Quote:
Originally Posted by here today
I had dinner tonight with a friend from a support group who is not of an over-intellectualized persuasion. He had a rejecting experience from a therapist recently -- I didn't entirely realize it until after we had talked about it, but he interpreted the issue, and the therapist's criticism (countertransference?) as all his fault.
I'm glad I have had the experiences here in this forum of getting my feelings validated that something's wrong with therapy, not just me. As we left, he thanked me for helping him see/feel it wasn't all his fault. That had been a very bad, depressing, somewhat devastating and discouraging experience for him.
So, people who post here may be a subset of the whole therapy-going population, but I'm not so sure that we're unrepresentative, either.
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I agree with nearly everything you've said, here today.
But the question OP asked was "What is abandonment from a T?" not "What is abandonment, the concept?" With the former I think you need to look at what the therapist has said and done, with an eye to societal and business norms. For the other, you can consider the more subjective things, like emotional states. That distinction seems essential to me, though it seems less important to other people in this thread.
I agree that it's important to keep talking, though I'll explain why I'd rather not talk to posters who condemn therapy entirely.
The first is that they discount all the research that says therapy is, on balance, helpful, and decide their own subjective experience negates that finding. I find that incredibly arrogant and anti-intellectual. It's not really someone who you can talk to, in my view.
The second is that by assuming their subjective bad experience means all therapy is bad, they've actually invalidated MY subjective experience of therapy, which had been very positive.
When you fail to give witness to someone's painful experience, you do them a disservice. But, equally, when you dismiss someone's meaningful experience (and I'd argue that therapy is very meaninful to many people on this site), you are doing something that's just another type of cruel.
I have the ability to imagine a world where therapy was absolutely terrible, and to sympathise with the poster. But some members can't entertain the idea that their experience isn't mine.
Those are the forum members I don't see the point in talking to.
People who want to discuss their bad experiences, but are open to my very different experience? I'm all ears.
People who just want to repeat ad nauseum that therapy is bad? Eh, I'll pass.