Class-Action Lawsuit against the APA. Who wants to join?

Then I have free license to be mean and cruel to everyone. If they get hurt it's their fault because they, not me, have absolute control over their emotions and I have no power to elicit anything in them.

Could you please try and help me understand why you want to hurt your therapist as much as she hurt you?

I don't understand that mindset. I mean, it's clear that you are hurt and very angry. It seems that you would want to work on that. You know, making yourself happy instead of making others hurt too.

I totally get the loner thing by the way, but I gotta admit, some women can be really cool and fun.

I hope you find some peace and joy.

Because it pisses me off that I went through all this unnecessary pain and nobody even cares to acknowledge it. Maybe my pain doesn't mean anything to anyone and that's okay. But what about the pain of other innocent people who go to therapy wanting to get better but end up going through this same type of torture? This happens very often in therapy. WHY CANT THERE BE A LINE IN THE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT SAYING THAT PAINFUL FEELINGS TOWARD THE THERAPIST CAN ARISE DURING THERAPY? Your argument would be that in that case doctors and anyone who offers a service to the public should have a similar line in their disclosure statement. Obviously it can happen that a patient can feel attracted to their doctor, but it's a lot more likely to happen during therapy. Why? Because the therapist treats you in a way that's designed to elicit positive emotions. That's how therapy works. There needs to be positive regard. And obviously the human brain is wired to respond positively to positive regard. When you go to see a doctor, they just do their job, they don't need to treat you like a princess. I don't care if it means that I am delusional (I know that I'm not) but I know that I would never, ever, treat a person that I have no romantic interest in the way my therapist treated me. My thoughts would be: "what if this person ends up feeling attracted to me?" "will I be able to requite her feelings?" "umm, no" "so perhaps I shouldn't act in a way that's likely to make this lady feel attracted towards me, because if I don't requite her feelings, which I am obviously not going to do, she might feel pain". That would have been my line of thinking. Your line of thinking seems to be more along the lines of "so what. I'll treat this person really nice and if he falls in love with me, whatever, I have no control over his feelings" "it's not my fault that he felt attracted to me" "I can act any way I want and if people don't respond well to my behavior, that's their problem, not mine". I disagree with your way of thinking. While it is true that we have some amount of control over our emotions, it is not true that we have 100% control over them. A religious monk does not have 100% control over his emotions, let alone a layperson.

Because it feels horrible to know that I went through all this pain and the therapist didn't even care to apologize for what she did to me. I hate people with that mindset. I know that I would never do to another person what she did to me. I am not that cruel. So perhaps you are right. Two wrongs don't make a right but I know I would have felt some satisfaction knowing that the therapist was able to feel my pain first hand because then she would have been less likely to do the same thing to future patients.

Probably true. The key is making them like a person with an autistic personality type who is uncommunicative and doesn't intuitively understand a lot of the give and take of social interaction that comes naturally to "normal" people. I don't need to be reminded that, because of my mental defects, I cannot have a cool and fun woman, or any type of woman, by my side.

But they are not being mean and cruel. That is your (mis)perception, your (mis)interpretation. I would explore projection also.

Can you feel angry without needed to lash out?
This reminds me of unrequitted love. You weren't rejected. You responded honestly but you responded to your (mis)perception and (mis)interpretation.

Intimate relationships are not romantic or sexual, unless one interprets them that way.

so just out of curiosity how long did you see this evil therapist? did you ask her to stop being so damn nice to you & then just treat you like crap instead?
(seriously...but then would you have complained about that too? )

i get you are a loner. i get you are angry. i get you didn't like the therapist. ok. so you developed feelings toward the woman...so now you want to hurt, destroy, maim what ever her & every other therapist in the world & make it safe for the rest of us regardless of if we want you to or not.

a question for you...do you ever see yourself healing in a positive nature? or do you plan on just complaining about the effects of this one woman's actions from now until the time you hit the grave?

not to minimize your feelings but really are you going to let your life be ruled by this anger? so you are a loner...so what. plenty of folks are. so you have relationship issues..hey i think probably a good chunk of the folks on the planet do..only the smart ones actually admit to it...and then work on improving or fixing what is wrong. good for you for doing both.

but this railing against the therapist who "did you wrong" by treating you well & nice...like no other woman ever did...& wanting to harm her...what does it accomplish? that you can be nasty & spiteful & an SOB...great.

you have gotten good responses to all your threads here...& you shoot them down. one by one. what exactly is it that you want? for everyone to agree that all therapists are nasty evil SOB's just like yours? that everyone should stop going to therapy? ain't gonna happen.

really..what is it that would make you a happy person..YOU not the entire world...
maybe it's just me & my take on your posts...maybe i just am the only one to post...maybe i am just wrong & over tired...who knows.

stumpy

Well I am not sure what happened in your case and if you felt that the therapist was actually in some way trying to ask to fall in love with her/him.

