Therapy is bs/wrong!

I think a lot of threads are pointless. I generally don't post in the ones I view like that.
I can see therapy as being emotional prostitution in a lot of cases.
If therapy worked for you, then great. But it doesn't help a lot of people and it actively harms some as well. I want the profession to acknowledge it and I want to let clients who are harmed to know they are not alone and that it is not their fault.

No one's opinion to the contrary here can keep anyone who wants to see a therapist from doing so or can really interfere with anyone who finds/found therapy useful from believing it was so. If someone believes therapy helped them - then surely my opinion or others who have different opinions about therapy is not going to harm them.

OP, if you are relatively new to these doubts and PC, there have been many threads here about the wrongs and harms of therapy, search and check them out. They very often progress just like this one - someone makes a post about their useless, stressful or traumatic therapy experience, a bunch of people relate, others contradict it, then people start attacking each-other either directly or in more passive aggressive ways and it gets derailed, kinda predictable. It's the nature of these topics and how people tend to react to them. But these threads contain ample evidence that therapy can indeed turn out useless or harmful in some cases and it does not seem rare at all. And many people with these types of experiences conclude that Ts sell an illusion that can become a serious trap. It helped me a lot to read those stories when I was in therapy, to recognize the signs and get myself out of it and not allow being manipulated (I was much more open to anything initially and less skeptical). If anything, the diversity of experiences and opinions is one of the best features of this forum, IMO. Also, even if we disregard the ways therapy can be BS and take the best case scenarios, it is simply just not for everyone, but it often takes some time to figure this out.

Thanks, I don't find any of it offensive and I understand the conversation will diverge in such a long thread. I am indifferent to the prositute analogy as I don't see it this way but am in no way upset by it either.
If I could change the title it wouldn't be so negative and 'angry'. As I said before I am still in therapy and don't plan to leave.. There is just an aspect of it that I find very frustrating and disappointing. Reading through those replies made me realise that my experience is more common than I expected and validated my feelings. The neediness came with a lot of shame and confusion. The key, at least for me, is to accept the limitations and make a consious decision whether I want to continue in therapy or try elsewhere. But this was not easy to comprehand when I was enmashed in the experience.

I feel very bad that you feel that way. My problem, my issue, to respond to what you have written like that, but still. . .

Or, is it only that you think (but not necessarily feel) that you are being a pain in the ***? Sounds like maybe you all have developed a pattern (may not just be you, may be her, too) where you sort of flip-flop and end up being/feeling compelled not to leave? Is that something you can and/or might find interesting to discuss with your T? Something you feel she might be interested in discussing, too? And maybe she does, or does not, feel like you're being a pain in the *** and outstaying your welcome. Would that be at all interesting to find out for sure? If you felt that she could and would be honest with you?

Just my 2 cents, of course. . .

It might be useful to do a sort of cost/benefit assessment then. Is the benefit (or potential benefit) of therapy worth the discomfort coming with how it is administered? Is this discomfort causing you disruptions in daily life, including making your problems worse or more difficult to handle? Or is it something that can be tolerated, much like the side effects of a medication that is otherwise helpful? Can you consciously regulate your expectations such that you can accept this is just a professional service (which it is) and not view it as some kind of closeness? Is your T one of those that like to focus on using your relationship for exploration - if yes, maybe tell them that you don't want to work that way. Also, if you have this dependency because you don't have other sources or social support and validation, maybe work on having more of that from ordinary relationships.

Also, on your other thread you mention that your T thinks you are not showing enough emotions in sessions, but it sounds like you feel quite intensely. Maybe bring that up, especially if the enmeshment is because otherwise you feel isolated, lonely and without support.

I brought up the prostitution analogy not because I wanted to say the therapist is a prostitute. I wanted to point out - to get understanding, and having to pay for it is a bit like having sex - and having to pay for it.

I have no personal experience with prostitutes by the way (because I have a desire for emotional contact and intimacy), but if I went to a prostitute, I would do that because I need sex, and have no-one to find me desirable enough to have sex with me for free. I go see a therapist, she or he offers me their understanding - says even there's nothing wrong with me - but only because they're getting paid for it. No money - and I would be out. That can feel a little bit sad.

An analogy does not imply the two things being compared are exactly the same. A therapist can sell relationships and intimacy, analogous to prostitution, but can also exploit or abuse clients. These two things are not mutually exclusive.

Therapists go to great lengths trying to elevate their service beyond that of paid companionship. Therapists doth protest too much, methinks.

And I agreed with you, and still do. I have felt this analogy, in the moment, more than just a few times. It wasn’t pleasant and I would have changed it if I could have.

