I saw this the other day, and it really resonated with me (so much so that I immediately forwarded the links to my T and talked with her about it later that day.)
They talk about people (with a very small sample size, I think it was only ~8 people) who either didn't get better, or who got worse in therapy, and what traits they shared.
Some of the traits (of the clients!) were:
- smart, with good defenses, which seemed to confuse/distract the therapist
- The client may look more functional/well than they feel, and the therapist initially misjudges the amount of dysfunction.
- Similarly, the therapist initially connects with the more competent part, and doesn't really interact with or relate to the part that actually needs therapy.
- The therapists reported feeling like there was only "half a person" in the room with them, and feeling like they were treated more like an object or piece of furniture.
I very much relate to most of this. These were people who spent 2-3 years with their therapist before dropping out of treatment... which I've done, with several therapists, and felt not helped.
I've been trying to talk about this stuff with my current therapist... and she's been really great about being willing to talk about it and not take it personally, although I think it's frustrating for her. (Note: I've been seeing her for about a year so far. And, we're still trying to figure out this whole thing of "how can therapy actually be helpful to me?")
I don't know. I don't quite know what to do with all this yet. I wanted to share the links though, and to see if anyone else related. I did think it was kind of nuts that the therapists interviewed still felt that they had been helpful, because my experience is that the therapists I've seen previously really were not... and didn't realize that they weren't.
Here's a short summary of the article:
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/05/25...ven-got-worse/
And here's the longer write-up with lots more details:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...7.2018.1453621
Thanks!