[GenCat]

I want to know, how many of you have been abused by your T or Pdoc? How many of you struggle rebuilding that trust with another T or Pdoc? How many have fallen in love? Have been hurting and feel alone? How many don't know what to do anymore?

[HazelGirl]

I wasn't hurt by a T, but I was hurt by a mentor. And I know that relationship has impacted my relationship with my T. I was abandoned by this person after 4.5 years, and now my already messed up trust is even worse.

[Leah123]

I have seen five therapists. Four I saw 20 years ago as a teen and young adult, and I'm seeing one now. One was very brief, no impact really. Another was incredible, life changing. A third was... neutral: two years of therapy ended after too much butting heads and frustration, but no particular harm.

A fourth was indeed harmful. She was an intern. She violated my confidentiality and launched me into a nightmare disclosure scenario with my mother, partly as a result of which I had a permanent falling out with my mother and lost the therapist. She was, in retrospect, clearly unqualified for the work.

My current, fifth therapist, is another who's amazing, a very positive influence though the work is painful sometimes.

So, of the five, I have had one that really hurt me.

P.S. I just saw your question about falling in love. I haven't felt romantic love for my therapists, though I had erotic transference w/the one who betrayed my confidentiality. That was a mess. I have loved two of my therapists, but in a platonic way, as a niece loves an aunt perhaps.

[ruiner]

Thankfully I've never been hurt by a T and I hope it never happens. It pains me that so many of you have been.

I've never been hurt by a therapist. But I hear you are struggling right now. It is a difficult time of transition for you. Take it a moment at a time. This is understandably hard for you.

[growlycat]

Even my worst T's were not outright abusive. Two in my early adulthood did hurt me though and set me back. One, by not addressing her own negative feelings towards me and the other, by pretty much dropping me at my worst state.

In love? Well, I "love" both my current T's in a sense, one I am physically attracted to. I would never act on it, but I try use it to motivate myself---carrot on a stick lol.
I can talk to main T about anything--but I can't see the point of telling cBT T how I feel. I think he knows anyways.

[NoddaProbBob]

There's a difference between being hurt by a T and being abused by a T. The relationship between a client and T is very different but not so different that it is immune to missteps.

I feel hurt by my relationship with previous T, although he did nothing wrong except be a kind, caring, exceptional T. My strong feelings towards him got the best of me, and I terminated. Still recovering and miss him greatly, but feeling much better than when I was in the thick of it.

[stopdog]

I rather quickly quit seeing the one who was dead flat crazy- so I did not get hurt.
I have never been in love with any of them.

[RTerroni]

I was hurt a lot by a Therapist who I saw at the last practice I was at.

I've had issues with a pdoc. I've always found them with all their degrees rather intimidating.

I've only been to one but I don't think our personalities meshed well. I tend to prefer the bubblier professionals since I bounce off of them quite a lot and he was really quite subdued which made it harder for me to open up to him.

When I finally did he got angry at me for lying to him previously about everything being okay. Then when I tried to explain that I'd always had these paranoid thoughts he wouldn't listen and insisted that there had to be some sort of trigger until eventually I gave him some BS story- He forced me to lie to him.

I kinda peaked over my GP's shoulder when she was reading his treatment recommendations and in it he said "insists she's paranoid" (because thinking all your friends are playing a game to try to get you to kill yourself is totally not paranoid.) and diagnosed me with narcissistic traits. (I guess I can see that though. My thoughts were rather grandiose.)

Anyways long story short I don't trust pdocs, so now when I feel like I could use some help I'm trying to get out of seeing a pdoc by chatting to a therapist and hoping she can make some recommendations for my GP to do the prescribing. Even then given all the drama with my ex right now I'm absolutely terrified this new therapist (I won't see her until the 14th) is just going to dismiss me as an abandoned borderline like that pdoc did.

Sorry for the novel, have been wanting to get that out for a while lol

[anilam]

Hurt yes, abused no way.
The first one was emotionally unstable and she told my parents (even though I explicitly ask her not to- I was 18 at that time, so not a minor but she still treated me like one. In retrospect I should have reported her...
I got over it eventually- hated Ts with a passion for a while- but would work with only male Ts now.
Re falling in love I'm in my 8th yr of twice a week therapy, so yes, I know my T and even came to like him (and care about him aside his T role). I've never fallen in love with any of my Ts/pDocs/docs... The RS is too unequal for that.

[nummy]

Thankfully no, I have been not helped by a therapist, but never actually deliberately abused.

[iheartjacques]

I've only been hurt once when I felt disrespected, but other than that, no abuse or anything

[someone321]

My current T says that I was re-traumatized by the previous T (that's why I left him after two months) but I have never been abused by any T.

[Depletion]

Yes I have been hurt/verbally abused. I eventually told my last T about my erotic transference. She had a freakout and told me that I made her nauseous, and a said a lot of other bad stuff about what a bad person I am, and how I'm the kind of client that makes people not want to practice therapy . That was the last time I saw her. It has been hard to get used to a new T, and I'm now terrified of having erotic transference.