I wonder sometimes if I brought the perversion into my own therapy. Perhaps if I had been able to do what others here have been able to do... stay at arms length, not look for love, focus on myself and my goals etc etc... it wouldn’t have felt so desperate. Instead I paid, scraped and groveled for any sign of caring... pandered for affection... and allowed myself to fantasize that the relationship was way more than it would or could ever be. I would have paid twice as much if she would have touched me in a motherly way. So, so very sad.

Purple, personally, if I hadn’t spent the prior 3 years grovelling for love, I would never have been able to bring that horrendous experience to my next therapy, realizing, really grasping at the deepest level, what a huge mistake that was. At the time, I just didnt know any better.

Oh boy did I learn. I hope to God, and I truly believe, I’ll never make that mistake again.

Behavior modification? Fine. Cognitive correction? Fine. But love? No. I would be making a horrible mistake (again) to think I’d find love in therapy. 😢

Mopey, thanks. I might have had a parallel but different problem around social norms. I had the etiquette component, being seal-trained both by school and parents to be very, very polite.

However, I could barely function as an adult,much less a respected person in the workplace who could stand my ground, hold opinions and be aggressive when necessary. I saw opportunities and praise go to those likely less (or equally) qualified, but bolder.

Unfortunately my regressive relationships with my therapists left me more self-pitying and enfeebled.

As you describe, I made changes observing other people. I've tried to emulate some traits of more successful people, modifying for my own temperament and style. I'll never be the most swaggering person in the room, but I can be confident in my contributions.

I agree. For me, this was too catastrophic a mistake to make more than once.

I think the most troubling part was that the transactional currency for ‘love’ wasn’t always cash. I was directly rewarded in nurturing and extra support for psychologically stripping off more layers. I felt coaxed to share all of my secrets and take off all of my emotional clothing to a raw vulnerable place for a higher prize. In the end I had no defenses left and felt utterly ashamed and exposed. When I saw what I had been doing, it took me to a really dark place. Perhaps I was exploiting myself?

To your point, I had much better success with practical therapy approaches as part of my recovery.

I think we often do to ourselves as others (in early life) have done to us? And, for me, I found others (therapists) who would exploit me and fakely caregive (without actually caring), again.

I'm not sure I ever would have learned, though, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result (as I continued to believe in the therapy fantasy, which substituted for the family fantasy).

I needed a dose -- several doses of reality. But not loneliness and extreme isolation while doing it.

I got into therapy again after my late husband died because I felt I needed help in making a life for myself without him. And I still believed that that was the goal and the purpose of the professional helpers, and so I "believed in" the profession even though I hadn't had such good luck all the time in the past. I really liked the hospice social worker, and her approach to helping families deal with terminal illness -- both realistic AND caring. Importantly, caring, not "caregiving". I asked her for a referral, and the hospice agency gave me one -- but it was a pastoral counselor, with the same old, same old, focus on yourself (not your life) and your feelings. I went along with it because, again, he was the therapist. I left after a few months when it wasn't working. Then went on to look for others -- I felt so bereft and inadequate to manage life on my own.

Never did really find what I needed -- the different opinions and perspectives on reality here on PC have helped a lot, though, I think.

Or seek what they haven't done. I never even thought of seeking love in therapy but I did kinda expect getting some sort of useful practical guidance that I could apply to improve my discipline issues (my parents never taught me much discipline even though they presented a pretty good example for it in their own lives). I was definitely disappointed to learn that therapy was basically paid conversation, very minimal or zero challenge and skill building to handle practical things. We could maybe say I wasn't in the right type of "therapy" for my needs and perhaps someone like a life coach that would have pushed me a bit and called me out on self-sabotaging would have been a better fit for me. I definitely needed much more change in the practical management area than in anything concerning understanding of self, emotional regulation, relationships and all that. Surprise I did not get much out of therapy?

But eventually I did do it on my own and using some people with good discipline in my everyday life as examples for what to change. Or people with obviously good social skills to improve mine (the social skills is also something I did not see good examples for in early life, my two parents were polar opposite extremes in that sense and none of them what I would like to resemble).

It wasn’t in my plans either, but I did have a lifelong pattern of seeking relationships with maternal women. I originally sought out therapy to help with unexplained depression.

Oddly this wasn’t my first pass in therapy but was definitely the first time such an insidious pattern took place. From the start, I felt showered in attention, lovely language and verbal praise and affection. Per her publications, she was a follower of Winnicott and the ‘good enough mother’. This modality looks and feels like gold to a depressed, lonely person.