But you have to understand that it is their job to listen to you, validate you and help you get over your bad experiences or develope strength and abilities to move on.
In many ways because someone is stopping and really listening to you and giving you undevided attention, it is very easy to fall in love or feel love and confusion.

In therapy it does become all about the patient. Well, isnt that what some really love? And if the therapist is of the opposite sex it is very normal to think, oh, finally someone who is perfect for me. So then begins transference. A patient feels that finally someone understands them, validates them and does give them an undivided attention that perhaps they never thought they got, in childhood or even a relationship.

Someone that will be comforting all the time and a patient can even call the therapist in a time of trouble outside therapy. So think about it, a mother figure, a trust figure and entity that really understands. Well, that is what people want in a partner, or wanted as a child. It can almost be like really thinking there is a Santa Clause and then be told there isn't, it can be disappointing.

A good therapist is suppose to give the patient that feeling of trust and comfort so that therapy can progress. So if you start to put regulations on that what will happen is that therapists will get more and more clynical and cold and distant and the valuable trust and comfort will be gone.

Perhaps what therapists need to do is kindly keep telling patients that they are there to support and that does not intail a romantic relationship. Perhaps that needs to take place in the very beginning of therapy. It is important that there is someone that can do the job of helping a patient feel understood and be a comfort to that patient as they try to explore their emotions and sort them out and heal.


Open Eyes

No. The mean and cruel is just a logical extension to your claim.

I wasn't interested in intimate relationships. I just wanted to get my life in order. And no, I did not think for one second that the therapist was romantically or sexually interested in me. I am not the type of guy who gets positive attention from women. It was obvious to me that the therapist felt nothing 'special' toward me but I still could not suppress my feelings of attraction toward her. The therapist, on the other hand, could have acted differently and then she would have spared me a lot of suffering. I resent the fact that the therapist did not look out for me.

i'm curious, protoform. do you think there's a possibility that because of you being a loner that you didn't have the skills to deal with your therapist's interaction with you? i.e., is it possible that she would have acted this way with many (all) of her other clients, but because some of them are more social beings that they didn't feel attracted to her? that they just saw her as a therapist, doing her job?

i'm curious as to how your therapist could have acted differently towards you. how you would have preferred for her to behave instead. listened less? not smiled? avoided eye contact? these are just ideas... i'm genuinely curious as to what sort of interaction you would have preferred. and also whether your ideal interaction would have been the right environment for addressing the other issues you keep alluding to.

i for one wouldnt have any problem putting in "possible transference/countertransference" into a disclosure statement, but i don't think it would actually achieve very much at all in terms of preventing possible suffering. i am sorry that you are angry and hurt though.

I actually have no argument at all. I do think patients should be made aware of the feelings that may arise during psychotherapy. I absolutely do NOT think that therapists have free license to act in any manner they want. I have no idea where you got that idea.

I actually think that you feel the way you feel. We have some measure of control over how we act, but how we feel.... well that's a different story.


Again, I actually think the key is to simply be yourself. What if I told you that you are more likely no more "mentally defective" than anyone else out there. yeah, right now you are hurt and angry. I think that's okay. I would be too.

I hope you can find some peace with what happened with your therapist. I'm really truly sorry that happened to you. We feel the way we feel.

I don't know.

I think it would help us understand more if you can give specifics. How did your T act towards you? Can you give an example(s)?
I agree.

They didn't used to have that forum, and when it was first created, it was much broader and about all types of transference. Since many posts about therapy involve transference, many members thought it was odd to divert so many posts to the subforum and it would make the main forum a much different place if transference couldn't be discussed without those posts getting whisked to the subforum by the moderators. So the subforum came to only include Romantic transference, but the original intent was otherwise. (I personally did not have a problem with posts on any type of transference being in the main forum, and I don't think I was alone.) Just some history for you.

