Therapy Abuse, Exploitation, Etc.

Copied and pasted from my own personal thread, here's what I've spent time writing and researching. It would be great to get more helpful links, if you care to share. Here's what I wrote earlier today:

I've had my own dealings with two abusive therapists, one abusive pastoral counselor, and one abusive mentor in the psychology field. Thankfully, I've also had enough wonderful therapists, pastors, and mentors in my life to understand the differences between what is healthy and what is not. It took me some time to understand these concepts, however.

Throughout my life, I've also experienced vicarious/secondary traumas via hearing so many others' laments about their abusive therapists, teachers, professors, mentors, supervisors, significant others, toxic friends, and/or parents - many of the same traumas I can identify with in my past. Although the emphases on prevention through detection of childhood maltreatment points to the potential etiologies of why victims often get revictimized throughout their lifespans, there remains a lack of research on adulthood abuses, particularly those that involve professional hierarchies, including therapists.

When I read the following articles (listed below), I finally felt relief for my secondary traumas as well as my direct traumatic victimizations. Finally, some professionals banded together to address the traumatic issues that often remain secrets. Finally, there's some justice-seeking advocates who are helping victims of non-crimes (in this case, emotional abuse in psychotherapy) stand up for themselves when no one else will. Finally, someone addresses emotional abuse as a form of victimization, not just mere slights.

Here's the (first) article: First, Do No Harm: Abusive Psychotherapists | Psychopaths and Love

One story that is mentioned in the article concerns the ironic hardships that victims face when seeking treatment for therapy abuse. The institution that traumatized victims is the primary institution to also help them. However, many in the helping fields tend to victim-blame instead of help in cases like these. These helping professionals, like so many institutional "family members," tend to stick up for their own, so it's common for those within the psychological institution to disbelieve lamenting victims of therapy abuse, and therefore not treat them for their specific traumas. Therapy rooms, and therapists as well, are trauma triggers for victims who experienced therapy abuse. Sadly, victim-blaming through placing the responsibility on the victims' character only retraumatizes them further, as opposed to decreasing the effects of trauma through validation and belief in their therapy abuse victimizations. Clearly, there needs to be more training, research, and treatments available for victims of therapy abuse. But when? How?

Here are some additional links found both within the article referenced above as well as in additional articles I found on various Google searches:

Therapy Abuse (TELL) Website:

TELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line
TELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line
TELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line
https://www.therapyabuse.org/RS_sugreadings.htm
http://www.therapyabuse.org/t2-under...rapy-abuse.htm
http://www.therapyabuse.org/p2-emoti...in-therapy.htm
http://www.therapyabuse.org/p2-sexua...chotherapy.htm

Counselling Resource Website:

https://counsellingresource.com/feat...d-trauma-more/
https://counsellingresource.com/feat...nduced-trauma/
https://counsellingresource.com/feat...usive-therapy/

RAINN:

https://www.rainn.org/articles/sexua...-professionals

Dr. George Simon Website:

https://www.drgeorgesimon.com/seriou...derstand-them/

PsychCentral:

https://psychcentral.com/blog/your-p...ts-in-therapy/
https://psychcentral.com/ask-the-the...exploiting-me/
https://psychcentral.com/ask-the-the...her-therapist/

Psychiatric Times:

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/art...oundary-issues

Psychopaths and Love Website:

http://psychopathsandlove.com/first-...erapy/#respond

Surviving Therapist Abuse Website:

http://www.survivingtherapistabuse.com/
http://www.survivingtherapistabuse.c...tes-and-links/
http://www.survivingtherapistabuse.com/my-story/
http://www.survivingtherapistabuse.c...iming-my-life/
http://www.survivingtherapistabuse.c...use-checklist/
http://www.survivingtherapistabuse.c...nt-no-more.pdf

Professional Articles:

https://psychotherapy.psychiatryonli....1997.51.3.357
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...30698800109583
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12465637
https://www.researchgate.net/publica...onal_standards
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/689...1c4128a06d.pdf
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/...1991.tb00862.x
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1992-20656-001

Los Angeles Times:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-...103-story.html

Newsmax:

https://www.newsmax.com/Health/aline.../14/id/866252/

My personal side notes about vicarious/secondary trauma:

