Being abused in therapy

Up til i met this therapist i have now, i always felt that all therapist where mean after awhile. If it wasn't for me going to day program at the mental health clinic i would of not given this therapist a chance. Im so glad i did even though im still hurt and angry at my previous treatment team. I hope this therapist im seeing now wont turn mean on me. I still have to talk about this with my new therapist my emotions are all over.

I think the dynamic of the therapist-client relationship is inherently abusive. In what other scenario would you go to another adult/a stranger and immediately tell them all your vulnerabilities/fears/insecurities/failures etc and then take their feedback as gospel? We (the clients) know next to nothing about them. We don't know if they have jealousy issues, if they're controlling, if they're assholes, if they themselves have abused/neglected their children (the very same problem many ppl go to therapy for) etc. We have no insight into their personality, their relationships, their life philosophy, their integrity or lack thereof.

Knowing nothing about them we're essentially asking and trusting them to care about us. For a fee, of course. Can they really give a **** about us though? Can they care about all their clients that they see for one hour a week? Why should they care? Even if one believes that it's possible for them to genuinely care, one would have to acknowledge there's a lot of room for abuse in this dynamic. Or a lot of room for the therapist to just fake it. It's not a bad way to earn a living. Your clients trust you implicitly, and you have all this unearned authority. You get to feel good about yourself and pat yourself on the back for "helping people," And earn a decent living for just sitting in a room and talking and pretending to care.

This doesn't describe my experience in therapy at all. It took me several years to trust my T. I still don't tell him everything. I will never take anyone's feedback as gospel.

OP, I do believe there are good Ts out there—I think mine is very smart and competent as well as kind. I'm sorry you've had this experience and hope that you find the help you need, whether that is with a different therapist or through some other means.

Hi WeaverBeaver,

I am sorry to hear about this. You didn't deserve this at all. My heart goes out to you. Good news is, you recognized this immediately and have taken action to protect yourself by reaching out to us! Recognizing your triggers is paramount to healing - pat yourself on the back for this.

I have a question: Are you diagnosed with BPD?

I know how diagnoses can be used against us to pathologize and potentially to abuse. One way you can get around this is to record your sessions (if that is legal where you live). In Canada, it is legal (under the one party consent law) and it is so very important to protect yourself in this regard as therapists can and do take advantage of their power from time to time. It can also aid us when we need to gain clarification after the fact, as the audio recordings will not lie. We are all fallible and sometimes we simply misheard and misinterpreted things. Recordings are a fail safe against this for both parties, I am surprised that therapy sessions are not recorded by policy as this would also protect clients against malicious material being authored into the health records when abuse happens.

In what context did your therapist say that your Borderline traits are disturbing?

Was it in support of you? Judging you? Was it to put your down or to blame you for a rupture between yourself and your therapist and or someone else?

Sometimes we are valid in our worries about particular phrases and words - but we are not always right about the intention for which it was made; therefore, it is our job to discern what it really means and avoid making assumptions. The only way to truly clarify something is to ask the person who said it. From what you have shared, it seems as though your therapist may have said it off the cusp (without thinking about the effects it could have on you). Everyone has personality disorder traits at times throughout their lives. Full-fledged Borderline Personality Disorder is common in society as it centers around attachment systems. Being that we are social beings and attachment is paramount to humanity's survival - it makes sense that we would make desperate attempts to salvage relationships.

**From the sounds of it, I would think your therapist meant that you have traits of Borderline Personality Disorder (which is does not surprise me at all, since everyone has some traits), but that you do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of BPD. But that does not discount the fact that it hurt you, for which your feelings are valid and you were right in bringing it up with your therapist.**

On a side note: SCREW THE DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL!!!

It is absolute hogwash. Most mental illness can be correlated with trauma - the rest is all a means for pharmaceuticals to make money off prescription drugs, which furthers research in healthcare and, "advances," how we treat those who need help. The ICD-11 just removed BPD from their manual and replaced it with Complex PTSD - which in and of itself is a necessary sign for change! Apparently there's a social movement in psychiatry and psychology where front-line workers believe Complex PTSD could replace MANY diagnosis's as it points to the CORE of the problem, rather than trying to pathologize behaviors that result from trauma for which diagnosis leads to additional traumas in the pursuit of recovery.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

This is not my experience of therapy. In fact, I was recently bemoaning to my T that it has taken me over 4 years of weekly sessions to be able to say some stuff to her. She asked how long I thought it should take - and said that if I came in and immediately opened my heart and soul and told her my deepest thoughts, feelings and fears, she would be very concerned! That's indicative of a completely different attachment problem!

