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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls podcast, where we discussed all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. To get more information and resources, visit the website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. And while I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for a session forty of the Therapy for Black Girls podcast. I wanted to record an episode today talking about a question that I've gotten a couple of times in the inbox. A couple of questions have come in asking how will I know if I need any therapists are asking for feedback about whether it's time to switch therapists. So I wanted to talk with you about three ways that you might know that it is actually time to go ahead and start looking for a new therapist. So the first one is it's just not clicking. So sometimes despite our best efforts, we just won't mess with the therapist. It doesn't have to me that anything is wrong with you or the therapists. It just might not be a match. We have to remember that the therapeutic relationship is much like any other relationship, and you just won't click with everybody. You do, however, want to make sure that you've given it sometimes to actually work through. So even though therapy is a relationship, it is definitely more one sided than other relationships in your life. You're probably used to sharing all types of personal stuff with your friends, and of course your therapist is likely not sharing a whole bunch, and this means that it might take a little longer for you to feel comfortable in the space. You probably won't start off feeling like you can share everything, but within a few sessions you should know whether a therapist helps to create a safe environment and that eventually you could see yourself opening up more. The second reason you might know that it's time to switch to a new therapist is that the therapist has said or done something insensitive, disrespectful, or inappropriate. One of the most important factors that will contribute to whether therapy will be effective for you is safety, both physical and emotional. Safety. If a therapist does anything to undermine this safety, then it's probably time to move on. I'm referring to things like making comments that are racist, sexist, or discriminatory in some other way, making comments that feel sexual in nature, are making comments that cause you to question the validity of your feelings and experiences in a way that moves you backwards and not forward. For example, if you went to one of your therapy sessions commenting about the increased stress you've been experiencing due to the number of unarmed black people you've heard about being killed by police, and your therapist says something like, well, let's think about what the police might be feeling in that moment, then that therapist has now taken the focus off you and you're presenting concerned and made it more about them. That is the kind of thing that makes someone feel invisible and invalidated in therapy, and it makes it impossible to feel safe and feel like you can fully share your concerns in a space. Now. I do want to make sure that we differentiate disrespectful and inappropriate comments from comments that just might make you feel some type of way or challenge you, so there's no way around it. Sometimes therapy is hard work, and sometimes you will not like what your therapist has to say. That's totally fine, But when this happens, I want you to sit with what's making you uncomfortable about what your therapist has said. It could be that they're touching on something you didn't want to deal with it, or seeing you in a way that no one else has before, and of course that feels very uncomfortable and vulnerable. This is not a sign that you need a new therapist. In fact, it may actually be a sign that you found a great match. The third way you might know that it's time to find a new therapist is that you feel like therapy is simply not effective. It's just not working. You're not feeling better, and you don't feel like your concerns are really being addressed. This might be related to the fact that the therapist doesn't have enough x ortisse to really help you with your concern but it might also be related to there being some type of disruption in the relationship that neither you are the therapist has been able to name or work through. Either way, if you've given it some time and just feel like you're not getting the help you need, then it may be time to move on. This may also be the case if your work with a particular therapist is done. Once you've worked with a therapist for some time and work through what brought you to therapy, you may begin to feel like nothing more is happening. If you feel like there's no forward movement anymore, it could mean that your time with this particular therapist is done and that maybe you need another therapist to help you continue on your healing journey, or you could just be done with therapy for the time. So now, much like other relationships, even when we've decided that it may be time to end the relationship, it can still be difficult and sometimes awkward. So I do want to offer you some suggestions about how to end the relationship with your therapists. So the first suggestion is to have the conversation in person, if at all possible. So once you've decided that you're ready to move on from working with the therapists, I suggest starting off your very next session stating this, Please do not have this be one of those things you say as you're walking out of the office that does not give you this time to kind of fully articulate what you've been feeling and that you want to end the relationship, so please make sure that you give this conversation some time to happen. If the relationship just isn't a good match or it's not working, then it's totally okay to say so. Now, this again is only related to if you feel like the relationship has just not been a good match. If the therapist has been inappropriate or disrespectful in some way, then I would not necessarily encourage you to sit down with them, as that might lead to them trying to defend themselves and talk about why you misinterpreted a situation, and it might actually lead to you feeling worse. So I would not suggest this if you have felt um invalidated or disrespected from a therapist, if they've been inappropriate in any way, I would not encourage this conversation. But if it is just the case of not working out, then it's okay to say so. You likely won't be the first person to have ended a therapeutic relationship with us, and it's actually very good practice for you asserting your needs and learning how to say goodbye. Many times we just go to the situation when it's no longer a good fit, but it's actually very therapeutic to be able to learn how to have a healthy ending. And when you're thinking about who your next therapist might be, make yourself a list of what didn't work out with this particular