Share the most ridiculous unhelpful comments your therapist sad to you?

Pachy if a t said that to me, I hope i would be wearing my extra-pointy toed shoes, for kicking t in the shins. that was really low IMO. And no it's not you. some people are in the wrong business.

I love this thread, I keep thinking of ridiculous things my T said.

(To be fair, he doesn't say this kind of thing all the time. Overall I think he's a good therapist. Very good at delving deep and coming up with insights. Maybe not so good at relating, though.)

Sometimes I try to attribute motives to other people, in an attempt to figure out why they've behaved a certain way toward me. T will say: "So you're going by what, here, your gut feeling?"

It takes me a while to catch my breath after that. Really baffles me. Like, okay, what else can I go by? I can't read people's minds.

It's especially surprising to me that a therapist would dismiss me for having, or trusting in, my gut feeling. I think I've suffered hugely for having ignored my gut feelings in the past -- my whole history has been one of failing to get away from untrustworthy people, accepting emotional abuse because I wasn't tuned in to what it was doing to me, caving in to others' wishes habitually or out of fear of self-assertion, etc. I'm just now coming around to being able to take care of myself enough to listen to my gut, and to trust my own responses in a profound way. And here T is, telling me that it's not good enough.

You were there, I wasn't, so you'd know better than I where he was coming from. Was he telling you you shouldn't go by your gut feeling, or just asking you to notice and/or clarify what you were going by each time?

Did he say he was dismissing you and it wasn't good enough (or did you happen to mention that you thought so), or are you going by your... er... never mind.

Hi Fool,
My T might not intend to sound dismissive, but that's how I tend to read him. It's either that he really is hostile toward me and can't disguise it, or he just has a habit of phrasing things a certain way, with that deadpan expression of his, that causes me to interpret what he's saying in a critical way.

When I ask for clarification, he always disavows any intention of antagonizing me.

This "gut feeling" thing tends to come up when I describe being antagonized by other people. My therapist thinks I'm oversensitive, so he's been trying to convince me of the possbility that my gut reactions to things might be mistaken.

I guess I resent his use of the "gut feeling" phrase. It's sacred to me, and I'm protective of it! I trust my gut! It's possible I'm oversensitive, and I'm willing to work on that. I might misinterpret something a person says, for instance, in a negative way that may not reflect how the person intended it.

But if I also have a strong gut feeling that that person is being hostile, I tend to go with it. My gut feeling helps me to interpret behavior and language that would be ambiguous without it. Without my gut feelings about my interactions with others, face-to-face interaction would be like email -- no extra information at all. My gut allows me to have interpretations of facial expression and tone and body language. I rely on my sense of the emotional coloration of the things people say to me. So I resent it when my therapist seems to discount all of that.

And I do it with him! When he says stuff like that to me, I can tell if he's being accepting of me or not. When he dismisses me, he kind of squints. When he wants to reach me, he leans back in his chair and stretches his legs out toward me.

He's really inconsistent and ambiguous, with his moods and the things he says. I think he's just really hard to read, or I'm just complete crap at reading him for whatever reason. (sigh)

Anyway Zero, thanks so much for your comment and thoughts! I know I do tend to assume the worst with this guy. Maybe I should parse it a little more obejctively next time

Read the book Blink. I can't think of the author at this moment. It is all about our gut feelings and initial impressions (that we make in the blink of the eye) and how sometimes they can be trusted, but other times they are deceptive. Really interesting book. Lots of cool research studies.

I actually didn't know the difference between Hustler and Playboy--I'm just sheltered I guess. This information (unfortunately) was very relevant as we were specifically discussing porn, the different types, were any "OK" or "not OK", what is the line between porn and art, etc. My XH had/has a porn habit, and we were discussing that in light of our daughters who were now going to be spending time with him alone, since he now had his own place--would they be exposed to porn? And then my H asked, well how did one define "porn"? (This was a couples session.) And as part of that, the different magazines came up. T didn't give his explanation in a condescending way at all. It was very professional, straightforward, etc. It was I who was kind of uncomfortable. It just had an air of unreality to it (I felt like I was watching T tell me about porn magazines from afar, instead of listening to him myself say these things.) I did wonder how does T know so much about porn? But, kitten, you yourself say you know the differences between those magazines, so maybe it is common knowledge (even more so among men), and maybe T does buy porn magazines--who knows?? (I don't want to know.) I do know this is a topic he has to deal with frequently as he helps parents come to agreements about taking care of their children. I think having T explain the difference in the magazines was better than having my H do it. That would have been really bad. I am so glad to be done with couples therapy!