One way to combat vicarious/secondary trauma is to become an advocate, and by doing so, to increase social support among people who share similar laments. Advocacy should not be about throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but instead, it should be about finding injustices being done at the hands of those in power. Abuse of power is widespread, a result of systemic problems and structural violence. Implicit biases apply here as well, which is why it is so hard to detect emotional abuse, the most common form of abuse that is not necessarily unlawful, illegal, or criminal. Emotional abuse is often justified, lest one find enough proof to demonstrate illegal or unlawful culpability. Further, emotional abuse if often minimized as a slight, as opposed to a harm that results in injuries and long-term sequelae. Emotional abuse can happen to anyone, regardless of whether or not childhood maltreatment occurred in a victim's past. The effects of emotional abuse can be detrimental to even the healthiest of persons without histories of childhood maltreatment.

Overall, it would appear that the above articles/institutions comprise the best of both advocacy and support for those experiencing vicarious/secondary trauma as well as those experiencing therapy abuse/exploitation. Hearing about someone else experiencing emotional abuse can also be traumatic. Helping professions are replete with exposure to vicarious/secondary trauma, especially when protective factors are not immediately available. Often missed, support groups are also replete with secondary trauma exposure.
Protective factors include social support, debriefing meetings, mandatory and effective therapy post incidents, ongoing accountability and supervision, paid time off from work for a work-related trauma, community support systems, and constant training/continuing education that increases psychological hardiness, trauma thresholds, and self-efficacy. Although protective factors help to reduce traumatic stress, some factors such as support groups may expose participants to secondary/vicarious trauma when hearing about others' traumas and/or being exposed to deviant behaviors.

As a survivor of polyvictimization, I'm hoping to heal and to grow, not just maintain and languish in my maintenance of disabilities. I'm hoping to flourish and thrive, not merely survive as a victim. Advocacy helps in these cases, especially in a world replete with trauma among many trauma survivors. So do protective factors, such as social groups.

***End copy/paste***

Here are some additional articles that I've found just now on secondary trauma and vicarious trauma. Although helping professionals and non-professional caregivers (e.g., family members caring for a disabled or mentally ill person), experience secondary/vicarious trauma, including their own emotion-regulation issues related to compassion fatigue and burnout, the professionals' and caregivers' work-related stress is never the fault of any particular patient, client, or loved one whom they are caring for. Each first responder, caregiver, therapist, or other helping professional is responsible for their own boundaries, their own problem-solution planning, their own respite, and their own emotions; they can ask for help and seek support (e.g., respite, emotional support, paid support to take a break, consultants to redesign their boundaries on the job). Here are the articles:

PsychCentral:

https://blogs.psychcentral.com/aging...arious-trauma/
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/after...d-to-get-help/
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/recov...ual-bypassing/
https://blogs.psychcentral.com/after...arious-trauma/
https://pro.psychcentral.com/exhaust...ic-stress-sts/
https://psychcentral.com/blog/second...ting-everyone/
https://pro.psychcentral.com/seconda...or-therapists/
https://pro.psychcentral.com/seconda...psychiatrists/
https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-lon...ife-of-trauma/
https://psychcentral.com/blog/do-soc...-disorder-too/

Good Therapy:

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psy...carious-trauma
https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/cop...-guide-0605137

I think there is already a permanent thread on this topic with all of these links. I point it out because if you add your info to that thread then it will stay up for people to easily find (although it is in an odd place as not all abuse is based on romance)
Helpful links for help if you have been abused by your therapist

Thank you @stopdog

I had no idea.

I can copy and paste my post under that link (if allowed), but most of what I'm referring to is emotional abuse, not necessarily involving .

I figured that the mods/admins can move this if it is placed incorrectly. However, I feel that therapy abuse and exploitation can extend beyond to areas involving emotional abuse, malpractice, dual relationships, bartering, and other exploitation.

But thank you so much for pointing me to another area where similar posts have been made. I'll check those out.

I've put this question in the Community Forum

https://psychcentralforums.com/commu...ml#post6664864

Mods can see it there and anybody who has opinions one way or the other can discuss it there, too.

@here today

Thank you!