[brillskep]

I've been hurt by a few therapists. With most of them, I just left (they weren't my therapists, they were just having a session with me in training contexts). My therapist hurt me a lot with something he did a few years ago but we both worked very hard to rebuild that trust in the relationship and I'm glad we did because he's very helpful to me now and has been for a long time.

[AllyIsHopeful]

I have finally admitted to myself I am in the midst of therapist abuse.
It's so crappy. I cry about it everyday and don't even know how to bring this up with her. I wish I'd seen it sooner. At this point I feel all therapists will do this to me and they will always make me feel worse.

Why was I so blind???? ugh I'm kicking myself so hard now.

[AllyIsHopeful]

Originally Posted by someone321

My current T says that I was re-traumatized by the previous T (that's why I left him after two months) but I have never been abused by any T.

May I ask how/why your T thinks you were retraumatized by your ex-T? I'm curious because I may be experiencing something similar, but my vision is fogged by attachment and dependency.

If you don't mind sharing you can PM me or post here, but I understand if you are uncomfortable with details.

[someone321]

Originally Posted by AllyIsHopeful

May I ask how/why your T thinks you were retraumatized by your ex-T? I'm curious because I may be experiencing something similar, but my vision is fogged by attachment and dependency.

If you don't mind sharing you can PM me or post here, but I understand if you are uncomfortable with details.

I'll ask her tomorrow and let you know, okay? As I am not so sure why exactly she thinks so. Probably because of the fact how bad impact his words/reactions had on me. According to my current T, my exT has told me things which any T must never say.

I'm sorry that you are in the middle of the abuse! Good that you are already aware of it but I hope that you know how to get out of this situation? Because it is not true that therapists will always make you feel worse... I thought that it is normal as "it has to be worse before it is better" but it is not really true... My current T is very careful to not cause any harm and of course it's not that I am calm and happy all the time but for sure I feel much, much better than with the previous T...

You can always PM me if you'd like to.

[missbella]

Originally Posted by AllyIsHopeful

May I ask how/why your T thinks you were retraumatized by your ex-T? I'm curious because I may be experiencing something similar, but my vision is fogged by attachment and dependency.

If you don't mind sharing you can PM me or post here, but I understand if you are uncomfortable with details.

Ally
I'm so sorry you might be going through this. I well know the conflict of attachment/dependency vs. extracting myself from the damage. My personal conflict was seeing the therapist as such an authority figurethat I lost my own compass and believed his narrative over my own. He was blameless; I was crazy.

I can't recommend the Therapy Exploitation Link Line enough. Their "responders" have been through the situation themselves and understand its complexities. Their site has many resources, including this reading list below, but their greatest value for me was contacting them and talking to their associates.
TELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line

To work my way through the conflicts I read about "traumatic bonding," (Stockholm syndrome) and even about cults, though therapy, at worst, is only a cult of two. Among the books is Dorpat's, "Gaslighting the Double Whammy."

I'll post a couple of more links with trigger*trigger alerts: these are explorations among people who've been hurt by therapy. Others, please respect that recovering from bad therapy is as difficult a journey as your process in it, and don't shoot me.

The "50 warning signs of questionable therapy" page has a lonnnng discussion following it.

My blog below has a 1,000+ post discussion. Among the posts *trigger* are a few that disagree with the DID diagnosis. That poster has her own blog, if that's applicable.

http://disequilibrium1.wordpress.com...aks-her-piece/

This is a thoughtful exploration by a writer who opted to leave therapy:
May | 2013 | TryTherapyFree

A reading list by a blogger who is "mad a hell."
A reading list | Therapy is a Con

Survivingtherapistabuse reading list:
Books & Media for Therapist Abuse, Clergy Abuse, Professional Misconduct

I'm likely unavailable until tomorrow, but feel free to pm. I'm a consumer.
All the best. Paradoxically, working my way through this offered for more growth than actual therapy.

[Bells129]

One of my T's who I saw when I was a teenager, maybe 16 or 17 , betrayed me and called social services when there was no need and then dropped me as a client with no reason as to why. It made it really hard for me to trust the next few T's (including current T). Current T I have transference with, but she's the only one I've ever had these feelings for.

[precaryous]

Hurt by three, abused by two.

[Petra5ed]

No, I've never been hurt or abused by a T, well outside of being hurt when one didn't respond to an email soon enough. It is upsetting to hear so many people have been, and it's a bit scary considering the vulnerability you feel in a T relationship. If my T wanted to abuse me I feel like I'd be caged prey right now.

My current T has hurt me. The difference is, I think, in how the therapist responds to having hurt us. My T is hanging in there and trying to address it with me. There is a difference between inadvertently, or accidentally hurting another person, and abuse.