High IQ and Therapy?

I certainly don't have a problem telling mine - especially No. 1 - where she's gone off the rails. But if you are telling a therapist "you're not smart enough," that is something they probably can't do anything about. They can't get smarter. Telling a therapist she overemotes is something she can fix. There's a difference.

So the client either needs to stop having such high standards or find a therapist that meets them. Just like with any therapist, whatever the relative IQs involved are.

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Nowhere did I state anything about saying to the therapist you are not smart enough. That was not my point.

I've read patient-bashing therapists claim that consumers who consider themselves "smarter than the therapist" display a trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This bolsters my view psych training is post-graduate training in school-yard name calling. Yeah-yeah---yeah-yeah-yeah!

Narcissistic Personality Disorder & Pathological Narcissism
The Narcissistic Continuum: Corrective Life Events: Can the Narcissist Change?

You may not have (that you was not the personal you, but the you=one you), but that seems to be a desideratum for some.

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"How people behave" .. what a rigid constraint to place upon all of society. Having grown up in stodgy New England and been schooled in jolly olde England, I assure you I am well aware of societal norms, and am as genteel as a Chopin nocturne when I am suggesting the existence of a possibility alternate to that which a therapist is presenting.

I know very many people who well enjoy the challenge of advancing their own critical thinking through collaborative discourse, I just have not had the luck to run into many in the field. It's certainly unpleasant for some (and a bit of a "hot-button" issue, being almost guaranteed to garner accusations of conceit when discussed with even a modicum of self-awareness) but as I've always said, "I'm not for everyone", and nor is every therapist for everyone.

However, should I ever meet a therapist who has achieved perfect objectivity and 100% critical thinking, I shall then blithely smile whilst he/she bestows upon me error-free therapy. Until that day though, and while my mental health hangs in the balance, I consider myself much better off actively contributing to the process and thus (approximately) doubling the intellectual manpower at work in the room. It most definitely beats the alternative.

Mileage may vary.

There's no reason not to point out thought distortions or to challenge somone, therapist or not and I think it would make for more stimulating conversation. It's just an odd concept to think of oneself as being too intelligent for therapy since "therapy" is such a broad term and can be so unique for each indiviual. One might be too intelligent for therapy with an idiot therapist, but how is one too intelligent for therapy in general?

Does that mean that people who believe they've been helped by therapy and like their therapist are less intelligent than those who don't?

I have not found them as intelligent as most other professionals that I deal with in my profession. I would say I find them middling or of average intelligence. I am not saying as a group they are completely stupid. I don't think it is that hard to become one (I am sitting in on their classes right now).

I am in a program myself and that's true, the classes aren't as hard as in other disciplines. Statistics and research methods are more difficult but the rest aren't. I've said this before that there is more wiggle room in the field and less bright people can make it through a program. That still doesn't mean that therapists as a whole are less intelligent than anyone else. That's just a judgment based on personal experience, it's not a fact. You don't have to be higher than average intelligence to be a nurse either, but many most certainly are.

I accept that we do not agree.

http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx
http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2011/0...ccupation.html

Wow, I know lots of college professors and MDs who must be at the lower end of their range...but neither social workers nor psychologists do badly on those scales.

I think there may be more than one line of thought going on in this thread. I am not even saying they are completely useless. I have found a use for them - not perhaps what others do with them. But the first one I see is not that intelligent but the second one is better.

The ones I interact with in my professional capacity are decidedly not bright. I have learned to use a more pedestrian vocabulary with them.

The therapists I know are on the lower end of their range too.

The psychologists do pretty well according to these - and my IQ is a good amount higher than the highest IQ on the list. Based on that I'd say that these findings are pretty flawed to say the least.

You talk about them like they are objects, as if they are less than human. To say some people might have a use for "them" is strange wording. It is therapy one has a use for, not therapists. And therapists trained in different parts of the country and at different institutions will be markedly different. It's rumored to be true that therapists in state agencies are usually not very good and therefore not the brightest. The ones who work for large hospitals are more likely to be at the top of the chain. Psychiatrists who work for state run institutions or prisons for more than a very short time are known to be the worst of the worst, at least where I live.

When they are being therapists - I meant it the way I worded it.

But as the rest of your post says, quality varies. It may be the therapy that is useful or not, but the therapy is dependent on the quality of the therapist. Just as the quality of medical care is dependent on the quality of the doctor or the hospital. And as a result I do find myself, and I hear others, saying things like "doctors, they're no use," so I don't find stopdog's phrase strange. But perhaps I am missing your point.

I understand what you meant.

Then why did you attempt to correct my use? my version is not incorrect or strange in how I view it.

I actually find it odd to say you have no use for a group of people as a whole when this group of people couldn't be more diverse. A good and not so good thing about therapy is that therapists don't really work in a universal way. Therapists in California are like aliens to therapists in New England - the culture is that different. The framework may be similar, but education, philsophy and approach may be quite different..

I said I had found a use for them. It is not the use that others describe - but a use nonetheless.

Really? That's interesting. Has anyone actually studied this, and can you give an example?

My new england longterm T HAS shown concern over "woo" therapies out here in CA!! The sentiment is out there.

Right. Makes you wonder if any therapist is able to even consider the possibility that:
1. Some clients really are more intelligent
2. Some clients need other than whatever they are getting from their therapist, if they are to "get better".

And for me this hasn't been about merely thinking "I'm smarter than my therapist" (and I don't know what I did to give that impression) it's about the fact that some clients think differently (related to a high IQ), and that is not something every therapist is aware of.

I also see in this thread the realization that not every therapist is able to help every client. Are therapists okay with that? Or is it always the client's fault if therapy is less than perfect? (like: "hey, my client thinks about his intelligence, and therapy isn't going well... He must think he's smarter than I am, that's the problem." Rather than thinking "I'm not helping my client, maybe therapy isn't for him." Or, "I'm not helping my client, maybe there is some issue I'm not seeing."or, "I'm not helping my client, perhaps I should use a different tactic.").

I agree that there are therapists who will hide behind diagnoses, and who can't admit that they are unable to help every client. But I just don't see why the question of high IQ makes therapy so problematic. If a client wants a therapist who doesn't have strict boundaries about touch or whatever, they find another one. Why can't it be the same for a client who feels their therapist isn't up to snuff intellectually?

And I also don't really understand the thinking differently part. Yes, I think differently, usually more deeply and with a greater awareness of patterns in the world, than most people. But it's not so different that I can't communicate with them. And then by definition the therapist thinks differently from me - so maybe they can provide some insight that I have missed because of that. After all, that's why I'm in therapy, to learn how better to help myself.

I don't see why, with the right therapist, an intellectual alliance can't be formed despite a disparity in IQ.

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Again, you've misinterpreted my OP. This has never been about judgments made against therapists because of any supposed lack of intelligence. I've been asking if a high IQ (in and of itself) can be a problem because people with high IQ's think differently, and that is not something every therapist is aware of.

So, "yes", we can all continue to look around for someone to help us, and "no", not every therapist will be a good fit, for whatever reason.

I doubt very much if a difference in IQ's by itself is necessarily an issue.

From my post number 4: