it), body-centered ("somatic") stuff is REALLY important to us, as is EMDR... and so on.

And of course as multiples we have to decide whether we want someone with experience working with multiples (who might be better, or might have weird biases) or who doesn't have experience but is willing to try (who might not be as good, but might be more open to our individual experiences). And so on.

hope that helps!