Why would my T's disclosure mention a phenomenon that comes from a different therapy tradition than he practices? (My T is humanistic/existential, in which the therapist and client do have a real relationship.) It would be like asking a CBT therapist to put in the disclosure that the client may experience painful criticism of his/her thinking patterns and worksheets that provoke much anxiety. But should all therapists have to put that in? Therapy can be painful--whether its transference, recalling or reliving long-buried traumas, having one's tried and true way of thinking frequently criticized, having to sign contracts not to self harm when that behavior has been very helpful, facing hard facts about oneself, etc. I don't need it mandated that a T lists every single potentially difficult element of therapy in their disclosure form. I never expected therapy to be easy when I began.

I am all for Ts explaining how therapy works at the outset of therapy or each step as you go along. Just like a doctor explains the steps of a procedure. I just don't need that mandated in a legal document. Perhaps a statement in the disclosure that therapy can be difficult and sometimes painful could suffice.

I don't have romantic transference toward my therapist, but we are very close and I am strongly and securely attached. This has been a good thing for me. I did not expect this would happen and it has been a delight and very healing. It's actually been kind of cool that it just unfolded as we did therapy and I didn't know that it would happen. I know that's not a good reason for a person to be in the dark, but the whole surprise element of it has been a positive for me. My T never hid any of this from me, and in fact asked me very early in therapy if I might not be feeling less depressed due to our positive relationship. I was kind of but yeah, there was a lot to that. He doesn't keep how therapy works a secret, but sometimes you don't need to discuss every nut and bolt of what's happening. We focused on the problems in my life instead of the positive feelings between us. The positive feelings, in fact, helped us make a lot of progress on my problems.

One of my favorite books on psychotherapy (Making Contact: Uses of Language in Psychotherapy, by Leston Havens) shows how the therapist can vary the "distance" between himself and the client by the words he chooses. Havens explains how some clients need more distance and some less, and this can vary each session too. He knows how to use the right language to create the right distance for that client at that moment. It is definitely not a one size fits all in how he treats clients. When I hear how your therapy went, Protoform, it makes me wonder if your T misjudged what level of distance would be therapeutic for you? You also mentioned that you have autistic disorder, and I am hearing that you think because of that you may have been particularly vulnerable to your T's positive regard. I am listening to all this and considering implications for my own practice (I am studying to enter the mental health field). I think sometimes a referral is called for in therapy.

Protoform, it sounds like you have been very hurt by your therapy experience. Your lawsuit almost sounds like some kind of revenge, even though not directed just at your T. Like now you think all Ts are bad/incompetent/dangerous and need your censure? Do you think this suit will help you feel better? Maybe you've tried, but could there also be other ways to work on your strong feelings of anger, hurt, betrayal, etc.?

I'd like to ask the same question that Velcro did: what exactly did your T say or do that made you fall in love with her? Did she deliberately do or say these things to hurt you?

Did she act differently with you, do you think, than her other clients? If not, do all her clients fall in love with her? Or do you believe she selected you out of all of her clients to build her seductive web around you?

What do you know about her that makes you have these feelings? Usually if we fall in love with someone, there are lots of qualities about them that appeal to us. Being kind and generous is one thing that should exist in all therapy situations. Is she being accused of this?

Do you know how she is outside of therapy? Do you know what emotional issues she struggles with? What if you found out that she had extreme anxiety and needed to talk about it a lot with her closest friends? Would that change a bit how you feel about her? What if you learned that she was obsessed with a kind of music you didn't like and she followed those musical groups with a passion? Would that change your feelings? What if you found out that she detested the foods that are your favorites? Would that change your feelings? What if you found out that she had been married twice already? Would that change your feelings? What if you found out she has had 6 abortions and you are opposed to abortion? Would that change your feelings? What if you found out she is an extreme neatnick and you like to live life a bit more relaxed? And on and on and on and on......

The bottom line is that you don't know her. You know her therapist role and the therapist role is to help and offer kindness and unconditional positive regard to their clients. If we have not experienced that kind of reception from another human being, it can feel overwhelmingly attractive. Is it her fault that you've been missing that in your life and that you're desperate for it now?

