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Why do I lie to my psychotherapist?
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Hi Simply Lost.
I think it is hard to admit that things are not going as well as we would like. We get used to putting on a false face to the world so people don't see our pain . It's a default reaction and difficult to overcome.
If you tell your psychologist about how you really feel they wont judge you but will only see how difficult it is for you to admit. Possibly telling your psychologist could be a turning point as you have to put trust in your psychologist to admit the problem. Its easy for me to say but I realised it more difficult to do.
I hope you find the courage.
I wish you the best.
Dean
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Dear Simply Lost
Welcome to Beyond Blue. Thank you for talking to us here and well done for writing. Many people find it hard to start.
Lying to your doctors and therapists is not at all unusual. No one likes to portray themselves in a bad light so we will trim the story a little now and then. I am guessing you have depression but please tell me if I am mistaken.
Depression and other mental illnesses have a way of scrambling our brains and making us believe all sorts of incorrectness. Shame is one of the most predominant emotions. I don't want to admit I have certain feelings, that I am lost and need help, I cannot cope on my own, no one loves me because I am unlovable. Some or none of these feelings may be true for you or you can think of other feelings. It is hard to admit to them out loud, so we tell ourselves these stories and convince ourselves we are truly beyond redemption.
Going to a new therapist will probably end up in the same pattern because you have not developed a relationship with him/her. And by the time you do, after three or four visits, you have already set the pattern.
I suggest you stay with your current medical team and 'fess up. Will it be hard? Probably! So the next question is how are you going to do this. My guess is that your team have more knowledge about the real you than you know. You don't get to be a psych without learning a thing or two.
There are two ways I can think of. Both involve you doing some thinking and writing. Copy and print your post above and give it to whoever you have been misleading. My guess is they will ask you why you have been lying and they will expect a truthful answer.
The other way is for you to write down all the misleading information you have been saying. Make two columns and put the untruths on one side and the truth on the other. That will be a hard thing to do I imagine. When you have your next appointment give this list to the psych to read. That's going to be the hardest bit. Once the cat is out of the bag there's no going back.
Then you will be able to start again, this time with the truth. I rather think your psych will be skeptical about your answers in future but you cannot escape this. Make sure you are telling the truth in future.
Do you feel comfortable with your various practitioners? Comfortable other than the discomfort of lying? I suspect you know what needs to happen because you realise it's not helping you, and that's good. Please let me how you go.
Mary
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Hi Simply lost,
I'm a therapist. It hurts when our clients lie to us. It feels like they are wasting our time and don't trust us. It does happen. There are two schools of thought on what to do from our perspective. The first is to let it go, and if you lie you don't get as much out of therapy and that's not our problem. The second is to pick up on it and point out incongruities to the client. I work with some pathological liars and it takes a long time of picking up to even begin to change that, but I try anyway, and some, when you do pick it up will do the right thing and admit it...
Lying is a form of deception that often starts with the self. Commonly people lie to make themselves appear more what they want to be. But that's not who they are. If you are in therapy, you are obviously there because you do value the input of the therapist. But if you lie you might be seeking something called confirmation bias - you skew reality in your version to get the answer you want to get. That's not really therapy.
If you value your therapy and want to get the most out of it, please be honest. Tell your therapist the things that you lied about, and have a think about why you lied about them. The fact that you lied doesn't have to be a negative because that conversation might bring out some really really important things that are actually underlying problems with everything in your life, these are called automatic thoughts or negative schemas and they have formed during childhood (eg, I must not make people unhappy so I must lie if necessary to prevent this).
But as a therapist, it feels like crap when clients continually lie, so please don't. Therapists are people too.
Lazykh
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I'm not sure if I do it on purpose or it's an automatic reaction.
Everyone is usually disappointed in me so I just take the easy road out.
People complain about the sound of my voice, the way I laugh....things I'll never be able to change.
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Its horrible feeling like someone's disappointed in you. The thing is though, that doesn't have to have a detrimental impact on you. And anyone who is going to judge you on the sound of your voice or your laugh is seriously not someone that I personally would be choosing to have as a friend. I hate the sound of my own voice, but that doesn't mean I'd tolerate people picking on me for it... they can go and find someone else for a friend if they can't put up with it because like you said, that's not something we can change.
I'd also be very much proud of a client who admitted to me that he/she had lied about something as I respect that it takes a LOT of courage to admit it... And I think it would be really interesting to get to the bottom of it. I'm guessing you probably don't do it on purpose, but it could be an indicator of how submissive you have become as a result of excessive criticism? Automatic reactions are rooted in our own negative schemas, which when activated by negative life stressors lead us to respond in the way that we do. Or another way to look at it is that there may be some reason in your unconscious that causes you to act in the way you do. I'd love to hear more if you want to tell me more, and would be happy to let you know anything that comes to mind in the process. You sound like a very interesting person and I would like to hear about your experiences.
Lazykh