Therapy definitely made things worse for me. And it certainly failed to address the issues that led me there in the first place. And though at one time I had a team of harsh "tough love" types --who were judged perfectly fine by their peers when I filed a complaint-- my other therapists were empathetic.

The damage came from the process itself. Therapy encouraged me to see myself as a pathetic victim, defective because of my family and what life failed to deliver me. The therapy process made me very self-absorbed, habituating a poor failure personality. It also encouraged me to see myself as weak, incompetent child hopelessly inferior to the magnificent wisdom of the therapists. It stoked my wounds, defects and my perception of life's unfairness to me. And when I did analysis I was so self-obsessed I went into what I can only describe as a meditation psychosis. I was acting crazy and lost valuable friends.

By treating me like such a special snowflake, therapy insulated me from realizing who everyone else in the world walks around with his own set of wounds, self-doubts and disappointments. Remade me as the OPPOSITE of a tough, confident person who could stand up and manage the career my abilities had forged for myself. Rather than make me bully-proof, it aggravated my sense of feebleness and ineptitude.

Nor did the "nurturing" of therapy give me any sense of competence. That was something I needed to EARN over the years, through my own accomplishments and meeting challenges.

Worse, therapy for me was a treadmill of feeling hopelessly inferior to my therapists, who always presented an affect of clairvoyance and wisdom, of holding the answers. It wasn't until years later did I realize what a deception it was in my case. None of them had the slightest understanding of my world and my relationship to it. None of them were particularly perceptive or wise in life. (I now know a therapist in my regular life who has this same brand of vainglory.)

I now believe "understanding myself" doesn't come from excavating the worst of my past, which is impossible to review accurately. It is from how I create a present life, how I continue to challenge myself and overcome the difficulties I couldn't face yesterday. It's how I handle conflicts and bounce back from setbacks. I can't change the past.

If I can --at least-- attempt to pre-empt the "well, ya hafta wanna change" scold, I DID change over the years, lost a great deal of anxiety, but not to credit of anything I learned or did in therapy. The same submission and compliance that made therapists think me a dedicated client was utterly undermining in coping with the outside world.