Farmergirl, I have that book Blink but haven't read it yet. Sounds interesting. (I read another book (Outliers) by the same author recently, and it was great!). A book that discusses the value of one's "gut feelings" (sometimes life-saving) is "The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect us from Violence" by Gavin de Becker. This was a very important book to me in the early days of my separating from my XH.

In retrospect, the most ridiculous thing a T said to me was a former T. We entered the room and sat down and he asked "How are you doing?". I think I just stared, in shock. This usually very appearance-conscious, meticulous dressing, clean-shaven person looked as if he had slept under a bush. For a few nights. With no place to wash up or a change of clothes.

He later disappeared without a word after losing his license, having been arrested for having a relationship with a client. Looking back, this must have been the day after his arrest or something, as it was a few weeks or more before he disappeared.

Another former T said, during a painful silence, "Like pulling teeth." Yeah, THAT helped! lol

Porn is an alternative to the real thing, for someone whose belief in the right to the real thing has been denied, inside his own head... As such, it would be an important part of a T's knowledge to know about these things.

Agreed, and I had the impression from his ease with and professionalism on the subject that he had discussed porn with clients many times.

My psychologists have never said anything that wasn't helpful to me, but a lady working in admissions in the ER at the hospital where I went to first before going to spend 2 & a half days & 3 nights in a psych. hospital did. This was exactly 3 weeks ago this coming Tuesday.

What did she say?

I told her I was suicidal, & she said (referring to my clothes) "You look so springy!"

I guess that means that spring is the time to... well, no, probably not...

I was shocked & even a little hurt! I was about to cry after she said it, too. Thankfully, no one else in the ER or psych. hospital (or anyone else) said anything like that!

Maybe she just liked your shirt?

She may have, but I still don't think she should have said that then. Had I not been suicidal, it wouldn't have bothered me. Maybe I should have just **** instead.

Bt lived up to her name: Blunt! She said many helpful things to me but here are some of the hurtful comments:

Chuckling: You don't ever recover from a personality disorder. (after asking if she thought I still met the criteria)
You're a voyeur!
I don't like being the object of your obsession.
Your father doesn't act like a father, but more like a cousin.
My 2:30 is waiting.
Borderlines do...borderlines say...
You have a neurotic attachment towards me
Uh, wait,... imititating how I tried to stay on the phone with her.

I'm sure there are more. I feel like I'm being disloyal to her but I need to post this list again. I know I've posted some of these things before.

wow those are some mean things to say.

I know. What I don't get is that she wasn't trying to be mean.
I forgot to say the times she told me I was manipulating her with my phone calls and that she didn't like it. She wasn't wrong in many of her statements; they just weren't helpful to me. Her style is to be blunt and apparently, it works for many because she is not lacking for clients even though she doesn't accept insurance. And, I know she cares deeply for me.

This kind of reminds me of my own T, but I don't at all get the feeling that he cares for me. He says he does, but his irritability and cruelty suggest otherwise...

I'm sorry, Rainbow, I forget -- is this your current T who is saying these things?

I see her as maybe being more uncertain than you could cope with, and than she wanted to let on. For instance, saying

"You don't ever recover from a personality disorder"

suggests to me a person who has been told this by her peers, and who is uncomfortable with believing this dire statement but cannot see how to disagree with what she sees as "authority" and maintain her equilibrium.

Rainbow, I seem to have missed a lot of your earlier postings about Bt; I'm sorry.

I'm just now getting an idea of what Bt would've been like to work with. It sounds as if at least part of her approach to therapy was to dominate you into seeing things her way and (maybe) changing your behavior to match. I've never had a therapist like that (though parents, teachers, bosses and friends are another story). I've found that for me, there always have to be two stages to the process:

1. Submit to the domineering or "blunt" person for a while until it becomes clear to me that I've learned all I'm going to be willing to learn from them.

2. Get away from them and start finding out what's really so for me (thus, why whatever they were trying to tell me wasn't working for me).

Sounds like you're in Stage 2. yourself.

kitten, Bt is my former T. I saw her for 5 years regularly and then about 2 to wind down.
Thanks, Pachyderm. I don't think my T was uncertain about anything, though.
Fool: yeah, she had her way of wanting me to heal.
SWA: I guess Bt's comments don't sound too nice, huh? I could come up with many positive statements too, but the hurtful ones stick out in my mind.

WHAT???!!! RAINBOW! I did not know BT was this bad!! I must have missed this somewhere! UGH!! Okay I am SO GLAD you found kt!!!!!!!

I don't care how nice she is. "You don't ever recover from a personality disorder"?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Grr!!