Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.
We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.
Finding a Therapist is a whole topic with it itself, and we’ve done a show on that before, so we’ll link that in the show notes. Today we’re talking about when is it time to say goodbye. Maybe you found somebody, but you’re really not seeing the progress and the momentum that you’re wanting. Maybe you found somebody and things just aren’t going right.
So I want to give you some very practical guidelines on how to help you make that decision of, is it time to get a new therapist? The first thing we’re gonna talk about are the immediate red flags. This is like, okay, it is definitely time to pull the plug and find somebody else. Not only that, but it’s also time to report them to your state’s board so that they can investigate further and you can potentially protect someone else from going through what you went through.
The biggest red flag would be if your therapist is. Impaired in some way, like by alcohol, drugs. No one is immune to addiction just because of their profession. Another red flag would be if your therapist hits on you, either subtly or overtly, they’re flirting with you. They’re trying to have any kind of dating or sexual relationship with you.
This is completely inappropriate and should not happen. Doesn’t matter if you feel like you’re flirting with your therapist. Trust me, it happens. And unfortunately in our field, it also does happen at times where therapists sleep with their clients. This is completely unethical and inappropriate. So please, if that has happened to you.
One, I am very sorry, but two, please report that individual to the state board. And of course, I’m speaking from the perspective of a licensed professional counselor that there are certain ethics we have to apply by. That may depend a little bit or be slightly different based on your therapist’s licensure.
Another thing we are not allowed to do is have what’s called a dual relationship with our clients. So your therapist shouldn’t be asking you to go into business with them. They shouldn’t be asking you to volunteer for a fundraiser they are hosting. Your therapist shouldn’t be friending you on social media.
It shouldn’t be recruiting you for their small group. Now, sometimes in certain rural areas or places where obviously there’s a lot less people and less therapists, you may have some dual relationships or they may be considered appropriate based on the circumstances. For example, you might not be able to help but running into clients at the baseball field or clients at church.
I would say it depends on the size of your church. If you go to a very large church or a mega type church and your therapist goes there, that’s not necessarily a conflict of interest as long as you guys aren’t going on the same mission trip together where it’s like a group of 10 people or. Being in the same small group together, something like that, where you’re going to have very close relationship ties that are outside of the therapy room.
And the reason for that is that all other kinds of emotions now get involved that are gonna affect your professional relationship. Whether we like it or not, the therapy relationship is imbalanced, that we are in a position of authority, and with that authority comes some level of power. We have to be cautious about dual relationships, even things like going to weddings or funerals.
Your therapist should not be initiating greeting you outside of the therapy room. So if you run into your therapist at Walmart, you can say hello to them, but we really can’t initiate that conversation or interaction if there’s other people around. It always begs the question of, well, how do you know that person?
Right? That’s what you’re wondering, like, oh, how do you know that person? Well, my husband already knows like not to ask me that question. It’s not something that happens a whole lot that I would run into clients, especially now because I see a lot of people across the state online, but it has happened and we just have to handle it in a professional sense and respecting people’s privacy and confidentiality.
Violating confidentiality would be a red flag if your therapist is talking to your mother or. Your best friend or someone else, anyone else, doesn’t matter who it is about what’s happening in therapy and you haven’t signed a release of information so that you can talk to that person. That is a violation of confidentiality.
Confidentiality, of course, has its limits. When you report things like child abuse or elder abuse, we have to report those things, and if you say you’re gonna harm yourself or someone else, you have plans and intentions to do such things. Not just like I’m having a passing thought, but I’m really going to act on this.
Obviously we have to report those things. Many of the things that I just went over as red flags are typically contained in your therapist informed consent document that you signed when you initiate therapy. This helps us all be on the same page, like I have a section in there where I explain that people should not come find me on social media, should not try to friend me even on something like LinkedIn.
Sometimes I think people see that as kind of innocent. Oh, it’s a professional connection, but I still don’t friend clients on those types of sites either. Informed consent documents will also explain things like the limits of confidentiality, as well as things like the training your therapist has. Their therapeutic approaches that they must align with.
I think it’s really important to go over these red flags because I have talked with clients before and I think sometimes they’re unaware that some of these things are a red flag. Now, everything that I mentioned from here on out, it’s gonna be a little bit more of a yellow flag. It’s not like run for the door.
Stops a therapeutic relationship and report them to the board. It’s not gonna be like that, but it’s probably why most of you tuned into this episode. I’m having these questions and I’m really just wondering if, is this house therapy is supposed to go? I’m not really sure. I think the main reason that people leave a therapist is because they’re not feeling like they’re getting what they’re needing.
