Survivors of Unethical Therapy

LOL. My therapist who sexually exploited me was a PsyD. The degree doesn't mean anything about the person

Yup. My unethical T was also a PsyD.

My emotionally abusive, unethical t was an LPC.

I'm also someone who's wondered about whether counsellors or clinical psychologists are better. Personally, I wouldn't see a clinical psychologist again, as the focus seems to be on labeling me with the right diagnosis (I saw several psychologists in my teens) . I also did a degree in psychology, and nearly all the people who wanted to become psychologists were attractive, judgemental, perfectionistic, self-absorbed women who didn't realise that not everyone is born with the privileges they were born with.

My current therapist is a counsellor, and he never attempts to diagnose (at least to my face). It's 'you're very sad' or 'you seem frustrated' or 'you are angry at how unfair this is'. I like it this way. We accept the feelings while also noticing their transience. The focus isn't on reducing sadness - - it's on why I might be sad in the first place. I was astounded when he said, 'this is an enormously unfair thing that happened to you. I think, at least for our time today, you need to rage.' Bless him. X

I also don't think it has much to do with the type of degree. My absolutely horrible, manipulative therapist had a PhD in clinical social work and the much more decent and psychologically knowledgeable one was a LCSW with a masters. I also know a few psychologists with a doctorate that I would not even want to go close to and some that appear reasonable. I am an academic so have encountered many people with all kinds of advanced degrees and, honestly, have never seen a correlation between their education type and how competent they are, not even how responsible human beings. It can be true that some people use their educational pedigree in power games but I think it's more the specific person than anything else.

Both of mine were M.D.’s

My individual therapists that abused me were a mix of: Psych nurse, Psychologist, Psychiatrist.

Those involved and aware were a mix of MDs, Forensic Psychologists, Psychologists, Psychiatrists, Nurses, Psych Nurses, Social workers, Management, Program Supervisors. Possibly more...

They protect each other...

All humans are equally as capable of harming. A simple ethical title means nothing.

Thanks,
Hd7970ghz

I do think schools of social work are oriented around public service, social justice, and ethical practice, which is no guarantee of course that their graduates abide by any of that. But I feel like a person drawn to master of social work programs might be somewhat more likely to be ethically and altruistically minded than someone pursuing a PhD. Just a thought.

Our family hired social workers to assist an elderly and and a disabled person as medical liaisons and with daily living. Their job was problem solving and resource gathering as opposed to the less defined ministry of therapy. They were ethical and valuable.

So if level of education/training is not a reliable indicator of therapist ability or quality, then stands to reason that education is not particularly relevant at all. So what then is the basis for taking the client's money and trust?

What qualifies a therapist to make the claims all therapists make... namely that they are in a position to treat mental illness, to provide sound advice, to have greater understanding of life's difficulties than others, to orchestrate healing relationships, and so on?

Clinical hours and internship do not seem a valid basis, since that just assumes doing therapy makes someone a qualified therapist.

Having studied basic psychology counts for a little, but only a little.

Supervision or mentorship doesn't mean anything, since the supervisor or mentor could be unqualified, or even mentally ill.

A video was posted in another thread wherein a therapist suggested that therapy is a craft or art. So is the client paying to consult with an artist or to be the subject of experimental art?

My contention is that there is no valid basis, and the concept of therapist is largely arbitrary. And that makes all therapy unethical in my book.

I was two years into my psychology PhD when a family emergency meant a semi-permanent return to the U.S. I became an ethical attorney.

All of my therapists have been MDs or psych PhDs and I think that education really does make a difference.

As you see all therapy as unethical, I assume that you’re not in therapy? Unless you’ve been adjudicated to participate in some form of therapy, or if you’re in a mental hospital, you can choose to stop therapy, too. It’s your choice.

I don’t believe that therapists have any craft — or sullen art — but rather a mixture of 60% training and 40% personality that goes into the brew of making an ethical, and good to great, therapists.

For clinicians the ability to listen and process information whilst the client is speaking is a must. All sorts of skills are taught at university. I’m not clear as to why you think that an undergrad psychology class would be good enough for a therapist.

But that 40% of personality is something that defines the therapist — from office decor to when and how to respond to clients. My experience has been that PhD therapists operate in a group with other therapists and shrinks to facilitate treatment.