That is definitely true for many people. I personally despise when therapists take the work of Winnicott et al. literally and advertise/encourage that they could play that role for a client. If we think about it, what kind of parenting would that be to be available for the child an hour per week (or even an hour multiple times a week, in strictly set time windows)? Maybe plus a bit of email and phone communication sometimes, but controlled and very limited both in quantity and quality? Dunno, but IMO that would be a horrible mother or father. I don't mind the psychological concepts to describe what people are missing and need, but to claim that a T could be a "good enough" surrogate and provide that in emotional and practical terms? That, by itself, sounds a bit like abuse IMO. Or at least extremely unrealistic. Of course the fact that clients often idealize Ts (so realism goes out of the window) plays to that whole premise.

I never cared about mother figures (in spite of the fact that I never felt a strong connection with my biological mom except very early in childhood when my needs were quite basic). But had a long-term pattern of seeking out older men that seemed to embody my developing values - not really authority figures, more like equal, but much more experienced associates, usually very independent, self-actualizing people with professional success. Men with qualities a lot like my father, who was definitely my greatest influencer in early life... then I kept looking for similar, just more evolved versions.

My first T definitely did not fit that pattern (if anything, more the opposite) but the second T kinda did. I liked that T a lot and enjoyed pretty much all of our sessions and every interaction. But it wasn't truly therapy or even coaching, it was nothing much different from many of those friends, mentors etc that I had encountered in abundance earlier, a very familiar type of connection. Except that most of the friends and mentors (and my father) helped me more to improve and develop desired qualities. That T was a bit too much like me, but instead of a more highly skilled, more developed version, there wasn't much in him that I could strive for to use as guidance to achieve more or to change. Smart person and business man, generally accomplished and experienced, educated and a great conversation partner - but these qualities have always been true for many of my colleagues and good friends as well.

I do find it interesting that I have never craved that (more) ideal mother figure even though I met a very few women in my 30s that kinda rubbed me that way initially but it did not develop further. The closest I have even gotten is with a current, now long-time close colleague, who is ~15 years older and started out as a supervisor and gradually I climbed up to be equal associates at work. We have also shared lots and lots of personal things over the years and provided very reliable support to each-other, sometimes helping each-other during difficult, challenging periods for each of us. She is also quite different from me emotionally and personality-wise but with a similar intellect, which makes it work pretty well. We definitely don't plan to detach anytime soon even though I consider it every now and then when I contemplate going 100% self-employed... but even then we could collaborate. She is extremely busy but super approachable, we meet often and she is very responsive both in person and via email (so am I when she needs something). We sometimes annoy but mostly support each-other and have given a compassionate ear in personal grief and in self-esteem struggles. Not a friend or a mom figure, but has definitely been the best supportive, complementary person in the last nearly 10 years and she does help keep up the discipline and can advise on practical and social endeavors. We do not have strict boundaries at all, just naturally reasonably professional and never want to crowd each-other. She has great social skills that I can easily learn from whenever. I can't imagine a therapist providing anything even close to all that! I also think therapists would be more realistic to aim for primarily professional relationships like that rather than parenting.

Again, surprise that my therapy was disappointing? I pretty much can easily find what I need from other people in everyday life, the only thing that blocks it at times is my own isolation/escaping tendencies and minimalism, and anxiety that can exacerbate those tendencies if I let it. But having these good social connections, plus making ~constant efforts to manage my self-care (another area where my parents did not educate me at all and I learned as an adult) and practical reality needs provides much more to me than any therapy, coaching etc ever would, I think.

Paradoxically, I think one of the biggest dangers in therapy is having our needs met, or more dangerously, intermittently met. If you can get your needs (sometimes) met with a therapist, and you've spent years or decades unable to get those needs met in RL, of course you'll fixate on T. Gambling is most addictive when the rewards are sporadic -- and I feel like Ts often dole out sporadic 'care' rewards. A smile. A warm moment. A brief but kind email.

For those of us who have none or little of that in real life, it's addictive. And the only time you see a therapist is when they are solely focused on you -- it's easy to see them as not existing beyond the room you're in.

Since leaving my therapist (because he wouldn't hug me), I've really tried to dig down and figure what needs my therapist WAS meeting (but then stopped meeting). I wouldn't describe myself as attached to my last T, but there was definitely something I was occasionally getting from him that was addictive and which kept me coming back, especially to the later sessions.