Furthermore, I think it's a personal choice to pedestal anyone, and take anyone's word as gospel. Frankly - I identify as Christian and I don't take The Gospels "as gospel"!! Question everything - but also, know that we can't all be experts on everything. When my T tells me a thought/fear/experience is or is not common (she refuses to use the word "normal"), I trust her because she has talked in-depth with a lot more people than I ever will. However, of the two of us, I am the expert on me - on my thoughts, feelings, experiences.

As far as paying them to care... I think most of us would find ourselves caring about someone we talked with regularly. I mean, I care about my co-workers - even the ones I don't know well. That's not to say that I don't often feel that my T only cares because I pay her to, but I try to remember the therapist blog that is occasionally posted here, where the T explains the exchange of money accounts for the way the relationship is unbalanced. I'm paying to not have to ask if she has the bandwidth to listen to me rant for the umpteenth time about my boss or whatever. She can use the funds to do enough self-care that she can care about me.

Some therapist are horrible! I have a nephew who therapist want to commit my nephew in a institute because he didn't agree with the way my sister had discipline my nephew over games because of how the therapist discipline his own kids.

Have you thought about recording the evidence and then file a complaint against the therapist?

I read about horror stories about therapist abusing their patience most match with what happen to me!

I have come to same conclusion. Many typical therapist behaviors and traits would be considered abusive by therapists if present in a real world relationship. Such hypocrisy and irony.

They toy with needs and feelings for their own purposes, then send the client away on the therapist's terms and refuse or severely limit contact until the next appointed time, regardless of whether this damages the client's psychological and emotional stability. If the client finds this upsetting, the client (victim) is blamed.

When the client tries to find out more about the therapist or the nature of the relationship, the therapist is usually evasive, ambiguous, and withholding... while expecting trust and loyalty, as you alluded to.

They sit in judgement and apply stigmatizing labels once you have exposed yourself, while their own weaknesses remain largely hidden. This is an aggressive and demeaning stance and paves the way for larger abuses.

It's only when this crosses a line and becomes overt that people notice it, as with what OP describes.

Obviously some therapists make an effort to mitigate these problems, but this is the template I have observed.

As I mentioned in my other posts, I recently fell under the illusion that I needed a therapist. I don't really know why I was interested in going back after years of writing them off after a series of bad experiences. I was starting to doubt myself I think. In any case I told myself this time around I was going to do a better job of sussing them out before signing on. I could tell right away that they are not used to being interviewed. And this has happened to me before. A few years ago I remember distinctly meeting with one therapist for a full session, paid her her full fee to just meet her and ask her a few questions and she had a bad attitude about it. She was irate and complained about me wasting so much time asking questions and running the clock! Ha! The truth is she evaded all my questions and monologued at me and wasted MY time.

A few weeks back I met with a couple (separately of course) from the same practice group and asked them both a basic question "have you done your own therapy and worked through your own family of origin issues?" One refused to answer. She evaded the question and gave a generic answer about how important it is for therapists to do self-care. The other one gave me a curt "yes" and then quickly changed the subject in a very obvious way to bring it back to me. Why? Why can't they answer a simple question. I believe a lot of clients do not ask them simple questions like this because of the fear of authority figures. AND because of their aggressive and demeaning stance!! If you had a certain upbringing that discouraged self-expression you will definitely be prone to implicit trust and fearful of questioning/being skeptical. And they use that to their advantage. And if you are one of the few bold ones who ask questions, they do not answer! I asked several other questions about their approach and self-disclosure etc and I walked away from them not having a clue about any of these things.

I sent a bunch of emails to others and several did not offer a free consultation of 15-20 mins. Even by phone. Why not? I'm trying to hire you for a job and you want me to pay you to interview you to see if you'd be fit for the job? How is this not a scam? And I refuse to pay anything this time around just to ask a few questions and get a feel for the therapist. I refuse! And they had an attitude about my request. Again, we're back to the aggressive and demeaning stance.

Anyway, I've come to my senses now and I'm not looking anymore. But it was an eye-opener and confirmed for me what I've known all along.