These aren't really horror stories.....these are just anoying things which seemed to make it impossible for me to think that therapy ever really does work.....it hasn't so far after all these years (since 1994) & 6+ therapists (some of whom I have even forgotten as they were only one time meetings where I said NO WAY!!!!)

One common thread through every therapist I have had is the idle chat....where they sit there I listen to me talk & talk & talk about anything & everything & nothing of any importance....never offer anything for me to think about or to challenge my thinking. It seemed that they would agree with everything I said & never even ask questions???? How do you ever get anywhere in therapy that way?

About the 3 or 4 psychologist I had after listening to me in the first appointment said "if I have to, I will make a career out of me & make sure I got better" the next appointment, he was moving most of his practice to the other town & didn't have any time for me as a new patient, only his established patients". Why can't they just be honest & not make rash promises that they know they won't keep?

I had another psychologist who was going through a divorce & never had time to talk. It was bad because at the time I was suicidal. She actually tried hard & was one of the better psychologists I had......which doesn't say much...but I went back to her when I was desparately in need of a psychologist after my Mother died & I had gone through the trauma of having the home care person write checks on my Mothers account, steal all my Moters valuable jewelry, steal my Mothers ID & apply for credit, then fight me for the phone when I caught her & then cut the phone cord, call the police anonomously who came & accused me of abusing my Mother, then she finally abusef my mother to the point of OD'ing her.....so when I was explaining the things that happened & how it caused such horrible stress, she correlated it to her grandmother's death when one of the care people stole a bottle of wine that my psychologist had planned on getting when her grandmother died.....saying these things happen.....wow, nothing like completely trivializing what I went through compairing it to that....did she not hear a word I said about what I was experiencing through that time when I was right there watching things happening all around me, trying to sort it out.

Another one that really got me was when I had been admited to an eating disorders treatment center & because I didn't have the money to pay, they had a fund that paid for 1 month at the center....anyway....this psychologist was into this "inner child" whatever.....kept pushing me about my inner child....I had no idea what in the world he was even talking about & of course, he offered no explaination....just kept saying the same thing over & over & over.....like a recording that doesn't listen to anything on the other end end of the recording.....anyway, it was a wasted month & then the psychologist charged me for his treatment.....I didn't have money for the treatment & insurance woudn't pay one cent....not for the psychologist either.....so here this jerk who didn't help me one little bit was charging me this huge amount of money for daily treatment....so not only was I weak from not eating, but angry after getting nothing out of the treatment....not only that, but the things they were insisting were the cause for anorexia (body image) I couldn't even relate to as that was never a concept I had about myself.....why treatment has a vision of the cause for something & when you don't fit the mold of everyone else, you fall through the cracks because they don't want to hear anything that is different because they don't know how to handle anything they didn't learn in their text books.

OK for my 10 cents worth of gripes.
Debbie