I'm still relatively new here, so I don't know what to do sometimes. Thank you for your help! If this could become a sticky, yay! But, um, I may have some grammatical errors that need editing. Would I still be able to edit them? I pretty much wrote this from scratch a few hours ago. I just wanted to get it out there since there's been this relative theme of and recent postings about therapy harms, including therapy abuse and exploitation.

Also, it's a one-sided argument for now because there may be differences between therapy ruptures and emotional abuse in therapy. It's really hard to tell. That said, it would be a great question for Dr. Grohol and other professionals to look into and maybe write and/or find other professionals with appropriate degrees to write about those differences. It's a controversial subject because, unlike in therapy, emotional abuse in therapy isn't necessarily unlawful, even though it might be unethical. It's important for us to explore the other types of abuses in treatment, however, and to differentiate between ruptures and abuse in treatment.

Should I delete this thread since I copied and pasted it elsewhere? And since you guys requested a sticky move?

You can just leave it to the mods to deal with it if you want. It's not that bad to have informative threads popping up in the regular forum as, I believe, many people do not regularly scan the old stickies. This topic is very popular here and PC probably won't explode with one more thread

Given that you like to analyze things in depth and do research, maybe one thing you can do in the future, to avoid doing work that has already been done and shared, is to scan those sticky threads on the top and see if similar ones already exist. It is inevitable that a forum like this gets a bit repetitive over time, people experience and bring up many of the same issues and suggestions. But there are always new members who look for that info for the first time.

Thank you!

I'll definitely search the stickies next time. I would have never found the original sticky though, since it was in a completely different forum that I avoid because it is a trigger somewhat, but maybe I shouldn't avoid it. LOL. Nevertheless, I'll be more cognizant of the existing stickies. I like stickies, so that will be fun to read through before I post a new thread.

I'll leave it up to the mods/admins.

They need to move it out of the romance part of the forum

As someone whose problems were all emotional abuse and similar stuff, I wouldn't even think to look in the romance section.

I think people need to be more aware of the problems that can happen without any romantic or sexual component. I'd say mine were far more about bigotry and discrimination in therapy.

Thank you for this information! This is so helpful!

Ok! Wow! I didn't know that!

I agree with everything you said!

“in therapy, emotional abuse in therapy isn't necessarily unlawful, even though it might be unethical. It's important for us to explore the other types of abuses in treatment, however, and to differentiate between ruptures and abuse in treatment.”
___________

Sexual abuse in therapy isn’t necessarily unlawful in many states in the U.S., as well.

I think I read it’s unlawful in maybe twenty-six states. (?)

Another possibility -- I like the title of this thread -- what if we or you, OP, ask the mods to make this a new sticky, for the Psychotherapy forum in general? Some of the links on that other thread are old and apparently no longer work.

Another helpful link regarding therapist exploitation and abuse by professionals in a position of authority:

AdvocateWeb -

Therapy Never Includes Sexual Behavior - California Department of Consumer Affairs

and
“It’s Never Ok..”

https://www.leg.state.mn.us/docs/pre...her/890492.pdf

Yay! It makes me so happy to see more threads about this topic! Thank you for posting this and keep it up!

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

For several decades I have been appalled at the frequent use of the word “abuse” in articles and conversations, many by therapists, about human relationships. The word implies to me an attribution of fault or personal “badness” on the part of the person doing the “abuse” that I don’t feel is or may be necessarily justified, or accurate. Because, I guess, with things that my mother did to me and things I did to my children, I just do not feel inside, instinctively, that we could have done any better at the times. And after years and years of therapy and staring at and trying to “get in touch” with my evil impulses and faults – I do not believe I am in denial about these things. A social authority therapist may say I’m wrong, but I disagree and don’t have to accept their opinion.

So even though I have found the discussions about abuse and exploitation in therapy helpful, I think a focus on the hurt and harm and ways and how to overcome that could be more productive.

Here’s a well-researched list that has that focus. I think it may have appeared in this forum before, but I’ll add it here anyway.

Links and resources | Disequilibrium1's Blog

Thanks HT. As you talk about it, maybe there's a reason I'm uncomfortable with words like abuse or exploitation. The experience in retrospect is two people in unrealistic roles whose needs and unconsciousness harmed one another. It was more a power struggle. It certainly wasn't planned or calculated. Neither participant understood it at the time.