I really don’t understand your contention that the definition of a therapist is somehow ‘arbitrary’ or that instructors, mentors, etc., might be mentally ill so that negates any instruction. All of we Pointy-Headed East Coast Ivy League Elites might be madder than any hatter (as if the West Coast academics are straddling the fence!) but that hasn’t made an Ivy League education — at the whims of madmen — any less prestigious. I’m uncertain if you’re damning all education and training? Or only that of a therapist? The odds of the latter would be dear.

I have never been harmed by therapy. I had some poor experiences with MDshrinks as therapists when I was hospitalized, but never harmful.

You’ve left out part of the equation of therapy when you don’t include client participation. My poor experiences when hospitalized might have something to do with the fact that it was during the time when I was mute. And there is a ‘therapy dance’ when seeing a therapist for the first five-to-ten sessions. You must become acquainted during that time. The therapist should let the client know what is expected of them.

I’ll need therapy until death. I’ve found no better way to remain grounded (and out of trouble and out of the hospital).

So you are dismissive of education and experience?

I have always thought both of some importance when choosing, e.g., a thoracic surgeon or a landscaper. Why would anyone need an education in a world where education was deemed to have no value and experience meant nothing?

I disagree that therapists make all the claims you say they do, and I'd be wary of any therapist that did. My counsellor would never assume he could treat me or 'cure mental illness', want to provide me with advice, or claim to have a better understanding of life than I do. His website actually says that sometimes it's the simple act of sharing the problem with somebody else that's the most helpful thing about therapy. He will ask me on a regular basis if I find what he does helpful. Not every therapist is how you describe. I've run into some like that, but that is not my current therapist.

I think the issue I have with clinical psychologists is not education so much as outlook. You spend a lot of time matching symptoms to a diagnosis (or that's what my undergrad felt like, anyways). That's useful when a diagnosis means the right medicine, but we simply aren't there yet when it comes to psychological problems. Positive psychology (using psychology with the aim of improving mental health, not just labeling problems) is only ten years old. The people who studied it will have just started practicing.

It's funny what you say about therapy being art, because that's my opinion as well. I actually think that a lot of problems people have with therapy is their assumption that's it's on par with medical treatment. The other problem is therapists who overpromise what therapy can do. Therapy can't be a stand in for things needed for mental health (like relationships); it can only help you get those things.

Personally, I've always felt like the artist in the therapy room is me. I can try out ideas, throw out feelings, think of how to put concepts together, get frustrated, start over. I want to create a better life for me and don't know how. I have life-block, and my therapist is the one gently nudging me in ways that could help me get past it.

I'm surprised you'd judge therapists on whether they have mental illness. We don't judge doctors when they get cancer. If the illness is impacting their work, they need to concentrate on getting better. But that doesn't mean they're not cut out to be a therapist.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find many therapist websites, books, blogs that do not refer to therapy as "treatment" and that dont imply most or all of the other things. Here's what the American Psychological Association says:

"Psychologists who specialize in psychotherapy and other forms of psychological treatment are highly trained professionals with expertise in the areas of human behavior, mental health assessment, diagnosis and treatment, and behavior change. Psychologists work with patients to change their feelings and attitudes and help them develop healthier, more effective patterns of behavior."

This encapsulates all the things I mentioned, and adds some additional even creepier assumptions like knowledge of what constitutes healthy behavior, ability to diagnose, and ability to oversee behavior modification. Hard to square with the idea of therapy as art. Sounds more like indoctrination into some faith.

Wasn't about judgement. The point was about the validity of supervision/mentorship as a qualification. The biz seems to attract a lot of troubled types so a trainee could get sketchy guidance.

I've been reading The Inheritance of Shame by Peter Gajdics where he files a complaint against his unethical psychiatrist who'd created a therapeutic cult and tried "conversion therapy" on him.

The complaint was "investigated" and the clear psychological harm done to him was dismissed. Of course during the investigation, Peter was painted as severely mentally ill. Even his collapse caused by medication overdose (his psychiatrist had him taking near lethal doses) was used to paint him as unstable.

"Informed Consent" forms were supposedly signed for things such as ketamine infusions, but he was so drugged up as to not be able to think clearly, so dependent on the psychiatrist who had induced extreme dependency that he would have signed anything.

And the complaint resulted in a mere slap on the wrist: a "review" of the psychiatrist's practice. He was still able to practice and accept patients. Among the numerous patients who worked for him for free on various tasks like cooking his meals and writing for him, he also married a patient cum "employee".

