So I went to the actual group today. I knew within 5 minutes that there was no way this was gonna work out. 3rd strike and all.

First of all, there were 6 girls there. We all looked like the same person. All middle/upper middle class 20-23 year old white girls/chubby, etc. I'm like... what's the point of getting "another view point" from someone who has practically the SAME view point?!

Whatever.

So we do our "heartmath" to warm up. More ******** about neurons in the heart and letting our thoughts go.

After that she gives us some worksheet about our logical mind and our emotional mind. That seemed all right.

Then she started talking about emotional energy and how you can feel someone's energy when they walk in the room and know they're having a bad day or something. I'm sitting here thinking, "Um, that's not energy, that's their facial and body language...". No one really said anything and I think a lot of us were looking at her like she was nuts. She says to one of the girls, "You work with animals. Don't you sometimes feel their energy or notice that they can tell human's energy, like if they're scared?"

This annoyed me, because I didn't feel like the T had any right to volunteer information about any of the other girls (Which she continued to do throughout the session, as far as bringing up something one of the girls had said to her in private session. Although it is POSSIBLE that the girl had previously given her permission, the girl looked exceedingly uncomfortable when this happened.)

So anyway, the girl who worked with animals was like, "Well yeah, I can tell if they're scared or they can tell if I am, but it's not like some ESP stuff, it's just body language."

I was thinking, "You go girl!" And T looked a bit put off.

Then T started talking about how sometimes we can get really worked up about stuff, like say if someone walked past us and didn't say hi, and how we might tell ourselves this story about "Oh they're mad at me, I must have done something wrong, etc etc" and really get bent out of shape over nothing because we ASSUME that we know things about them that we don't really know. Then she went over some things that we can NEVER know, such as: causes, other people's thoughts, other people's moods, etc. She talked about how we should never assume we know how someone feels.

So I was like hold the phone. Seven seconds ago you were just saying that you can use someone's "energy" to "feel" their mood, and now you're saying we can NEVER assume someone's mood unless they explicitly tell it to us?

I was TRYING to point out how stupid her "energy" statement was, but she totally didn't get it and we were off debating the stories we tell ourselves.

I was saying that, while it might be true that we sometimes get the stories wrong, we get it right more often than not, but we don't notice it because it doesn't cause us any pain or harm, and we can't just go around doubting ourselves all the time.

I just felt like the point she was trying to convey was "Don't trust yourself."

Then she asked us, "Have any of you ever been in that situation? Where you thought you knew how someone was feeling but were wrong?"

No one said anything, and the teacher's pet was all, "I think it would help if other people besides me talked." And one of the girls said, "I feel afraid to talk." And I said, "I'm not saying anything because it's such a dumb question. [sarcastic tone] 'Oh, no, never once in my life have I misinterpreted someone's mood. Not ever.' [end sarcasm] It's such an obvious question that everyone in the ENTIRE WORLD would answer the same, so what's the point?"

And teacher's pet got all pissy and says, "Well I know we all come from such different backgrounds and it really helps to feel that other people are having similar problems to you so that's why it helps to share."

But I was like, "Sorry, I disagree. We don't come from different backgrounds at all. I noticed that when I walked in here. We're all about the same age, we're all white women, we all live in the same city, and we're all in this DBT group. Clearly we have some of the same problems and a lot of the same experiences."

And she got offended and was like "You have no idea what my life has been like and I've overcome so much."

And I'm like, "Well, yeah, I mean obviously we have our own families and stuff, but if you took a random sample of 6 people and compared them to US, we are gonna be WAY MORE ALIKE than 6 random people."

The last thing, and this is the BIG ONE.
We're getting near the end of our group therapy session and the animal girl says, "I'm sorry. I just don't get it. I mean, I totally see how this would work in theory, but... I just don't see how this is going to work for me. I mean, I know I have to make some life changes, and I can't just keep getting arrested and whatever, but I don't think I can make this work. Like, how are you just supposed to observe your feelings or whatever when you're dealing with an asshole?"

And T tries to answer her, but does a terrible job, asking if "aren't the animals sometimes assholes? How do you deal with that?"

But the girl reiterates, and T gets irritated.

T says, "Well, we don't have time to sit here every session and talk about whether or not it works. It's evidence based. You just have to have a little faith and keep trying. But maybe this isn't the right time for you. If you're not ready, you're not ready. You can always come back and try again later."

Then animal girl started backpedaling and says she's not leaving the group because she's not allowed. T looks smug and animal girl hunches down into her seat.

I am PISSED at T at this point, for making this girl feel so badly about voicing her concerns.

So I'm like, "Hold on. Excuse me. T, you're saying that what you're hearing is, "'I don't believe it works. I'm not willing to try.' But that's not what I heard. (Turning to animal girl) Correct me if I'm wrong, but what *I* heard you say is, 'I'm overwhelmed and I don't know where to begin. It seems too difficult to start.' (animal girl lights up again and says "YES! That's what I meant, not that I wasn't willing to try!") (I turn back to T) "You keep saying how you've done this for 20 years, so maybe you're really used to it. But this is new to us. You can't just dump all this information on us and hand us 742 worksheets and expect us to get it."

After that time was pretty much up.

I'm just really irritated right now. I know I don't want to go back, but I feel bad for animal girl who is NOT ALLOWED to quit. I'm so angry with T for making that girl feel bad and telling her that we didn't have time to discuss her concerns. Um, this is therapy. How do we NOT have time to discuss concerns about whether or not it's effective?!?

The other thing that really rubbed me the wrong way was she told animal-girl that group was only a small part of it, and it was really up to her personal T to explain all this to her. Why is it HER T's job to explain what YOU'RE doing? She also said, "If I was your T, I'd do this and that." And two of the girls mentioned that they'd left their "old, ineffective" T's for this lady.

I get the impression she's a client thief, telling these people that DBT is the ONLY thing that works, and basically that they NEED her.

Ugh ugh ugh ugh!