"You'll never be a therapist"

Yea no I can be an asshole but I'd never leave someone lying in the street.

It was a very minor fender bender and I was trying to pull over but there was like no shoulder (LA traffic) and then when I got off the freeway it was a one way street with nowhere to stop and the person i hit was screaming violently and I was already having a panic attack and my ankle was broken so if she had gotten physical I couldn't have done anything bc I couldn't walk so I just freaked out and left. Stupid bc I had insurance and they ended up fixing her car anyway (under $1,000).

Her car was barely dented. But whatever. I left the scene. I was wrong. Behaving badly making poor decisions.

I was really worried about it, but Licensing said it's no big deal, they're looking for violent crimes and sexual offenders.

Is the penal code for hit and run vs leaving the scene of an accident different codes? I guess I should look it up (my actual record) and see what code it says. I think my lawyer did say it was a "leaving the scene of an accident, though..." I guess I thought the terms were interchangeable.

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I think the terms vary according to circumstance and jurisdiction (Hello, attorneys???) . If it was a misdemeanor, I'd guess it was a "leaving the scene" code. I would check to be sure just so you don't get unfairly evaluated.

In our legal system (non US) there's a great difference between hit and run and leaving the scene. Hit and run means s.o. got hurt (still could be applicable in your case if the other driver got hurt no matter how minor and you had a bad lawyer:/) and it goes on your permanent record. You really should checked that.

Do you ask for your T opinion? If yes, well she is giving you her take on things (if not, she is way out of bounds).
She might have a point that now you're not ready to become a T- if that's what she's saying... If she really did say you'll never be a T that's just laughable and I'd reply not with your care I wont. Sorry, yeah, I don't like your T, don't think you're a good match and highly doubt she's helping you.
I think you are well aware you need to work on yourself really hard to become a T (seriously who doesn't?) but do you really think you could do it with her?

This.

Also, our Ts voices are like our parents voices, they get inside our head and stay there. If you don't quit her and see someone else her voice is going to stay inside your head.

One of the important things in becoming a good therapist, is to find a good therapist yourself and try to work through your issues. Having 'deep' issues is not a bad thing, it can give you great insight into how other people feel.

I may have list track but is this the woman you record? I thought you'd left her? She doesn't sound very supportive, maybe she's a bit envious of you?

I think this may be one of the most important posts on this thread. If you want to be a therapist, please get into therapy with someone who can truly help you with your own issues. Otherwise, no matter what your grades, no matter who will hire you, you will likely become an unhealthy therapist who could cause more harm to clients than good. Your own therapy right now is one of the most important factors on your path to your career. Don't waste another minute with this therapist in this therapy relationship that is so hurtful, harmful, dysfunctional and damaging. It is time to make finding a new healthy therapy relationship that will move you toward your own personal goal of mental health and ultimately your professional goal of being an effective therapist.

Wow, this woman just gets more and more toxic. I think you've had some really great responses on this issue, IRL. I believe that a person should be able to study whatever they want when going to college, but I also strongly believe that it is the serious responsibility of practicing therapists and professors in clinical programs to take stock of aspiring mental health professionals' emotional health and counsel them accordingly. Many times on this forum we have all discussed issues related to therapists practicing and seeming to be unfit emotionally. We've been appalled by the treatment of people on this forum by their ill-trained, possibly mentally unstable therapists. The only way these kinds of situations are going to stop happening or at least decrease in occurrence is that the profession of mental health professionals begins to seriously police their trainees and practicing professionals.

That said, I would NEVER listen to or put any stock in anything your therapist says about you and your ability to be a therapist. She is someone who should be on the receiving end of a serious assessment by her practicing peers. I think you know very well that you have "personality issues". As someone else said, a lot of us do on this forum. That doesn't prevent you from being top of your class academically. What you probably need to recognize is that you have the intellect to do this job, but you have a lot of emotional growing and changing to do before you step into the arena to actually practice with clients (and that includes practicums and internships). You've started your training so you don't have a lot of time left; practicum and internships are right around the corner. Get into therapy with someone who is well-trained and professionally competent. You are wasting precious time with this woman, time you need to seriously and with intense focus need to work on your issues so you can use your solid intellect to be the best therapist you can be! Don't waste any more time trying to make this therapeutic relationship work in a way that it does not appear able to work. Your career starts now. Seriously consider why you continue to try to make this relationship work when it is obvious that nothing productive is coming out of it. When you begin to make the steps necessary to really address your issues and not hers, then you're showing the strength and willingness to see your issues and make the changes you need to make to be a solid, emotionally stable therapist.

