Rant

I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m fully aware that this post is basically just me gossiping and speculatingabout my former T (not Ex T who I recently said goodbye to earlier this year). I’m not looking for advice or anything, I think I just wanted to rant a little bit.

This has nothing to do with my current therapy/therapist, but every now and then I check out my old therapist’s website (the very first therapist I’ve ever had) and get so irritated. Her website, branding and everything is perfect yet she was the worst therapist (sorry to sound harsh) I have ever worked with - to the point I honestly, like in all seriousness, really don’t understand how she calls herself a therapist. Basically, all I did was go in and talk to her about how hard my life was... I had an eating disorder for the whole duration of being under her care (7 years) and the whole time she just thought I wasn’t successful at dieting and fed me diet tips. That is just one example among many that shows her ignorance.

I’m not attached to her anymore, but every now and then I get curious and go look at her website or business twitter. It doesn’t sound look like she’s advertising therapy, but a glamorous relationship in which teen girls can come talk to a beautiful, trendy woman and trust this woman won’t gossip in the halls or tattle on her parents due to confidentiality?

I’m sorry about ranting, but this makes me so mad! As someone who is studying to become a psych someday, I don’t understand this? I get there are all different kinds of therapists/counselors out there (each with different “niches”), but this to me seems like a different version of false advertising? Basically, from my experience of working with that therapist, she ended it as soon as I confided in my attachment to her through a letter. I’m so thankful I know what “therapy” is suppose to be like, but I get worried there are girls out there suffering because they don’t know what good therapy is and they think that chatting in a cozy office with a gorgeous role model who’s spilling compliments back to them is the “work.”

Thanks to whoever took the time to read this rant... the worry for me just hits close to home because I was one of those insecure girls once who gushed over my T’s perfectly defined curls and glamorous wardrobe and feeling giddy whenever she told me that I was one of her greatest treasures. I wish she focused less on marketing and creating the perfect image and spent more time on becoming a solid therapist who isn’t scared off by big emotions. She seems to be adding/advertising more and more hours (like even on the weekends now) to her schedule so maybe other people are seeing what I’m seeing? That or she’s just really popular?

I don't see a problem with ranting, and I think it helps you think about what kind of therapist you want to be. I wonder if all the advertising is not because she's popular, but because she's desperate, trying to attract more business.

For what it is worth, I think everything you described in your post is something that the profession as a whole needs to look at as potentially hurtful to people. Which they probably won't. Or, maybe, if you join them someday, you may participate in some kinds of investigation or research.

The profession needs better understanding, and prevention, for the protection of the public, because individual practitioners like the one you described clearly won't. That seems to me just to be a fact. I expect -- speculate? -- that she likely can't, at least right now. That she is limited by her own issues, her own limitations, her own ambitions or ego or what she personally wants out of life.

I also think that there's a difference between being descriptive about a bad situation, and speculating about where the problems are, and and gossiping.

^This. My experience with my first T was different but similar in that, towards the end, I was wondering how the guy can even call himself a therapist. He is obsessed with social media and uses it in ways that sometimes seem worse than my past substance addiction. Does not seem to think that anything is wrong with it and gets rid of everyone who make critical comments or challenge him even politely. But as far as I can see he might have effectively killed his own reputation with it as he always hangs on social media these days and posts batshit crazy things, often the same thing over and over. In his case, it is possible there is some dementia in the mix as he is in his late 70s now and never was very smart... but definitely much better and more strategic a few years ago when I started seeing him. I no longer look at his online stuff often, mostly when we discuss bad therapists here on PC.

There are many quite crazy therapists out there who are in that profession to compensate and get attention. I am very sorry you had that experience.

I thought maybe that was the reason. It seems like she’s made a lot of changes to her business over the years. She was once a supervisor and had the perfect, identical branding for that endeavor as well. She also offered groups but basically they were just book discussion groups (not actual group therapy). She has taken that all off her website and has added weekend hours, so I’m guessing she’s struggling. I’ve had such a hard time finding a decent T recently so I think just all the good ones are taken. On her website, she also says that if people are sucicidal, self harming, have an eating disorder or are in addiction to find someone else... it seems like she’s just running away from doing actual therapy! Are narrative therapists typically like this?

She sounds more like a life coach. Nothing wrong with that, as long as she’s being transparent about it. She may be better suited to it vs the ‘hard stuff’.

I can think of a few people in my personal life who would appreciate exactly what she’s offering.

I mean I honestly don’t know, maybe if she put it in a little more studying she could be anything. Her conversations and questions with me had no direction whatsoever. It always felt like I was chatting with one of my girlfriends over coffee but the relationship was superficial and she was just a shell of a person that I could crack at any second. That’s how it felt when she sent me the letter that there no longer be any contact due to my attachment to her - it felt like I cracked the shell.

I'm sorry for what you went through and I understand how you feel. I recently took a look at my ex therapist and saw that she had changed her website: it's now super slick and glossy with a glamourous picture of her. She also appears to have raised her fee. The whole thing made me roll my eyes and annoyed me because she seems to have crafted this super image of "confident and experienced". Experienced in what? Who knows. It's so dishonest. In my experience (personal as well as by reading testimonies and blogs, articles) therapists appear to be super needy all the while projecting a persona of put together and healthy. Your therapist appears to be like that. If it wasn't so pitiful it would be sort of funny.