That would be a great example, but before you just leave, I would want to encourage you to communicate that with your therapist. Sometimes we’ll have people that feel like, oh, I’m just not making progress. Like they’re super hard on themselves and we can really go back and trace and say, okay, I hear you say that you’re not making progress.
I remember last week you came in and you said you handled that X situation totally differently than you would have six months ago or a year ago. Okay, so if you don’t feel like you’re making progress, do we need to try a different therapeutic approach? That might be something that I know how to do and it might be something that I refer someone out for.
I’ve had people that just absolutely did not want to do parts work and I really felt like that was gonna be most beneficial for them, and we just ended up parting ways and that’s okay. Like it’s totally an okay and normal thing. If your therapist isn’t able to offer something that you’re wanting, or if you feel like after going for a little while that their particular modalities aren’t a good fit for you.
It’s totally okay to communicate that therapists vary quite a bit in their levels of directiveness. Some therapists are pretty direct. I would say that I fit into that category and some therapists kind of just let you talk and allow you to process and figure things out for yourself. Ideally, we want to know if someone is gonna be a good fit for us as the therapist before we see them initially, or sometimes people will do phone consultations.
It just depends a lot on that therapist. I have a ton of information about me. Online and via my website through my podcast. So people pretty much know what they’re getting when they come to see me typically. But for other therapists, they don’t have as much information out there online or their website’s kind of sparse.
Some of ’em do free 15 minute phone consultations where you can just talk back and forth about what your needs are. That’s just a time for the therapist to tell you a little bit about how they work for you to ask for what you need. And I think sometimes in the beginning. From the client side, it may be really hard to know what you need.
You may just say, Hey, I just feel a bit of a mess and I need someone to talk with and evaluate what I’m going through and provide some guidance about my next steps. Just like with anything else, the more that you do something, the more you start to get in touch with what feels good, what doesn’t feel good, and that can give you some indication about.
What your needs are in therapy. So I’ve had people come to see me who were seeing a much less directive type therapist who say, I went to go see somebody, and they just kind of, they nodded their head and they never really gave me a whole lot of feedback or a whole lot of guidance. I didn’t get specific skills on how to handle situations.
And because they went through that experience, they then knew, Hey, for the next person, I want somebody who’s going to be much more. Hands-on directive. Hey, here’s what you do in this situation. Type feedback. If you find that you’re in a therapeutic relationship and it just doesn’t seem like a good fit where you don’t really feel like you’re getting what you’re eating, just know that it’s okay.
It doesn’t mean that you’re bad. It doesn’t mean that the therapist is bad. They might be a really nice person. You might be a really nice person, and it just might be one of those trying to fit the square peg in the round hole. I think what most people do at that point is they tend to ghost us and leave.
However, what I would encourage you to do is to go to your therapist and to say something just doesn’t feel right here, or something doesn’t feel like it’s working. If you are able to articulate what that is, then you guys can kind of make a determination if you can switch gears or not, or if it’s better for you to move on and see somebody else.
Feedback is super helpful in any relationship, but therapy is actually just a gigantic feedback loop if you think about it. You come into the therapist’s office, you talk through some things that therapists may provide some type of guidance, or through the process of talking through things, you may develop some insight about what your next step is.
You go, oh, okay, well this makes sense as my next step. You go out into the world and you try it. Then you come back a week later and you say, Hey, this really worked for me. This didn’t work for me. Hey, I got stuck at this point. What do I do now? And you continue to refine that process over time. One example of a yellow flag would be if you just don’t feel particularly safe with your therapist emotionally.
Maybe you feel like you’re talking about certain things and they just don’t seem to understand where you’re coming from. You don’t get that feel or really deep sense of empathy and validation for what you’re experiencing. I had someone recently describe to me a therapist as just feeling kind of cold to them.
Now that therapist may not be cold, but that was that person’s perception. Sometimes people might cure, but not really be as expressive as you need or know how to express themselves in that way. Now, what I’m about to say is a broad overgeneralization about OCD therapists, so know that they’re not all like this.
My experience has been with several OCD therapists or that specialize in this area. Some of them tend to be highly clinical, highly research based, highly intellectual, over emotional, and if you are a highly sensitive client who has a high experience of emotion, and you get connected or sitting down with someone who’s more.
In a very professional and less personable realm that might not feel good to you. Now, as I said, not all OCD therapists are like this. We had Judy Lair comes to mind on the show, and even though she does ERP, she’s very playful. She’s a fun person. She’s energetic. She doesn’t fit that stereotype. And I know other people that we’ve had on the show don’t fit that stereotype, but there are some people in the OCD therapy community that are pretty straight laced, and to some people they may come across as cold.
