Warnings for those who've never been in therapy

From what i've seen therapists as a group are steeped in denial. Some more than others. I see little evidence that therapists collectively are aware of the messes they make, or care to fix anything. The only ones i see speaking with integrity are those that quit the biz in disgust. I agree with HT's catholic church analogy, and i think the denial about problems does make all therapists dirty. In keeping with the warning theme... most therapy abuses are subtle. Beware.

Freud and descendants twisted in pretzels attributing therapeutic harm to their patients’ intrapsychic conflicts (the bad object, negative therapeutic reaction, etc.) as opposed to therapist error, a trend seemingly continuing in analytic theory.

Writing, research and understanding around harm appears thin compared to vast oceans of literature covering psychotherapy. Much covers grievous violation rather than more nuanced harm.

Many of us who’ve gone through the grievance process found it hostile, putting the client on trial rather than the offending therapist.

“Ethics” literature seems to focus on defense against litigation, again protecting the practitioner rather than the client.

Maybe it’s just me, but all this feels patriarchal. How therapists talk among themselves is a far different show than how they present themselves to clients.

This is SO on point.

no, it's not just you. i have definilty noticed this too....

Definitely not just you though to me there are elements of matriarchy or cliquishness as well. Maybe gender-neutral authoritarianism or privilege would be a way to describe it?

You're going to get attached.

**my opinions**

Each of us go to therapy for different reasons and have different needs. Different therapists practice in different ways. There is no one right way to do therapy. It is your time. Don't be afraid to explore and try different things. Not everything will be allowed, not everything will be denied, not everything will be helpful, and lots of things won't feel good at the time yet lots of those will be helpful at some time.

Some people's processes take longer than others. As much as possible, move at your pace.

There will be times where you wonder why you are going, if it's worth it, what you are getting out of it. It's ok. Pushing through, taking breaks, or stopping are all ok ways of dealing with this uncertainty.

If there is a persistent "red flag" feeling, find another T. It doesn't matter if the feeling is reality, transference, or projection. Trust that feeling, move on, and figure it out when/where you feel safe.

Switching therapists is not a failure, simply another point/place in your life.

It is your life. You and only you can know/feel if your therapist and your therapy is being helpful, if you should stay or go.

You are the expert of you.

Therapists make mistakes, how they handle them says a lot.

The most generous thing that can be said about therapists is that they're parentified adult children. Alice Miller talks about this in her book "The Gifted Child." They spent most of their childhood and early adulthood trying to please and understand their emotionally absent and neglectful parents. Many of us can probably relate to this. They are drawn to the profession 1. because of this conditioning that comes from neglectful parents and 2. the "compulsion to repeat" syndrome that therapists talk about a lot in regards to their patients but it also applies to them.

The uglier side of therapists is, as has been said by BudFox, it's the perfect profession for emotional predators. Narcissistic types, borderline types etc.

Another thing, most therapists haven't done therapy themselves. Ask a therapist this question and you will see how defensive they get. How the heck can you trust a therapist who hasn't done their own therapy or who doesn't want to tell you about it?

The current rates are ridiculous. In my city, it's $180-$200 and many of them are out of network. One therapist was still under supervision, 2 years out of a 2 year social work program and charging $165. For what? Another therapist told me she charges $60 for a 15-20 mins consultation. My orthodontist charged me $50 (waived if I pursued treatment with him) for a consultation. He's been in school for several years. He's board certified. He took scans of my teeth and spent over an hour talking to me about a treatment plan. And these shyster therapists have the nerve to ask for $60 for a 15-20 min consultation to basically get to know each other a little and see if it'd be a good fit?? Most of the ones I reached out to were clinical social workers. Do you know how easy it is to get a social work degree??? I know because I almost became one. It's a joke! And they want to charge $165 for 45 mins (not even the standard 50 min) with no experience?? It's a scam and nothing more.