Why would you drop out of the program if you're doing so well? Granted, the criminal record may be an issue, but as long as you work it out with your professors and find options, perhaps you can find a solution to that issue, especially if that remains in your past and you have changed. But that's a professor's or a career counselor's job, it's not your therapist's job to tell you that, particularly if you didn't ask. It is your therapist's job to be there and support you in your change process so that you become more and more emotionally aware and stable, so that you will be able to deal with stressful situations in healthy and constructive ways. Your therapist does have a point about the difficulties you may face, but if it's what you really want to do in life, it's not a therapist's place at all to discourage you and tell you what you should be doing instead. The therapist may disagree or worry about you, which doesn't give her the right to try and make you change your mind. I'm wondering though, might it make a difference if you told your therapist more about your current success? It could have an impact if all she knows about you now is your troubled past, and she doesn't get to hear about the things which are going well. I'm also wondering if perhaps you might be better off with a (much) more supportive therapist. Just a few of my thoughts without knowing much about you or your therapy.

I'm not telling her I'm in school. Ever. I was planning to wait and show her my first semester transcript like see, I DID FINISH SOMETHING. But if this is her reaction to my saying im thinking about school, then telling her I'm already there is out of the question.

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That's ignoring the bigger question and point of getting good therapy.

I'm wondering why it is so painful to think about finding a new T. It must be because you aren't answering the posts about doing so. It's like that's not even an option in your mind. Because you have prove you're worth something to her first? I understand those deep needs, but I don't think it's going to happen. I truly wish you the courage to say goodbye to your T.

I don't think your T questioned your intellectual ability to succeed in school. Her concerns were your criminal record and your personality issues, neither of which a transcript can address. That said, you should feel proud of your excellent grades. The issue here should be how YOU feel about yourself and your career path; not how this T feels. She is not a positive influence in your life.

Still, the bigger issue seems to be whether you are willing to seek out a healthy therapeutic relationship and do the emotional work required in order to be healthy and stable enough to work with clients. I think even you can see how damaging this T relationship is on your self-esteem and emotional well-being. As long as your own therapy is dysfunctional, and this is the model you have of what therapy looks like-- I think it will, unintentionally, negatively impact your sessions with your own future clients. We constantly act out early dynamics with our parents and caregivers in later relationships. If we don't properly resolve them enough as adults, we will continue to do it with new people. Your T is probably doing this with you and, if you stay locked in this, you will probably do it with your own clients. If you become healthy and let go of these dysfunctions, you may be able to help a lot of people. But if you continue in this cycle and treat clients before working on these issues (or even being willing to address them) there may be the potential for real harm.

I don't mean for this to come across as condescending or rude, but wouldn't it be nice to have a supportive therapist? It doesn't seem like she appreciates your strengths or values you as a client. I've listened to your sessions, and her tone and overall way of talking to you is not anything I'd pay good money for.

Do you have any other relationships in your life that have this dynamic?

Do you stay because you're hoping to win her over?

Being told that you're not good enough by your therapist and then trying to be good enough without success can be majorly damaging especially if you have a history of it.

Having mental health issues that you're working through is no reason not to pursue your dreams. However, the end goal should be getting your symptoms under wraps enough to help others. Is she getting you closer to that goal?

My advice would be to get some QUALITY professional help.

PS - I know some pretty screwed up therapists. You do NOT need to be perfect and squeaky clean to get into the profession.

i think this is a very valid and important question you need to ask yourself.

I think some good points have been bought up. The question remains.......do you want to become a therapist enough that you are willing to let go of a toxic therapist and get the proper help for you personality disorder or do you wish to sabotage your own goals.

What happened with the hit and run is in the past. Nothing you can do about it now except work on yourself to be able to reassure those potential future employers that it won't happen again.
To do that you need to take a good look at why you can not let go of this therapist.

I hope you also realize that when your current T finds out your plans, she could easily scupper them all by making a submission as to why you are unsuitable. Just because you get qualifications doesn't mean you get to be licensed. And, to be honest, if you don't have the wherewithal to actually seek out healthy relationships and good therapy, she'd probably be correct in doing that.

You. Need. A. New. Therapist.

I think you should definately follow your heart. I think you will be able to relate to patients more because you have been in similar if not worse positions. With this said I would not dismiss what your therapist is saying completely. I would look into it further.