Now to other people, they may come across as professional intellectuals, and that’s exactly what they’re looking for. What we’re really talking about here is that it comes down to personal preference. Personal preference when it comes to therapy is not wrong. So if you don’t feel a connection to your therapist, don’t walk away and think, oh, it must be something about me, like that must be my fault.
No, you are not meant to gel with every single person on the planet. We are called to love people and we are called to care about people and treat them well, but some people we’re just gonna have more of a connection or initial click with than others. A yellow flag for you might be if a therapist doesn’t understand, empathize, or respect your values.
So I’ve also heard feedback from other people I’ve talked with through the podcast who feel like, you know what? I am seeing this counselor. They’re very knowledgeable about OCD, but they just really don’t understand my faith. They don’t understand how the faith is interacting with the OCD. I’ve even had people say things like, I just felt like my therapist wasn’t taking concepts like hell seriously enough.
And obviously that’s problematic. I don’t think that you have to experience everything that somebody else has experienced in order to be able to empathize with them. I think there can be situations where you can see a secular counselor and feel like your faith is respected or feel like they can at least empathize even though they don’t, they might not share your same faith, however.
There are other clients who definitely would say, Hey, I feel so much more comfortable seeing somebody who is a strong Christian and who I know shares my faith. And obviously that’s why a lot of people end up seeing me is because I’m very open about my faith on my website and through this podcast. I think we’re so much more likely to progress and feel better if we feel like our therapist is aligned with us and fully empathetic of our value system.
If you have a relationship with Christ, that should affect everything, including your therapeutic relationship in some way, shape, or form. Now, let’s assume that you have a good relationship with your therapist. You feel like you’re on the same page, you feel like you have a good gel and a good working relationship, good communication.
However you feel like whatever their approach is towards your OCD, that it’s just not working. Maybe they’re not addressing your OCD and that has become a. Bigger problem in your world. So you might have gone to therapy for relationship issues and maybe the OCD wasn’t as big of a deal, or you went for some particular trauma and now the trauma has been treated and the OCD is still there.
We’re complex, right? And as life changes and things happen. We may grow and change in different ways, and you may have, for lack of a better way to say it, outgrown what your therapist is able to give you, and that is okay as well. Maybe they were a very key figure in your life of helping you walk through that trauma, walking through grief and loss, walking through relationship heartache, and now you’re at a place where you need somebody that’s more specialized in working with OCD.
It really frustrates me to no end and makes me want to internally scream when I hear therapists talk about how effective the therapeutic relationship is towards change. Okay? Yes. When you are dealing with relationship issues, but know when you are dealing with specific mental health concerns like OCD.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of therapists running around out there who are saying that they treat OCD and they really don’t have an in-depth understanding and knowledge of how to treat OCD, or they may be able to treat somebody with a more mild case of OCD, but not a moderate to severe case of OCD.
It’s highly important that therapists are upfront in their marketing of what they have experience with and what they don’t. That is ethical as well. We can’t misrepresent ourselves. I would say don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you see someone that looks like they might be a good fit for you, and they say on their profile.
They work with OCDI would want to know, hey, about what percentage of your caseload are OCD clients or how many people do you think would you estimate that you’ve treated in the last five years with OCD? And we’re trying to find out is this handful of people that they’ve seen over the years, or is this a good chunk of their practice?
And if you have a moderate to severe case of OCD. That’s impacting you hours out of your day with obsessions and compulsions, you need to see a specialist. I don’t care how much you love your therapist and how much they’ve helped you through other things, if you’re gonna make progress in your OCD, you need to find somebody who’s doing ICBT or ERP in order to get the relief and results that you’re looking for.
Non-negotiable. A better relationship with your therapist is not going to resolve OCD. An additional yellow flag that I want to point out is that therapy should be more about you and what’s going on with you than it is about what’s going on with the therapist. So I’d like to discuss the issue of self-disclosure in therapy because unfortunately, many therapists in today’s day and age over utilize self-disclosure and it just drives me a little batty, like nails on a chalkboard.
You’re not supposed to come into therapy and you say something and then the therapist says something relatable like you’re at a friend having coffee. That’s not what therapy is designed for. It is really to be designed for what you are bringing in, what your needs are. The focus needs to be on you and not the therapist saying, Hey, when I went through that, this was how I dealt with it.
Unfortunately in my own therapeutic process, I’ve seen some people for one or two sessions where this was really a big issue and I just had to kind of get out of there. No matter what I’ve been through, I know it’s still not the same exact thing that my client is going through in their life. I might share something, but I’m also.
