Quote:
Originally Posted by velcro003
i was wondering where all of this was coming from, because i wasn't sure if i ever saw what actually happened that made you do a 180 in your beliefs of therapy/your therapist. You always seemed to have a good relationship, and did you ask him to say he loves you?
i avoid these threads, because i don't quite know what to say. I feel that people who are saying that therapy as a whole is fundamentally flawed are basing this on their personal experience, which i don't think is fair or accurate to then paint the whole system as flawed because one individual was hurt by their T's.
what i do believe is that T's CAN and DO eff up their clients by not being consistent, or not explaining things clearly enough, or a million other ways. I believe people do get hurt, and i also believe there are T's who "blame" their clients when things go wrong, and they don't own their own ess h i tee.
unlike SD and some others, i don't need to know all the reasons why my T does what she does, but i do know that if I did question her methodology, she would be up front with me. She also said in her first session with me that she likes to tell people that there are two garbage cans outside; one for parent mistakes, and one for past T mistakes. So, she knows that Ts can mess up clients.
I also think that it is good to question things, that is how progress happens, but i think by saying that all T's will hurt their clients is putting a personal view on a whole system.
this thread reminded me of a friend who recently told me of a story of how he got arrested, and the laywer he called. this lawyer apparently treated him awfully; but based on his one personal experience, he thinks of female lawyers as "man-hating *insert derogatory term here*..." I was blown away as he is usually open-minded. I said that i believe his experience was terrible, and she should not have treated him that way, but to base his experience that she hates ALL men seems a little ludicrous.
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I wanted to defend my original post, I don't think therapy is inherently flawed all the time for everyone, but I think for people like myself with deep attachment issues there is a nearly inevitable chance you will be severely hurt by the therapy itself and that is never disclosed to you and most often completely unexpected, yet oddly expected by the therapist it seems. It's not just my personal experience but seems to be a shared experience by a lot of us, and the internet is full of professional literature on this subject.
Don't think I am 180ing on my therapist, but maybe I am because of my super fragile condition, overreacting to the love thing. I still think he is great, and I'm sure he is trying, and in many ways I am improving too. That doesn't change the fact that therapy has caused a lot of suffering for me, or that his trying and acting like a "good" therapist isn't often painful, for example when being a good therapist means not telling me how he feels about me, when he means everything to me and I've poured my guts and wallet out to him for years. I've never for example, gone to a massage therapist and come home and cried nearly continuously all weekend. I think there is something inherently wrong with allowing and expecting I will have this one-way feelings from the outset.