Quote:
Originally Posted by missbella
I was diagnosed and name-called just today for talking about how I've tried to overcome my harmful experiences. Rather than admitting that my post ignites their fears, people shoot the messenger.
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I hear you because I've had similar experience of having been "diagnosed" just for expressing my not-so-mainstream views on psychotherapy. That said, I think, it's a little bit more complicated than just some people admitting that posts about harmful therapy ignites their fears. While it may be true for some, even for many, for many others hearing that therapy is nothing but fraud and should be unequivocally abolished invalidates their positive experiences with therapy or positive parts of their experiences that they don't want to dismiss or deny. The problem is that we don't want to hear each other. I understand how invalidating it may feel to you when someone diagnoses you for simply telling about your experience and how it shaped your views. This kind of diagnosing is disrespectful and insensitive and, as I said, I know this first hand, as I've been in the same situation. At the same time, please, understand that when you say how your posts ignite fears in others, this is also diagnosing. You may not have realized it so far, but you at times invalidate others the same way you've been invalidated. When you say about someone that your posts ignite their fears you are analyzing them, and, I know, you hate when someone does that to you instead of responding to the substance of your arguments. I hate that too, because, as we both know, analyzing others outside of therapy settings is an ad hominem attack.
By the way, I am not saying your analysis of other people]s motives is incorrect. All I am saying is that it doesn't belong to a serious, intelligent and substantive discussion. That said, I appreciate and agree with many of your points. I just hope you will be able to see that our individual experiences, perceptions and conclusions represent only a small part of a big reality, and that if we want to understand the big picture we all will have no choice but accepting the fact that those who think differently might see other pieces of reality we are unable to see, and vice verse. I really hope that people here and everywhere will have some trust that other people's experiences are meaningful no matter how different they are from our own and that they could teach us something. I think, that's what people call being open-minded..But all I can do is to hope..