Cautious and hesitant to make sure that that’s gonna be appropriate and be most beneficial to the client, not just because I have something to share that would be relatable. I also bring this up because you might run into this with therapists who have shared experience with OCD. Depending on their professional background, and you have to decide also as a client what you feel most comfortable with.
I sit with people’s stuff on a regular basis, I think, and so when I go to therapy, I really don’t want to hear all about what the therapist has been through and how they’ve overcome certain things. I had a really great therapeutic relationship with somebody that hardly shared anything about herself.
And the day that she did, because she held back so much, the day that she did was only because I was like, no, you don’t understand this. We were in like a bit of an argument and I was like, you don’t get it. And she was like. I’ve been through this and that really helped me understand like, no, she did actually get it.
I think there are times where self-disclosure can be super powerful in therapy, but too many times in today’s day and age, it’s not. It’s more routine than a powerful, if you feel like your therapist spends a lot of time talking about themselves and you want to get away from that, that is your prerogative and you can.
Let’s say that you really love your therapist and you’ve made some good progress, but maybe it’s just time to get a different perspective, and I want you to know that that’s okay too. This reminds me of a client I had many years ago. I worked with her for a couple years, and it’s one of those situations where I’m like, oh, man, if I worked with that person now, I probably would’ve done some things differently.
We all have that right? But she was transitioning, I think, to a different job and was gonna have to change scheduling wise or wasn’t gonna be able to come in because of her job. And I had told her I would be happy to see you again. However, I also respect. Because we’ve done a lot of work together that if you just feel like you need a fresh set of eyes on your situation, then you are totally free to find somebody maybe with a little bit different perspective that might be able to give you something different and just know that that’s okay.
I think in this scenario, a lot of people don’t leave their therapist because it feels uncomfortable and they feel like. Oh, I really like this person and I want to keep doing this, but yet there’s this little bit of aching of, maybe there’s something more, maybe there’s a deeper level of healing that I can get to that I’m just not getting it from my current therapy situation.
I’ve talked about this before on the podcast for me personally, that there have been times where I specifically sought a male perspective, and that was super helpful for me. I’ve also had people go to individual weekly therapy for quite some time, or try EMDR in that context and come to me saying. You know what?
I think an intensive would really be a better fit for me because I’m going to have a longer time to really get into the trauma and get into the depths of my nervous system to be able to heal from this, and I just don’t think that once a week therapy is really getting me there where I need to be. I personally love doing deeper level work with clients.
I know that it can be so powerful and transformative. I wanna end by talking about what if your therapist recommends that you see someone different? We’ve talked about this a little bit earlier in the episode where I said. Your therapist may say, Hey, I see that you might need this particular modality that might be helpful for you, or It seems like maybe you need somebody a little less directive in my case or in somebody else’s case, a little more directive.
Just know that if that’s coming from your therapist, that I would hope that it’s coming from a good, compassionate place. Of them wanting to make sure that you’re getting what you need or if they say, Hey, OCD is not really my specialty, and I think you need to go see someone who has much more experience or works with more OCD clients than I do.
There’s two things that I’d want you to know in that situation. One is that’s a hard conversation for us as therapists because we know it can feel so rejecting to our clients. For us to be able to say, I think it’s time for you to move forward and pursue therapy with someone else. Even though it’s a hard conversation, it’s in your best interest because if I don’t feel like I can give you what you need, I wanna make sure that you can get connected with someone who can give you what you need.
So do your best to try not to take it as a personal rejection, or, oh, my therapist doesn’t want to work with me. I have in the past, often referred out clients who are dealing with some addiction issues. And that didn’t come to surface in the beginning. Or maybe they felt really uncomfortable and didn’t wanna share that they were struggling with an addiction.
Maybe they didn’t see it as a big deal. But then as we uncover things over time, we start to realize that that’s an issue. And that’s not something that I have a ton of training in. I have a little bit, but not enough to see someone who has a serious addiction issue, or if someone has a. Severe eating disorder, I’m gonna wanna make sure that they get appropriate treatment with someone who specializes in that type of care.
I see a lot of people who have disordered eating or maybe some more mild eating disorder characteristics that’s different. So if your therapist refers you out, just know that can be an incredibly loving thing for them to do, even though it’s probably gonna be hard on both of you because you have developed a relationship together.
Wherever you are in your therapeutic journey. I really hope that this conversation has been helpful for you and informative. You can reach out to me anytime @carriebock.com. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Christian Faith in OCD is a production of by the Well Counseling.
This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.