It takes two to tango. Yes, your T has behaved in ways that have made you feel vulnerable and you've been hurt. But is it all her fault? Even if she broke boundaries and did unethical things, it is still too easy to play the helpless victim. Stand up and take some responsibility here instead of throwing a childish temper tantrum. Being the victim is easy and it feels good. Throwing blame around gives us the illusion of power. If it's someone else's fault, we'll get off scot-free in any kind of self-inquiry. You know that whole 'pointing a finger at someone'. Look at it. One finger is pointing and three of the fingers are pointing back at us. hmmmm

Please take a deep breath and have the courage to take a close look at your own psyche, your own behaviors, your own needs, etc. What part have you played in this scenario to bring yourself such pain?

I think Sunrise's post is right on the money. Creating a therapeutic environment that fits the individual client is definitely about finding the right distance and using the correct language. It's very possible, Protoform, that your T was too inviting and moved too close too soon. It might have triggered attachment needs in you that felt unfamiliar and intensely uncomfortable. I know that in my own therapy, my T had to go V E R Y slowly with how close she got to me emotionally. I would go to my session with a need to connect with her but if the session created feelings of vulnerablity and intimacy (not talking sexual intimacy but emotional intimacy) I would immediately feel a need to push her away and re-assert my independence. I am a person with disorganized attachment. We are all preconditioned to want connection but because of brain chemisty, genetics and early environment some of us have a harder time with attachment/connection. If the T moves too close, it triggers a stress response in some of us and we quickly become emotionally overwhelmed. Not a pleasant place to be by any means. I'm sorry the experience was so painful for you. I know that i've had to take breaks from therapy over the past two years and my T has always welcomed me back and adjusted her "distance" from me accordingly. It is truly a careful balancing act and the Therapist needs to be very well trained in her ability to gauge what her client needs.

I don't really know anything about you Protoform, but you mention having 'autistic' type personality traits and so finding understanding the complexities of relationships difficult. In the light of that, in my opinion, your reaction to the emotions therapy evoked in you makes perfect sense. I know a thing or two about autistic spectrum disorders. My husband has aspergers syndrome. What I'd reccomend is that you find a therapist who specialises in helping/working with people on the spectrum. I believe you would find that experience very different and better suited to you. This is what my husband did at one point. He needed that extra special understanding. I'm sorry you're having a bad time and wish you well. Don't take your upset and anger out on your ex-therapist though. In the end you'll see it's not worth it and won't help you.

Thanks for all the replies. I will respond to as many as I can but for now I'll address only this one.

Of course. I've never in my life received positive attention from women. Then I met the therapist and automatically fell for her. That's just what a loser I am.

I suppose she treats all her patients the same way. I have no reason to think that I was in any way considered special.

Yes. And that's why the therapist should have familiarized herself with my history and acted accordingly. I don't believe she wouldn't have been able to predict what was going to happen.

That's a bit too much. I wish she could have been more cold and distant.

That's about it. Cold and distant. And no signs of affection. That's the same way my doctors treat me. I wish she had treated me the same way.

Yeah, we didn't get to the heart of the matter. This stupid transference got in the way and the therapy was a waste of time.

They should still put it in the disclosure statement. Unless doing so makes the therapy unlikely to work.

Feelings of unrequited love indirectly caused by the doctor are irrelevant to the therapy (unless you are there to discuss that issue).

I lost faith in the field of psychology. And it's not about revenge. It's about preventing innocent people from getting hurt.

No. But doing the right is about doing right thing. Not about "feeling better". There might be some "feeling better" knowing that you did the right thing, but that's not the point.

No. That's not the way my brain works. And I never said I felt angry or betrayed.

Quite possible.

In other words, what I went through was HER fault.

But I need to be careful how I couch that argument because if I don't choose my words carefully then I am accused of being delusional.

I know I am not delusional. I know that what I went through was HER FAULT because she did not read me properly.

I'm glad I'm helping your future patients.

I will reply with Sunrise's question: "When I hear how your therapy went, Protoform, it makes me wonder if your T misjudged what level of distance would be therapeutic for you?"

Why are you trying to make me look like a paranoid lunatic? Why would I think she was out to hurt me? Why wouldn't you think it's more likely that I just think she was incompetent?

What the hell do I know? Do you think I think I am psychic? I have no reason to think she treated me differently. That's all I can tell.

Probably not. But she told me that patient - therapist attraction happens quite often in therapy.

Damn it. Why would I think that!?!?!? Can't you understand that my argument is that she failed to read me properly and for that reason did not treat me the way that would have been therapeutic for me?