With hindsight, I was looking for the knowledge that, in a moment of emotional crisis, someone would be there to take care of me. The traumatic things in my life all centre around times when people should have helped, but didn't. A painful miscarriage made worse by a negligent midwife, a babysitter who turned a blind eye to her son sexually abusing me, parents who wouldn't help me at the lowest point in my life. Little me is still looking for 'the helper' who will hold her and save her when things go completely tits up, because the only coping strategy she knows is checking out. The 'best' part of therapy was a day I found out we'd be unlikely to conceive and my therapist offered another appointment. I now see what I responded to -- care at a time of crisis.

I'm still not sure what to do with this info, but at least I have it now. I think when therapy goes from good to bad, it's worth considering what you were hoping for, or what a therapist gave then took away.

I think needing a hug was my little self making sure the helper had to acknowledge she was actually there, that she would be protected by someone bigger than her, and that it was OK to have emotions and needs and not just have to keep going when the awful thing inevitably happened.

But it's a setup. Therapists bait you with a well practiced I-care-about-you-buttercup routine (sometimes subtle). It's gonna snare people who are down and out, have recent losses, or history of deprivations. It's like waving a bag of dope in front of a junkie.

I wasn't sure if It would be better to post a new thread but I think this is mainly connected with the conversations in here. All the answers really got me thinking because as a person who never discussed therapy in real life I thought my concerns are less common. I was very eager to address some of those issues in in session yesteday. A bit of a back story is that I email my therapist a lot and she never replies to anything I write but always reads my messages and most of the time we don't have very direct conversations about the emails but she is aware of what I wrote and it does get mentioned in a less direct way. Even though we talked about therapy, emails and our relationship in the past we didn't manage to discuss it recently. There has been an big increase in emails where I expressed how confusing the relationship is, how i don't know the boundries (also with emails) and how I really needs some kind or reassurance and how this validation of my thoughts by her feels so crucial and I don't understand why. This has been going on for about a month and a half and she never once brought it up. As soon as the session was over I would get angry at myself for not bringing it up again and more emails would follow. is it immature and cowardly? Yes, i think so, but this build up made it worse. I rehearsed it out loud before session, send multiple emails to say how its impossible to bring it up and how much I wish the conversation was iniciated by her but for some reason it was like an elephant in the room. Yesterday I hyped myself up so much to ask the question that I was actually realy uncomfortable from the first minutes. We did the weekly update of whats going on but I was growing more nervous and less focused on the conversation. At some point I said that I am not sure if I can do it today to which she replied by trying to schedule the next session straight away. We did that and then she asked if there is anything I want to talk about today. At that point the mental block was so bad I couldn't say anything. We set there for the next 20minutes me so uneasy and beating myself up but not being able to even say how uncomfortable it was making me, not being able to ask for help or explain what was going on. My therapist on the other hand was there impatient and completly indifferent. It felt so wrong and even cruel (although I know that its only me perseption of it). The imbalance between us was never more apparent. She wasn't there empathically waiting for me to compose myself. It was so apparent that I was alone in it with her attitude of: well its your time, you do what you want with it, I am getting paid anyway or me as a 3 year old child who has to ask for something with words to get it. There was no empathy or understanding just a firm: if you don't ask a question or say something I am not gonna be the one to reach out. not even the therapisty: "how does this make you feel?'
I am asking for a perspective of someone who can see what I did wrong and how her behaviour can be explained.

I don't know that you did anything wrong, but perhaps you could try a different approach. Have you considered making a list of your questions or topics and taking it with you? Some people do that as a way of getting started? Another idea might be to print off your emails and refer to them specifically during session since they seem to be about the topics you are wanting to discuss. Sometimes just a different, maybe more concrete, plan for bringing up what you want to discuss can be helpful.

You wrote about her attitude about your silence. Were those her words or your perception of her thinking? If it is her actual words, perhaps a different therapist might work better for you; I've never had a therapist remotely say that kind of thing to me, so I know there are better ones out there than that. If it was your perception of what she was thinking or you interpretation of body language, it's hard to know if it is based on reality or a reflection of your own fears. I'm sorry it is so hard for you.

Look at the circumstances. It's an unnatural, pressurized situation and recipe for distress, anxiety, dysregulation:

- You have limited time, and a hard stop, so there is gun-to-the-head urgency.
- You are paying and don't want to waste time.
- You are expected to walk in and just switch on, it's not organic at all.
- There is someone staring at you and scrutinizing every move.
- If it goes badly, it will eat at you for a whole week.

Indifference in the face of distress is sadism.

Silence can be a demeaning power play.

Unanswered emails, also a demeaning power play.

In my opinion it is a horrible model for human relationships.