Inequities in society and my own failure is highlighted when seeing a therapist

Getting back to the original topic... I think therapy recreates or reinforces the corrosive social hierarchies that drive a lot of suffering. The client is usually forced into a subordinate role, and even if the therapist is a decent person, it's still a large dehumanizing institution whose main goal is to profit from your misery. If therapy does not help or is damaging, too bad, go find a new therapist and start over. All sales final.

And therapists tend to deny or ignore larger realities and encourage the client to believe their suffering is internally generated.

I don't know if this helps, but my brother often raises the same issues you have. He tells me that, at 32, he feels like a loser because he hasn't hit any of the 'milestones' he should have. No wife, no gf, career, etc. I don't know if you're anything like my brother, but I'm bringing up things I've noticed over the years on the off-chance it might help.

1) He doesn't appreciate how many steps there are when getting from A to B. He gives up because he can't immediately go from one to the other.

2) He doesn't understand that you need to take small, almost meaningless opportunities to get the bigger ones, and accept that 95 per cent of the time small opportunities won't lead anywhere.

3) When there is an opportunity, he wastes it because it's not the perfect thing he wants.

For example, he finished a certification in video game design. He couldn't find full-time work in our hometown, but he refused to move somewhere with more opportunities. Then he refused to take a part-time job doing unglamorous work at a company in our hometown because it was beneath him. He doesn't seem to get that if he'd moved or done a few years of grunt work, he'd have had chances at better paid grunt work, then maybe a ****** paid full time job, then maybe an OK one.

It's the same issue with girls. He goes after insanely beautiful women with PhDs, then goes full on incel when they tell him they want someone more ambitious. Last year he met a younger, pretty woman who adored him, but he dumped her because she has health issues and he wants 'just a normal relationship like everyone else'. He sacrificed the good because it wasn't the perfect. He might have had a deep, fulfilling relationship is he'd accepted the hardships that came with it.

He doesn't have friends. He has a few acquaintances who will occasionally invite him to things. But he won't go because 'there's nobody I can have a meaningful conversation with'. He doesn't pause and consider that, while that might be true, some social interaction would be good for his mental health and better than just sitting at home, and that maybe, maybe, there's a small chance he will meet someone.

I'm sorry if this doesn't apply to you. But I'm wondering if there are small opportunities in your life that you are missing. Not huge opportunities for a career or a husband, but small opportunities like earning a little money or going to a meetup and just being around people. Could you set your sights on some very modest goals? Those things won't solve the feelings you're having, but it could improve your well-being. And 5 per cent of the time, a bigger opportunity comes off the back of a small one. But you need to be there.

If it means anything, I do empathise. I've been where you are, and the only thing I've found that solves it is to keep pushing forward with the small chances I do get. I do feel for you -- that feeling of being behind everyone else is a hard one.

I find it curious that you think therapy recreates social hierarchy. I don’t see therapists as some special kind of social class or royalty or aristocracy above everyone else. Do you? They are just regular folks imho. In what way are they above others?

Yeah I agree with you that they make money out of people’s misery and I guess it’s true about many professions: lawyers, doctors, special ed teachers, nurses etc They make money out of others pretty miserable conditions if you want to look at it that way. My husband joked that I finance our dentist’s kids’ college education and her annual vacations, all because I spent thousands on my quite problematic teeth. It’s just how it is. I think any kind of service/helping/treating industry profits from others often miserable conditions.

I don’t even think envying what others have is just therapist/client kind of thing. OP could easily find out that her GP or dentist or financial advisor or grocer or baker or maintenance guy or bus driver might have something she doesn’t have. It’s not really unique for a therapist. Heck I know successful plumbers who make way more than therapists if they own their business. They might also have a good house and nice family. Where does it all end?

I really don’t see how all these people who live somewhat decent lives (at least on the surface) are different from a therapist.

Saying that if therapy causes more stress (especially if worrying about therapists having a better life is a problem) then I don’t see the point. Therapy could cause more harm than good at times. It might be good to take a break

I'm talking about the therapy relationship. It echoes other oppressive relationships... dictatorial boss, abusive parent, controlling parent, neglectful parent, abusive partner, authoritarian/paternalistic doctor, schoolyard bully, etc.

The main purpose of therapy is to build the therapist up. If this crushes the client, so be it. If the client benefits, that's nice, but it's incidental.

None of that description in any way resembles what I have ever experienced in therapy (nor anyone else I personally know who has been through therapy).

The main purpose of my therapy (and of those others I am well acquainted with) has been to build ME, the client, up. Therapists worked diligently and professional to avoid “crushing” me in any way. And yes, I benefitted. It was not just incidental. It was not a one-off.

My therapy was to build ME up, and yes, I did benefit and it was anything but incidental. The benefits were deliberately sought out and worked toward as well as long lasting. I am well aware of many others who also benefitted from their own therapy.

Same here. I haven't experienced anything like that either.