I never said that I fell in love with someone. It was an infatuation. Whatever you want to call it. YOU CAN CALL IT WHATEVER YOU WANT. IT WAS EXTREMELY PAINFUL AND GIVING IT A DIFFERENT NAME DOES NOT MAKE THE PAIN GO AWAY.

To some extent, yes. A different approach might actually have been therapeutic.

What the hell do I care? I don't want anything to do with that person. The problem is the feelings which I can't control, not a conscious desire to have anything to do with that person. It doesn't sound like you understand the difference, so..

Which can cause some patients to feel attracted to their therapist, which is why it should be mentioned in the disclosure statement.

No, not at all. But it is her fault that she did not read me properly. It is also her fault that she did not care to familiarize herself with my history before she attempted to treat me. (She admitted to this, since according to her my past was kind of irrelevant to the type of therapy we were doing.)

Yes.

She didn't break boundaries. She just did not treat me properly.

Finger pointing doesn't solve anything. Now, how do I make the pain go away?

My being an idiot for thinking that therapy was going to help me.

Yes, I think that's what happened. Thank you.

That might have been it. In other words, my therapist was incompetent for failing to find the correct distance and language.

Yes, exactly. It was the T's fault for not doing things right. And the sad part is that to this day I still get treated like I am delusional

You get it. Most people just say I am delusional for thinking that the therapist was incompetent. It's almost like they think that I think that the the therapist "magically" made me feel attracted to her. NO, that's not what I think. The problem is that she did not gauge her approach according to my needs and ended up triggering a strong painful response on my part. She was the trigger, not the agent actually making me feel attracted to her.

Correct. Thank you.

Proto, I've only skimmed some of your posts, so please excuse me if I don't know all that's going on.

Regardless of what may or may not have happened, who may or may not be at fault, you are in pain, and you are entitled to your feelings. If you are not in therapy now, I recommend seeing someone else and trusting that the experience you had with your former therapist will not necessarily be like the rest.

Also, if you do truly believe your therapist harmed you, I recommend filing a complaint with the licensing board and/or seeing an attorney to pursue malpractice against her. And even if you do not win a suit or the licensing board dismisses your complaint, it doesn't mean that what you feel is wrong or that your therapist could not have done a better job.

Good luck, Proto.

I would love to file a lawsuit but I would probably be dismissed as a lunatic. My words would be taken out of context and the defense would be "this guy thinks the therapist is a criminal because SHE MADE HIM feel attracted to her". Well, obviously she did not make me feel attracted to her, since the last time I checked no human being is capable of controlling someone else's brain, but she behaved in a manner that made it nearly impossible for me to not feel attracted to her. Ultimately I failed to suppress my feelings and I endured a lot of pain. So why is it that I think it's her fault? Because she did not handle my case more carefully. Maybe you are right. Maybe I should file a lawsuit against her if only for the pleasure of reminding her that I am discontent with the way she treated me. I still think, however, that the lawsuit should go against the APA, for not setting forth proper guidelines on how a therapist is supposed to treat a vulnerable client AND for not warning people of the unnecessary pain they might endure during therapy.

I think you do have a point. The problem is the way you shoot down every post that tries to help or understand you. Do you always do that to people who try to help you or be nice to you? Is this a part of a pattern you have with people, and why you went to therapy in the first place? I'm starting to think that this is about something else - and not your original point, which, by the way, is valid. The larger picture is how you relate to others in general, which is manifest in your communications here. (And now you want to do the same to the therapist - another person who tried to help). That pattern could be at the bottom of your pain.

That's not the way I read those posts. A lot of them sounded like I was being judged or accused of saying things I never said. It seems like a lot of people implied that I thought that the therapist made me feel attracted to her. Obviously it's more complicated than that. I simply think that it was within the therapist's power to act differently so I wouldn't have felt attracted to her. But since she did not act differently, and I ended up feeling attracted to her, I believe she shares at least some of the blame for what happened to me.

Probably not always, but it depends on the way they try to help me.

Lack of motivation. Lethargy. Aimlessness. Things like that.

I mentioned previously that I am a loner and I'm okay with that. I didn't go to therapy because I wanted to feel something for the therapist. I went to therapy expecting a straightforward service.

I think that's a valid analogy. However, the fact that you want to help a person, doesn't mean that you have the right to help them any way you want. You first need to find out what works for them and then see if you still can help that person.

I agree there should be some kind of disclosure about this kind of thing.