{"id":2154,"date":"2010-02-26T07:00:45","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T07:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2010\/02\/you-have-written-a-brave.html"},"modified":"2010-02-26T07:00:45","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T07:00:45","slug":"you-have-written-a-brave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/02\/you-have-written-a-brave.html","title":{"rendered":"How do you find a psychotherapist that you can trust? An Interview with Judith D. Schwartz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"judithd_schwartz.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/71\/import\/imgs\/judithd_schwartz.jpg\" width=\"200\" height=\"302\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span><br \/>\nAwhile back I published an excerpt from Judith Schwartz&#8217;s amazing book, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Therapists-New-Clothes-Judith-Schwartz\/dp\/1605710342\/\">&#8220;The Therapist&#8217;s New Clothes.&#8221;<\/a> Her words left me with many more questions than answers, so I&#8217;ve decided to interview her about the unique and complicated relationship between a therapist and her client. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.judithdschwartz.com\/\">Judith is a journalist and author who&#8217;s latest book, <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Therapists-New-Clothes-Judith-Schwartz\/dp\/1605710342\/\">&#8220;The Therapist&#8217;s New Clothes&#8221;<\/a>, is a memoir about training as a psychotherapist&#8211;and a cautionary tale about the seductions of therapy. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.judithdschwartz.com\/\">Click here to visit her website.<\/a><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.judithdschwartz.com\/\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Question: You have written a brave and bold book about not making psychotherapy your God. Wow. Can you give us five warnings signs that you&#8217;ve become too dependent on psychotherapy?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><b>Judith:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Your treatment becomes more interesting to you than other aspects of your life<\/li>\n<li>Your mind keeps running in psychotherapy mode much of the time<\/li>\n<li>A therapy appointment is not merely the highlight of your day\/week, but the time that feels most &#8220;real&#8221;; all else pales in comparison<\/li>\n<li>If someone questions whether your therapy is helping, you get extremely defensive, even enraged<\/li>\n<li>The mere thought of having to miss an appointment sends you into a panic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Question: How does a person go about finding a psychotherapist that she can trust?<\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Judith:<\/b> Credentials and reputation are important but not a guarantee. I&#8217;d be wary of anyone who tries to impose restrictions on you, or is so invested in a treatment philosophy that you don&#8217;t feel he or she is really &#8220;getting&#8221; you. You want someone who is trying to understand where you are as opposed to fitting you in to a particular view or treatment school.<\/p>\n<p><b>Question: And finally, how do you make peace with the fact that you can&#8217;t fix yourself entirely? <\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>Judith: <\/b>That was never the problem for me &#8212; I would gladly have remained unfixed if I felt okay. I felt miserable all the time (what I now know as mixed anxiety and depression) and bought into the idea that &#8220;working out my issues&#8221; was the only way to get better. The effort I devoted to psychotherapy treatment reflected my desperation to feel better. Now that, thanks to medication, I am better, I need to accept that I&#8217;m not going to feel okay all the time. I have to remind myself that I&#8217;ll have low or anxious days, and that this doesn&#8217;t mean that I&#8217;ll never feel okay again. That&#8217;s what I have to make peace with: the fact that I&#8217;ll always have that fear.<\/p>\n<p><i>*&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beyondblue1\">Click here to <b>subscribe to Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/thereseborchard\">click here to follow Therese on <b>Twitter<\/b><\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/beyond_blue\">click here to join <b>Group Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a>, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Awhile back I published an excerpt from Judith Schwartz&#8217;s amazing book, &#8220;The Therapist&#8217;s New Clothes.&#8221; Her words left me with many more questions than answers, so I&#8217;ve decided to interview her about the unique and complicated relationship between a therapist and her client. Judith is a journalist and author who&#8217;s latest book, &#8220;The Therapist&#8217;s New&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How do you find a psychotherapist that you can trust? An Interview with Judith D. Schwartz - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/02\/you-have-written-a-brave.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How do you find a psychotherapist that you can trust? An Interview with Judith D. Schwartz - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Awhile back I published an excerpt from Judith Schwartz&#8217;s amazing book, &#8220;The Therapist&#8217;s New Clothes.&#8221; Her words left me with many more questions than answers, so I&#8217;ve decided to interview her about the unique and complicated relationship between a therapist and her client. 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Schwartz - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/02\/you-have-written-a-brave.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How do you find a psychotherapist that you can trust? An Interview with Judith D. Schwartz - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Awhile back I published an excerpt from Judith Schwartz&#8217;s amazing book, &#8220;The Therapist&#8217;s New Clothes.&#8221; Her words left me with many more questions than answers, so I&#8217;ve decided to interview her about the unique and complicated relationship between a therapist and her client. 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