I agree with you and I'm not trying to argue with you. I want to add to your comment that the binary "good therapist" / "bad therapist" is deceptive imo. The issue is that the premise of the relationship is harmful in itself. The dynamic is guru-supplicant. That is harmful for any adult except for the therapist of course. Especially in the long term. The therapist-client relationship is DE-SKILLING in dealing with normal social situations and coping with what life throws at you. Because 1. it regresses you into a childhood role and 2. teaches you relationship "skills" that no one else is adhering to outside the therapy room.

i definilty had an adjustment period after ending 7 years of therapy and quickly discovered that few people even come close to relating to me on the same 'relationship' level as my ex-Ts. this revelation left me feeling a bit betrayed because when i first met my last T, he sold therapy to me on the premise that it would help me build those lasting, authentic, and deep connections that i was yearning to have with others in my life. the only one who i did build a deeper connection to was my DH who was right there in the trenches with me for many of those years of therapy, but in regards to other relationships, all it did was help me weed out the toxic, unhealthy, and narcissistic people who actually were a bit like my ex-T and taught me to lower my expectations.

BTW welcome to PC

Thank you for the welcome and I'm so glad I found you guys!! It's been lonely for a long time thinking that I was just being "resistant" and if I would just find the "right therapist" I would have all the answers I seek. I sort of fell into this illusion recently and searching for a therapist brought up all the previous negative experiences/feelings and somehow I ended up finding this place. And it's completely validated everything and I've stopped looking for a therapist. I'm back to my senses! Phew!

I relate to everything else you said. Therapy gave me a false sense of my ability to change the course of my relationships. They love to tell us how we can only control ourselves and not others. This is true of course. But they also subtly and not so subtly give you the impression that all you have to do is use the "skills" they teach you to approach things differently and you will get what you want from relationships! The problem is that you're being triggered due to your childhood and that's why you're having difficulty, they say. This is true to a certain extent but it's not the holy grail they make it out to be. And if everyone is just blindly getting through life with all these unconscious ways of relating that they learned from childhood, and if you get "healthier" by doing therapy, then you're just going out into a sick world as a healthy person, right? So I guess everyone should be in therapy so they can rewire us all. That would be great for therapists - it would make them so important in all these key areas of our lives and we'd all just pour money into them endlessly.

I now see that my frustrations in relationships were due to the fact that I was putting in too much effort. Instead of undoing this conditioning and teaching me about reciprocity and self respect......what therapy did was encourage me to continue putting in more work by over-analyzing the person/situation, trying to tease out how I was contributing to the problem, and trying out different ways to "resolve" things. This has been a disaster for me in all my relationships; family, work, friendships. It's a recipe for a lot of resentment.

If someone is already indifferent to you, using "I" statements and understanding your triggers is moot. All you're doing is going back for more humiliation. All you're doing is taking more than your fair share of responsibility and blame in the relationship. Stop trying and all you hear is deafening silence. Then therapists tell you "cut off" is immature and a sign of an undifferentiated adult. So you go back again filled with guilt maybe even shame and still you get nothing!! In the end all you're left with is bitterness.

I wish instead that therapy had taught me to look for people who were kind and reciprocated. To look for people who didn't make me feel guilty or responsible for them. Of course the therapists didn't model any of these behaviors that I needed to see to repair how I was relating to others. They gaslighted, short-circuited, lectured, blamed, demeaned me all while cashing my checks. I'm convinced to this day that one therapist purposely told me to attend an event with relatives that I couldn't stand just so I could come back all out of sorts and she can feed off my distress and the drama of it all. There was a glint in her eyes as she asked "So how'd it go? Tell me exactly everything that happened."

Sorry for the long rant!

Well-said. It's hard to articulate a lot of this stuff, at least it is for me. Very glad you have found your way here.

Good points. The "good therapist"/"bad therapist" distinctions are value judgments, binary, black/white/no grays. "Good" for what? "Bad" for what?

