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Originally Posted by abaya
Thanks, Martian... you beat me to it. match, do you really think only "crazy" people go to therapy? That's not what I meant at all. Practically every grad student I know has been in counseling, and it's not because we're crazy. It's because grad school basically sucks ass, in a lot of ways, and if you don't take care of your mental health, you end up in very bad situations, far worse than the one you're currently in. It just keeps building up and building up, if you don't nip it in the bud early enough.
In my 2 years in group therapy, we had quite a few people in the group who had exactly the same issue as you do. They were very passive-aggressive, and could not communicate properly with their colleagues without either blowing up or hunkering down into themselves, neither of which were very good solutions (as you have noticed). Luckily, they were wise (and humble) enough to see that they could benefit from therapy, and so they came. Through the group process, they learned and practiced ways of addressing difficult people head on, in a calm, assertive manner... it took time, but by the end, they had the tools they needed to go out and have much more productive grad school careers.
That's the point of therapy. Lots of us have done it, as Martian said. I think those of us who have done it are generally far better off for it, from what I have read on TFP. Grad school is actually one of the best times to get into counseling, because usually your university provides it for free (or cheaply), which is something you will never be as lucky to find in the real world.
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What you would want to find, match000, is a therapist who specializes in cognitive-behavioral therapy (and most therapists these days seem to focus on this). Passive-aggressive behavior is exactly the kind of stuff they work on fixing. They'll talk with you about your problem with your co-workers, and make suggestions on actions to take to improve the situation. They'll help you learn to be more assertive and a better communicator with your co-workers.
You can do this yourself with self-help books on passive-aggressive behavior, but the likelihood is that 1) going to see a therapist at your university is cheaper (I get six visits free a term), 2) seeing a therapist is more likely to be effective, and 3) you're more likely to see benefits from therapy faster, as the therapist is professionally trained to help you modify your behavior to address the problem at hand, and clearly, you are not.