In the law suit after the complaint, the most intimate details of Peter's therapy were used to discredit him and paint him as a psychotic, delusional person with severe borderline personality disorder. His traumas were all dug up and things the psychiatrist had done were given little weight. He ended up having to settle out of court.

Peter emerged with clear post traumatic reactions and while recovered now, undoubtedly went through a lot and was unable to get justice.

My damage was not as severe but there are echoes of the grievance process in my case. It seemed I was open to review rather than the therapist. The therapist made inconsistent claims including things he couldn't possibly know unless he was a mind reader. I thank my stars I wasn't talked into taking drugs. They only would have complicated my difficult to diagnose health issues.

Treatment =/= cure

Therapy doesn't help every person. But then again no treatment for any condition helps any person. And some therapists are better than others. But overall therapy does work, and to say otherwise is irresponsible. People are already scared enough of therapy without misinformation. We can talk about the bad things that happened to us, but that's not the same as saying therapy is useless or bad.
If you had a medical doctor who made a mistake or behaved unethically or exploited you would you then tell people not to go to medical doctors?

There is a large body of evidence showing that therapy is helpful for treating depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. Research has been done on different types of therapy, including showing that CBT and psychodynamic therapy are about equally effective.

It's pretty easy to say that some behaviors aren't healthy. In practice therapists help modify behaviors when the costs of those behaviors outweigh the benefits. For example, me not checking my email isn't healthy... I don't check my email because it makes me anxious, but the fact that I haven't checked it makes me even more anxious about checking it, creating a vicious cycle. My therapist is helping me work on modifying that behavior to break the cycle.
If I was a business executive with 5 secretaries working under me and it was their job to check and deal with my email then me not checking my email wouldn't be unhealthy.
It's about context and the consequences of the behavior(s).

Saying something is an art is just saying that it isn't formulaic, and there's a degree of nuance and intuition involved. It's a figure of speech.

Thank you for putting it so articulately!

Budfox, I think therapists need to be more honest about the fact that therapy won't work for everyone, and that that there can be negative, not just neutral and positive, outcomes. We need to be honest about the fact that we're in the early stages of understanding the brain, and that treatment for mental health issues isn't as effective as treatment for illness that happens elsewhere in the body. But LabRat is right in saying that overall, therapy is helpful.

In terms of your quote, the only issue I have is the bit about helping someone change their feelings, which I'm not sure is possible, at least not directly. A lot of the rest makes sense to me. I'm not a psychologist, but I did spend four years studying psychology. I do have a better understanding of patterns of behaviour, symptoms that need to be shown in order to make a diagnosis, and which type of treatment will likely be effective with certain kinds of issues, than the average person on the street. I'm sure more training would have given me an even better understanding. Psychology gets its info from scientific experiments - - it's not a faith. But psychology as its thought about today is only fifty years old.

I personally prefer counsellors to clinical psychologists because I think treatment for mental health isn't found through analysing everything to within an inch of its life, and because psychologists overestimate how much they can help me. At this stage in my life, I need the art.

Thanks!
Just wanted to respond to this part... I'm not sure if maybe we're using the word "feelings" differently?

It may not be directly in the strictest sense, but the whole point of CBT is that by changing our thoughts we can change our feelings and our behavior, isn't it?

Like right now when I make a mistake I feel like I'm a bad and worthless person and that I should punish myself.
When I get in a minor argument with a friend I feel deeply hurt and abandoned.
But those are things that I'm working on and making progress with in therapy.

Whenever I'm doing a thought record I'm basically reframing my thoughts and combating cognitive distortions, and by the time I'm done I usually feel better about the situation and myself. And with time and practice we can eventually retrain our brains to do this more naturally/automatically, often changing how we feel in response to certain situations.

It's not clear to me at all that therapy "works". I see more evidence that therapy harms. People ought to be scared. First-do-no-harm is not taken seriously at all. There is rampant victim blaming. Informed consent is a joke. Stories of damaging therapy are systematically suppressed or ignored.

That is a straw man argument. Nobody is suggesting that therapists or MDs ought to be avoided because of a single bad experience. It's about systemic rot. My position comes from extensive personal experience and personal research over last 10 years.

My original point was that I see no basis for the position that therapists occupy. For example, what makes your therapist qualified to oversee your behavior around email? I compulsively check email and FB at times, but i see no point in assigning some stranger the task of overseeing or interpreting this behavior.