Survivors - Have you found anyone doing research

Quote:

Originally Posted by scorpiosis37 I have not found any subsequent therapy to be helpful. I think one big reason for that is that no other T is willing to talk about or help me process the exploitation by ex-T.

I wonder if this is because its sort of like the old' boys club like the say about doctors or lawyers? Not wanting to take another down so they tolerate all manner of abuses? Do you think your T was protecting her fellow therapists?

Bingo. That’s exactly what I experienced. They got all squirmy discussing a colleague’s misconduct or ineffectiveness. Then there’s the “protect the public” grievance process which I found a joke. A journalist told me infinitesimal number of these cases are found for the client.

Harmful therapy seemed to get more daylight in the UK with people like Yvonne Bates, Richard House and Colin Feltham, though I’ve no idea if there are new voices. As we’ve seen in almost predictable replication, the topic triggers apoplectic discomfort.

I got her name from this board several years ago, too. What I found then, and seems true still from the internet search I have done, is that her work is more oriented toward protecting the club and not protecting clients. Which isn't to say that it can't be helpful in the long run to help teach therapists how to avoid doing things that will result in clients from filing complaints about them. Just that her focus seems to be on the therapists, not helping clients.

Maybe there's something more current that someone else has found or has access to through data bases that I don't?

Also, I can't find a reference right now but I think I remember an article that she had experienced exploitation and/or abuse in therapy early on. So maybe she reasoned that the best way to help clients WAS to help therapists, like, in an airplane, putting the oxygen mask on your own face before you put it on your child's.

Interesting. I've only done a summary Google search and i did see as you saw it was oriented to training therapists as well as general education but I interpreted that through your plane example - to fix the system to stop people getting hurt.

I think emotional abuse is at the core of all abuse, in that physical and sexual abuse usually comes only after the perpetrator has emotionally groomed the victim for some kind of dependency in them that will require loyalty and this almost always requires a trauma bond. Especially in this kind of relationship. I mean if you think about it many times the formal violations come very late in the game after much has happened thT can be explained away. The smart predator knows what tehy are doing bc plausible deniability is always needed until the victim is snared (I didn’t mean that! You misinterpreted me!) and emotional abuse is almost always plausibly denied to the victim and to the board if needed. Yet it is often the most damaging part of the experience when coming from therapist, lover, parent even if eventually sexual or physical abuse (the only abuse considered “real”) occurs.

The trauma bond very much describes my experience as does your statement about the formal violations coming late in the game. It makes it very hard to sort out actual therapy experience from grooming and building dependency. There are many moments in therapy that felt "off" but didn't feel like part of the abuse until the whole story had played out. Shortest version of my story - I saw a therapist for 3 years without any identifiable boundary crossings. She coached me through leaving my husband, and through my first relationship with a woman. Now I know that she very much set the scene for my being free, then once I had broken up, she began the formal crossings - becoming part of a closed online group ( 30 members) of which I was a part, then creating a fake profile on Chemistry.com. She called me into her office one Saturday, equipped with a termination aggreement and a confession that she wanted to explore having a romantic relationship with me. I totally did not understand the risks, thought I could back out at any time. My daughter and I moved into her house about a year later. The situation became more and abusive for my daughter and I. I moved out after two years of living with her.

Agree with this, and this is partly why I think the notion of therapy as a "safe space" is madness. Any relationship based on asymmetrical power dynamics leans toward abuse and exploitation by default, even if it's subtle. This is especially true when the relationship is isolated from all other people.

apologies if this thesis has been posted already but it has a lot of data and such in it, though it is old (1996)

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/110866/1/W...rrett_1996.pdf