The essential real-world dynamic of the relationship is, as you point out, guru-supplicant. That is reflected in the term "client". Intereresting origin of that word:

https://psychcentralforums.com/newre...eply&p=6586318

A relationship in old Roman society. The patron wasn't paid in those days, those relationships just formed and were beneficial, presumably, for both parties. But the status differential was plain. If anything, money flowed from the patron (the one who had it) to the client -- look at how the word "patron", as in "patron of the arts", is used today.

The business notion of "hiring" a therapist is based on an assumption of equality in terms of law and the ability to make a contract. But that is often NOT what underlies a person's -- a client's -- feeling and presumed "need" for "help".

And, yes, the "skills" I learned in therapy, in becoming a "good" therapy client, definitely did NOT serve me well in the real world. It's a very flawed model for "helping" people and needs to be replaced.

Yes exactly. In this context, the payment does make it more of a professional relationship. But there's no contract. You don't sign anything and you can't sue for breach of contract. What you're paying for is never made clear. Every business contract is an exchange of goods and/or services which are clearly outlined. In this case, it's a service that's being paid for but what is the service exactly?

The service is soothsaying. I.e., if you enter therapy you will feel less anxious/depressed, you will find love with these tools we give you, you will find overall happiness. Read any of the ads on PsychologyToday and that is exactly what they're selling. No different from seeing a psychic or getting a palm reading. You're paying someone to make you feel good/maybe to give you hope (to ease the existential angst) but there's no way to know if they are capable of doing that. There's no way to get a referral. It's very hard to find reviews on therapists. A physician referral is useless unless the physician has been seen by the therapist him/herself and can speak to their experience. When my company tries to end a contract, we just send a termination notice and that's that. Essentially saying, your goods or services are no longer needed. The terms of ending the contract are put into the contract so everyone knows what to expect. With therapists, you're faced with unbelievable guilt if you want to end the "contract." It's like the never-ending contract used in a certain religion that shall remain nameless. Of course if they want to end the contract, they can do so at will.

Because honestly it's time we dispense with this notion that this is some form of treatment. They use medical jargon when it suits them and they disavow it when it suits them i.e., the "disease model" is shaming blah blah blah. Can't have it both ways. Either be scientific or be grouped with astrology.

I think the possibility (necessity?) of some kind of more comprehensive and realistic informed consent often comes up in discussions related to the fairness of therapy. Very few Ts practice this though even even those that do usually have very simplistic, superficial "contracts" that allows for many ambiguous things to happen and a way out for them when things go sour. I talked about this a few times with therapists, both those I saw as a client and others I met via my work. They tend to have many excuses why not to do this and usually place it in the context of what is apparently best for the therapy to remain open-ended and open to possibilities, not to scare away clients, etc. Some even say it would interfere with the so-called healing transferences.

I also find it ridiculous to call most psychotherapy as "treatment". IMO, it is more a contrived, designer social interaction that can be healing to some, but to call it treatment? There is rarely a treatment plan, clear and well-explained methods, evaluations etc. Some modalities are called evidence-based but that evidence is very limited and often distorted, without much follow-up. In my view, it is more a consultation or paying an empathic companion, in a good case. I also think very few Ts have deep enough knowledge on the human psyche and brain to call it treatment, and I've met many Ts who were quite open about their views and methods because we met via work, not as client-T. I don't have any issues with services that are more esoteric and don't come with any probability and guarantee, but don't claim it to be something else, something it is not!

This is one of my long-standing rants. The quasi-medical posturing is a powerful marketing and profiteering tool. But in reality the service is relationships-for-hire (insert prostitution analogy here). Relationships are not scientific entities. Cloaking them in fake doctor talk doesn't change that. And in my experience, the relationships are crappy, dysfunctional ones that can easily become abusive and exploitive.

I believe you because I had a therapist so didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know and never gave me any coping skills to use.