I need a therapist for work with things that didn't happen.

November 6, 2007 9:20 PM

How do I find a therapist to deal with "non-events"?

So I didn't finish college. On top of that, I'm dealing with infertility and struggling creatively -- not that the two are connected or anything, right? How do I go about finding a therapist that deals with things that didn't happen, rather than things that did? Am I overthinking this?

If it matters, I've been treated for depression and anxiety in the past but I feel okay right now chemically. I didn't respond well to CBT but that may have been a function of how imbalanced I was at the time. I have been in and out of therapy for most of my adult life and part of my childhood, too, but the last three or four therapists I've had have left practice or moved away. (Maybe it's me.)

Any specific recs in the north/northwestern Chicago area would be good, too. Bonus points for someone who has experience working with artists.
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posted by anonymous to human relations (9 comments total)

I'm in a class concerning "therapy for life transitions" right now, and we've been talking about these "anticipated non-events" a great deal. So I would assume that most therapists who specialize in, or at least have experience with, life transitions would have the training to help you.

(And one thing we've been talking about a great deal is how such events require meaning-making counseling, rather than problem-solving counseling. CBT is very much a problem-solving counseling style.)
posted by occhiblu at 9:32 PM on November 6, 2007 [1 favorite]

I agree with Occhiblu-- CBT is very "Okay, let's get you over your anxiety about driving on freeways and your hatred of your boyfriend's cat" and probably not as good for what you're dealing with.

For meaning-of-life situations such as you describe I had really wonderful luck with a Gestalt therapist. I'm not near you and don't have any specific recommendations, but good luck.
posted by thehmsbeagle at 10:01 PM on November 6, 2007

This is what talk therapy is made for, I think. You are overthinking, and I wonder if that is a new shape of anxiety. I say find az therapist, get talking, and you'll figure out pretty fast if they can make you feel a little more put-together.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:46 PM on November 6, 2007

There are really a bunch of things going on with you. You interpret them as non-events, but it might be more useful to separate them out into extant, rather non-extant factors.

So, college. You have, what? Feelings of inadequacy/fears of failure/feelings of frustration surrounding the fact that you didn't complete college. Let's translate that into a desire. You: would like to try to go back to college OR would like to feel positive about yourself and your intelligence OR would like to figure out how to make a good living without a college degree OR would like to become more learned OR would like to address whatever situations (assuming it was something other than just bad luck or circumstance) that made it difficult to complete college. So, now you have actual problems or situations you can look at to improve your life.

Of course, it sounds like the first step might be letting go, as trite and shitty as that sounds. Also, the normal path is you finish college, so something must have happened for you to have stopped your education. You can always talk about that.

Similar situations for the infertility and creative struggles: you wanted to have a baby and encountered obstracles (that's something that happened) and you are desiring to express yourself creatively but feel blocked.
posted by Deathalicious at 2:49 AM on November 7, 2007

rephrase your question. "i didn't graduate college" isn't a non-event. its an event. if you think of it as "i went to college but left before i completed" maybe it will be easier for you to figure out what kind of therapist you want to talk to.
posted by softlord at 5:08 AM on November 7, 2007

Without knowing the whole story, it sounds like your main problems are procrastination-related. This is something much easier to describe when shopping for therapists.

Bear in mind that the procrastination I'm describing is more complex than the conventional "doing it later" understanding. A therapist well-versed in the intricacies of procrastination will help you identify habits & feelings that interfere with your accomplishments so they can be addressed properly. This should be equally applicable to the creative blocks, too.
posted by yorick at 6:15 AM on November 7, 2007

So, all the problem-solving that just happened in this thread, you probably want to avoid therapists who do that to you, too. It's a normal human impulse, to fix things, but from the way you framed the question as well as your experience with CBT, it doesn't sound like that's what you need right now.

You were assuming an event would happen, and you gave meaning to your life counting on that event. That event (or those events) not happening can cause a serious need for a life re-evaluation, and given how much you currently have going on (and how you -- rightly, I think -- connect it all together), now is a really great time to dive in there and sort out what it all means for who you are and how you want to live your new life going forward.

And what's really needed here (especially, I would assume, with the creativity problems involved) is a grieving process to make sense of the loss. NOT to solve the problems (go back to college! stop procrastinating! start working! adopt!), but simply to experience that loss and investigate what it means for you.

Grief work actually overlaps quite a bit with this sort of life transitions work, so if you're coming up empty in searches, you might try calling around to grief counselors.
posted by occhiblu at 7:33 AM on November 7, 2007 [4 favorites]

I was going to say what occhiblu said, that this is essentially grief work. A lot of us think of grief work as something that people go through when people die. You lose a loved one, you grieve, you go through that process and get over it.

But there are other places that grieving is important and often neglected. For example, a neurologist tells parents that their child is mentally retarded and will not have a normal life. In that moment the neurologist has murdered their expected, future, perfect child - that child becomes a non-event - and replaced it with a retarded one. These parents need to grieve the loss of their expected child.

In the same way you are dealing with the loss of future expectations: your college degree, possibly your ability to conceive a child and all that means. This is grief work by any rational definition and a counselor is going to be able to help you work through the process.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:27 PM on November 7, 2007

Seconding grief work. What you call a "non-event" sounds more like a loss to me. A therapist can help you work through these issues from your past and help you tie up the loose ends. Good luck :)
posted by mynameismandab at 7:07 PM on November 7, 2007 [1 favorite]