I’d agree with you that some therapeutic relationships are really messed up (I see it reading on this forum) but just as many people don’t have any kind of weird dynamic (again see on this forum and know from people in real life)

. I can ensure you that many people’s therapy isn’t about building a therapist up whatsoever. Certainly I’d not spend a penny on building anyone up. Now if your particular therapy is focused on that and your therapy has this type of dynamics that you describe, then I can’t argue with that. But it doesn’t mean everyone has that

Now in situation with Sarah her social interactions with people are very limited. The only person she regularly talks to is her therapist and she is generally unsatisfied with her life. That’s we empathize with but also make suggestions how to broaden up her horizons a bit and possibly look for something to bring her satisfaction.

You can’t fault a therapist for having a job and buying stuff or doing this or that. It’s not anything extravagant, therapist buys stuff because she has a job just like many others. Therapist isn’t even bragging about it. Sarah finds it on the Internet. It doesn’t mean that therapist created some kind of strange dynamic.

Now again if your therapy is about building up your therapist and you see him or her as authoritarian figure then i am very sorry about it but it has absolutely nothing to do with other people’s therapy.

I agree that how therapy as a (pseudo) profession is set up is for the benefit of the therapist and not the client.

This is interesting to me because in general I believe my therapist is good and that his goal is to help me, but I do have moments when I feel angry at him and I do feel some of the things you’ve expressed above. For me at least, I think I feel that occasional anger and distrust towards my T because I’ve experienced those things growing up in my family and it’s easy for me to go to the place of believing my T is that way too. In my therapy I would ideally then tell my T that this is how he makes me feel, and talking about it and how I’ve felt that way in other parts of my life has been quite helpful. Not going to therapy would allow me not to consciously feel these angry emotions, but I suspect they’d still be there and show up in my life in other perhaps unconscious ways.

I've noticed this pattern, too, and I think it's true of a lot of people. They have this vision of the perfect life, and aren't interested in working on the life they're actually living, and get depressed by the big difference between the two. I always think it makes more sense to work with what you've got, like tomatenoir is saying: make little changes where you can, take small chances when they arise. Try to grow a little bit where you can, and maybe eventually you will find you've grown a lot. I understand envying other people, I think it is natural and normal. But maybe try to turn away from "I want what they've got" and think instead about "what is within my reach right now?"

I think it's self-evident therapy is for therapists. This does not preclude consumers from benefitting.

I've read hundreds of stories of people who appear beaten down by therapy. Sarah is one example. The title of this thread speaks for itself.

In such cases, most likely the therapist benefitted from the interaction. They feel better for being in the position of power and superiority. They probably live for that feeling. And they get paid.

In what way are therapists in position of power and superiority?

Sure some people might feel that therapists are superior and powerful but feeling something doesn’t necessarily make it true. Some people generally struggle with feeling inferior, it doesn’t mean others are at fault.

How do you know what therapists feel?

What do you think therapists possess that others don’t? I can’t imagine what would that be? Yes Sarah struggles with being unsatisfied with life and is upset that therapists have jobs, houses or families. It’s nothing really to do with therapists but more with general dissatisfaction. Is it therapist’s fault that they have ok lives?

It’s not even anything extraordinary that might puts us all in inferior position. They aren’t billionaires or wizards. Therapists I personally know are regular people and pretty middle class, it’s nothing to write home about. You often mention how therapists are powerful and superior, do you feel they are above you? In what way?

I know a lot of people seeing therapists, I have never heard them feeling that therapists are superior. How so? And how do you think it’s therapists fault you feel this way?

Additionally, I don't see the OP in any way suggesting that the therapist flaunted superiority or power. The OP googled the information and her feelings and this thread appear to be the result of her own issues with her own status at this time. I didn't see her say anything about the therapist beating her down in her therapy. She feels beat down, but that seems to be her general response to her life status right now. That is entirely understandable; it is awful to feel like you can't meet your basic needs or find fulfillment in life.

Good point. Information about owning flats or having kids came from the Internet, not from therapist flaunting her possessions or making degrading comments.

Every therapist I’ve known, including one I have to deal with nonprofessionally, constantly used/use dominance signaling, pretending clairvoyance, knowing the unknowable. They seemed to thrive on creating awe around themselves.

Hierarchy is enforced in subtle ways with many people unaware it’s occurring. (The therapist in a group with me is a bossy braggart who tries to make others her involuntary patient.)

That does not mean this is what is happening here.

The therapists I know have not used any of that. Rather quite the contrary.

I agree. Dealing with them as an attorney is interesting because of how their language about clients really changes.

One obvious way... they define normal. They can diagnose you with mental illness, and most people will never be the same after that (even if it's BS).

Also some clients put the therapist at the center of the universe. The therapist basically owns the client's inner world.

This issue has been discussed endlessly. I suggest searching around.

My point was that OP feeling demeaned in therapy might have to do with the nature of therapy, and I think it's disingenuous to suggest otherwise.

Who decides what’s disingenuous and what isn’t?

Oh absolutely some people put therapists in the center of the universe but some people put all kind of categories and groups of people in the center of the universe.

I don’t really make any claims. I believe some therapists are good and some are bad and I base it on numerous experiences of many people. You claim that all therapy is bad and so are all therapists. So burden of searching around and proving your point lies on you.

Sarah feels demeaned because therapist has a job and has a family. Inequality is the nature of the universe, not nature of therapy. Some people have more than others. That’s common sense. Yes it could be upsetting and painful. Life isn’t always fair. But it’s not therapist’s fault.