The manipulative and harmful nature of psychodynamic therapy

Hello SarahSweden, just wanted to thank you for this thread and your comments. I agree with you about the manipulative aspects certain types of therapy. I am still attempting to recover from what transpired in past therapy and I too feel for anyone else who has been wounded in this way.

Do you have partial hospitalization/Day Treatment Center programs in your area? This might be good to try. You would get a lot of support and therapy from a program like this.

Thanks. Yes, I agree to that. They see it just like part of their method and they don´t reflect much upon how some clients might experience some of their actions. What I experienced was that even if I did explain to them how I experienced some of the things the did, they still didn´t want to change anything or at least try to understand my reactions.

I agree not all psychodynamic T:s are the same. I saw one some years ago and she had a much more kind and soft approach, she had a relational orientation. By that I now asked for a relational psychodynamic therapist and even if this latest one had such an orientation she was very different from the one I saw several years ago.

Did you find a new T who could help you with those negative experiences you had had earlier?

Thanks. Yes, as you I think there should be a comment or two about some "everyday thing" like the weather or similar but not engaging in longer conversations about things that don´t concern my issues. There´s a good point in the fact that doctors and others try to make the patient feel more at ease before starting a treatment or an examination. But with therapists like those, that seems impossible.

As you also say, many people would react negatively to such encounters but some therapists seem to find it useful to act in a very different way from how people "normally" act. I see there´s a point in keeping boundaries of course but to stretch it as far as I described in my original post, I see that simply as a way to create a distance between client and therapist.

Ok, so we know my T can be a little to the far opposite of the reactions you are getting but... one of the things I really like is that he does greet me by name in the waiting area (often I am the only one there). He also tells me something little about his day or his weekend which obviously doesn’t break confidentiality. It is usually something really little, last session it was that he forgot to grab a drink before he left his house so he was going to grab a water and be in. I guess he can be more relaxed because he is in private practice (I never had any luck finding good T’s at clinics). There are two other T’s that work out of that office but I have only seen one of them. Just before he went on vacation last time they both came out to see who’s client was there. He said it was Omers but if you want her you can have her. The other T just about panicked! We had a good laugh. So obviously there is room for T’s to be more warm and ingaging.
Like I said, I have always had a harder time in a clinic setting and found them to be more cautious. Perhaps more out of concern about other staff saying something than a problem towards the client? I have also never gotten counseling outside of the US so perhaps some of it is cultural or different rules/laws?
I know it would really bother me too even more now that I have had a T that is so personable. Will they even respond if you say something first?

Thanks. As nearly 50% of all people being on sick leave is so because of different kinds of mental health problems here in Sweden longer therapies should definately be part of public health care. Even if depression or anxiety isn´t deadly in the same way as cancer or heart problems it costs society a lot of money and it affects people´s lives for years. Even if not every depressed patient stays ill for a long time.

In Germany both CBT, psyhodynamic therapy and also psychoanalysis is publically funded and patients can choose between those types of therapy, and also other kinds, and for a longer period of time. It´s much a matter of how politicians look upon people with mental health issues.

Thanks. Yes, I think Yalom identifies himself foremost as an existential therapist but I wanted to give an example of how it´s possible to conduct therapy being kind and validating and also sharing about yourself at the same time as keeping boundaries.

As you describe I found CBT even more invalidating when I tried that for some sessions. To be able to gain something from CBT I think you need to be very goal oriented and not so much in an emotionally vulnerable state. I´ve heard about "Running on empty" but I haven´t read it myself.

I though find several similarities between my issues and how childhood emotional neglect is described. Even if I know about this I won´t be able to find someone who can help me work through that. I see a case manager with whom I can have some general chats about my issues but she can´t address them on an emotional level.

Thanks for the encouragement. Yes, as I´m very susceptible to feeling dismissed and abandoned I would need someone who´s warm and adapts to me. But I´ve more or less given up hope about finding someone.

Thanks. I´m sorry you´ve experienced such a wounding. I think there should be much more information about possible side effects when in therapy. Therapy is far from risk free and many people suffer for years, often from different kinds of "transference traumas" that were never solved. Being vulnerable and entering into a therapeutic relationship might cause much more pain and trouble than being without therapy.

I soon ended with those two latest psychodynamic therapists I saw and by that I´m not traumatized by them but I´m very disappointed and I think it was kind of "the last straw" for me. I don´t believe much in getting help anymore and that´s much because I think no person will put enough energy and effort into helping a "stranger". Even if a client isn´t a stranger in that sense the therapist doesn´t know him or her at all, the client will be a stranger as the client and therapist never meet outside the therapy room. (And shouldn´t of course, but there will always be this gap and distance.)

None of the therapists I saw were psychodynamic, yet all of them exhibited this kind of borderline sociopathic behavior, just to a somewhat lesser degree than what you describe.

They were all manipulative, by virtue of their contrived and mechanical "caring", and in so many other ways.

Most shut down the sessions abruptly when the hour was up, and generally ran the process in a strange and unnatural way.

From these experiences, I still feel like I am covered in some weird slime that I can't wash off.

Thanks Crimson. I´m sorry you´re now having to recover from therapy, that´s not how it should be! Therapy should be a safe place and therapists should know when to end therapy if it´s not working or there´s a risk of harm.

I think it´s especially hard for those who can´t pay for therapy and can´t get support from another T when being wounded. In my case I just see the impossibility to get help with my issues and I don´t have any trust in therapists or other mental health care providers.

Did you get another therapist after what happened to you?

Thanks. I think therapists who work from a traditional psychodynamic theory are the most "extreme" when it comes to unnatural behavior and constructed actions. But obviously you find this within other kinds of therapists as well.

To more or less "throw" the client out of the room when the time is up is nothing else but a bizarre way of ending an often private and emotional relating of issues.

For those who don´t know much about therapy or recently started it can easily trigger feelings of abandonment, rejection, bullying and so on. Especially if the therapist explains everything through the transference lense and refuses to admit making any mistakes or hurting the client.

Yes, I agree. It's interesting that therapy clients have to reassure one another that it's normal to feel degraded or traumatized by such alarming behavior. Of course it is.

Pushing someone out the door without regard for their well-being, refusing to answer basic questions... these are characteristics of abusive and controlling relationships. I think it's a sign of strength to identify them as such, rather than give in to subjugation... i.e. this feels wrong but my therapist says it's good for me.

I have to say that I agree with this.