Have you ever felt your therapist doesn't believe you (abuse)?

Dec 15, 2014, 05:55 AM

No, my T takes a stance of listening and trying to understand. It's irrelevant really whether something actually happened in the outside world, it's more important to listen to what our inside world us saying.

stopdog · Dec 15, 2014, 09:37 AM

Check out #5 on the list
About Psychotherapy: Your Therapist Wants To Tell You These Things... But Can't

Dec 15, 2014, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stopdog

Check out #5 on the list
About Psychotherapy: Your Therapist Wants To Tell You These Things... But Can't

Why would a random therapist's opinions, presented second-hand by a rather inept writer in the edutainment business, negate what our own therapists tell us? You of all people, stopdog, surely don't take one individual therapist's words as law?

stopdog · 10:47 AM

Whoa, back up -I did not say how I felt about the article one way or the other, I just posted it as it had a part that was relevant to this discussion. I never said I took it as law. I never said anything but to check it out. I found the explanation interesting and I thought it might be somewhat reassuring to some. If not useful to you, then fine by me. I don't believe therapists at all for the most part but I never told anyone this random article negated their own therapist - believe your own if you want to do so.
My personal experience has been therapists getting way too worked up about childhood things I am hazy on rather than not believing them.

I think some of the consternation here comes from the word choice - lie - is a harsh word. On the other hand I fully believe two people can be standing next to each other during an event and experience/remember the event completely differently from each other. Neither would be lying when retelling it, but the retelling is not objective fact.

Dec 15, 2014, 11:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mastodon

Partless, I am late to this thread but I wanted to say that I am so sorry you had those experiences growing up, and doubly sorry that your therapist acted in such an invalidating way.

I am perhaps unusually lucky. I don't believe in that mentioned statistic of therapists believing 50% of what people tell them (I generally distrust statistics presented without a source - how was it measured, where in the world, which type of therapy, which age and education of the therapists, which population of clients - and does it mean that the therapists in the study claimed that they believe only half of what any given patient tells them, or that half their patients, on average, are untrustworhy? I'm sorry, but that is simply a scare statistic. I understand that it is comforting for those who prefer to think about therapists as universally bad, but I'm afraid they are not. No more than other professions.) but even so, I'm sure that I have been very lucky in my therapist. He has stated that he believes what I tell him about my past experiences and when I point out that my memories are foggy and uncertain and I might not remember correctly at all, his reply is this: Memories are always distorted one way or another, and it doesn't really matter that much what actually happened many years ago. What matters today is my recollection and how it affects me now.

I have never talked about childhood memories with a therapist prior to this one, and I'm sure I wouldn't do it if I did not think that he believed me. It is a deal breaker for me.

Thanks.

I did read that and I don't think it was necessarily a scientific study, just what therapists reported. I do think it is true in most cases from what I know of behind the scenes working in a psych hospital. It doesn't mean a therapist is bad. I don't think therapists are universally bad.

And it does matter if your recollection is wrong. It's not true if you're not remembering it right. You might end up accusing someone of something they didn't do.

I do therapists should focus more on the here and now and helping people live a good life NOW and not focus so much on the past.

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Have you ever felt your therapist doesn't believe you (abuse)?

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