therapist. Most therapists will ask as a part of their intake about any previous therapy that you've had and what was the outcome. You want to be honest with a new perspective therapist about what happened and see if that can be avoided in a new therapeutic relationship. Being clear about what you thought wasn't a good fit may also help you to ask better questions on the front end when you're interviewing new therapists. So if you have had the experience of having to quote unquote work up with your therapists, then I definitely would love to hear about that, how that conversation went, what led you to decide that it was time to end that relationship, to give us some more perspective. So, because I think sometimes we stay in therapeutic relationships longer than we need to for fear that we're going to hurt our therapist feelings or that it's not going to go well, but like I said, most times, you are not the first client who has ended a relationship. So if you do think that the time that you spent with this therapist is coming to an end, then go ahead and have that conversation. We do also have an on the Porsche question this week, and this question reads Hello doctor Joy, love your podcast. It helps me get through the week. I will explain my scenario. I'm twenty five going on twenty six this year. I still live with my parents, but I'm looking to change that later this year. One of the biggest fears I have is beginning a serious relationship in the future. I have talked to guys here and there in college, but they were never willing to commit or just wanted sex. The past two years, I didn't focus on dating because I wanted to put myself first and focus on getting a good job with pay, my own place, and my health physically and mentally. I've never had a serious boyfriend, so I'm afraid of not knowing how to function in a relationship. I'm pretty sure I know what I want in a man, long story short, someone who will make be a better be And on top of that, I'm a virgin, so finding a man will also be a process of weeding out men who can be mature enough. I guess to understand why I've held onto my virginity for so long. I never wanted to hold onto it till marriage. I just wanted to lose it to someone who I genuinely cared about and who genuinely cared about me. What advice can you give a twenty five year old virgin who is looking for Mr Wright the first time? So thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I'm really glad that it helps to get you through your week. Um, I definitely have a couple of thoughts regarding your situation and hope that I can offer you some ideas that will help you out. So the first thing that jumps out at me is your comment that you've never had a serious boyfriend, so you're afraid of not knowing how to function in a relationship, and I'm wondering what your expectations are for what that might look like. Though you didn't mention anything about friends or other relationships, I'm guessing that you do have other relationships in your life and that you manage to function just fine. So I wonder what you're thinking being in a relationship with a partner will be like, and how that's going to be drastically different from the friendships you might already have. I wonder what you're so afraid of. You then stated that you already knew what you're looking for, even though you haven't had any serious relationships, someone to make you a better you. So first, I wonder how did you develop this list of what this guy would look like if you've not had any real experiences to base it from. I tend to think that you probably need at least some experiences to decide what you want more of and what you want less of, and what's actually a good combination for you. I also really wonder about this idea that this person will make you a better you? So what will that look like? Why aren't you her now? What are you expecting a partner to do for you that you cannot be working on for yourself right now? I'd encourage you to think more about what's making you feel as though you need to wait for someone else to be the best you, and get busy becoming her right now. Finally, you mentioned that you wanted to get it right the first time, and while that may happen a lot on lifetime, that's not typically the case in real life, especially when you've not had a lot of experience dating. I'd encourage you to release that pressure from yourself to get it right the first time, because expectations like that are what sometimes lead us to making decisions that aren't truly in line with what we need and deserve, but more in line with just being right. My advice to you would be to have fun dating. Get to know what kinds of guys are a good match for you and which ones are not. Let people know you're interested in dating, and ask them to suggest guys who might be a good fit for you. Have fun simply living your life. Do things that are interesting to you simply because you're interested in them. Continue nurturing your friendships. Please keep me posted on how things are going with the dating and good luck. If you have a question or a situation you'd like some feedback about, please make sure to send that over to me at podcasts at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. And you know that I love hearing what you've learned from the podcast and your reactions to the episodes, so please keep on sharing those on social media. Make sure to use the hashtag tv G in session so that we can all follow along with that conversation. And I forgot to mention last week, but the sisters over in the Thrive Tribe have decided they wanted to start a book club. So the book we will be reading first is Shifting, which is a rate book that I read a couple of years ago. I'm excited to dig into it again with a new group. If you're interested in joining us in Thri've Tribe to continue the conversations we have here on the podcast, or if you want to become a part of that book club, then head on over to Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash tribe and join us. If you were looking for a therapist in your area, make sure to check out the directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you are a therapist and you're interested in having other women find you so that they can do work with you, then you can head on over to Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash being listed To keep up with important updates about the podcasts and mental health information in general, make sure you're following us all across social media. You can find us on Twitter, at Therapy for the Number four be Girls, and you can find us on Instagram and Facebook at Therapy for Black Girls. And please make sure that you're continuing to share the information about the podcast with new friends. You can do that by texting them, tweeting them, or sharing the information about the podcast in your Insta stories. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week, and I'm looking forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care, actor all, Actor