My therapist mentioned at one time that she thought I would make a good therapist. I am just afraid that I will not make a good therapist. I would be anxious concerned with reject etc. so I am envious of you perusing your dreams.

InRealLife45, part of it I'm surprised you have not shared with her that you go to school. I think that's a big thing and it's best tell her and see how she reacts. Because she is going by what she sees in session. And the advice seems compassionate enough about telling how things work in real life.

I was considering becoming a therapist in the past and got a very good reply from one of my therapists but then when I went and talked to some grad schools and grad students, they gave me the real version and it broke my heart. So can't blame her for being real. Your therapist is talking based on her own experience and what those programs want and the info you give her. Maybe if you tell her you're getting the highest grade in your class, she will see you are so talented that criminal record or emotional problems will be no match for it and that schools will also be very impressed by that. Depending on her reaction, you can judge her then. She might not be a good therapist and you may even consider dropping her, but first give her all the info and then see.

I hate to disagree, but telling T you are in school and making great strides will probably result in her being even more critical, either about this or in another area. Seems like a tactic my parents used on me. "Wow, you're so smart! I wish you applied yourself to schoolwork the way you apply yourself to writing those stupid stories."

Result, more fervently writing my stupid stories and doubly so avoiding schoolwork.

I would keep the secret and sit back and gloat "if she only knew what I'm really capable of!"

StressedMess, that's funny, I had similar experiences with my parents. There was no making them happy. Sometimes I was afraid of doing my best or them finding out. One would wish a therapist would be different but I guess there is no guarantee.

Regardless of the T's potential reaction, it simply seems unhealthy and dysfunctional to intentionally hide the fact that you are in school to become a therapist from your therapist. You are also lying to her (at least by omission) when you sit there and hear her reasons about why you should not APPLY to be in school. The fact that you feel the need to hide this-- and imagine shoving your success in her face-- makes it all seem like a game where you want to "win" and want her to "lose." The only problem is that becoming a T is very serious business. Would you want your future clients to play these kinds of games with you in therapy? Is this the dynamic you hope to have with future clients? If it's not, think seriously about why this is what you are doing in your own therapy.

I guess I can't stress this enough and I might be all wet on this but being a good therapist has very little to do with A's in all your classes. It isn't a cut and dry profession where a person sits in a room and thinks, "Gee, that technique was on page 306 and pertained to Theory XXXX. That will fit here with this client." I am really not trying to rain on IRL's dream here, but I can't stress enough that A's or being "top in your class" academically isn't all there is to being a therapist.

On this board we've heard about therapists who are majorly screwing things up with forum members and I'll bet more than a few had excellent grades, but they lacked stable mental health and stellar training. If any of us want to be a mental health professionals, it is on us to get our own house in order first. I remember another member talking about wanting to go graduate school to become a mental health professional and after a while she came on and posted that she'd decided she was putting that decision off until she worked on her own mental health issues. I remember being so impressed with her maturity and insight into what being a therapist entails. It's easy to do the academic work of being a therapist; the real and true work of becoming a mental health professional is about making sure that your own "stuff" never ever gets in the way of working with your clients. We've all seen more than a few therapeutic situations blow sky high for people on this forum because of ill prepared therapists who had no idea how they were getting in the way of member's critically important healing. I've read about situations that are absolutely heartbreaking for members and it makes me so sad that they have had to suffer such neglect, outright abuse and plain old incompetence. What's the old saying? Physician heal thyself . . . well it can also fit for mental health professionals too!

I sincerely hope you do pursue your dream of becoming a therapist, IRL. You are smart and articulate. But first really examine why you're engaging in these games of one-upmanship with this incompetent therapist. You are truly wasting precious time. Time that you need to get your house in order so your clients can use you as a vessel of change and growth themselves. Find a competent therapist who will challenge you to grow and become a skilled clinician rather than a well read, academic who has no idea how her behavior is negatively impacting the growth of her clients--a description that I feel probably fits your current therapist.

To see how you do with the nonacademic side of it, how about doing some volunteering, like tutoring for example. You could just do it a few hours a week and it would help you to see your actual strong and weak points in situations close to what you want but easier and it would look good when it came time to apply for jobs, too. If you know what specific population you want to work with you could find something that related to that population if possible.

Why don't you drop out of this Ts "program" instead?

Find a T who can help you address whatever problems there might be, and help you maximize your chances of becoming a T, rather than staying with someone who does neither of those things.

You gotten many supportive and helpful replies so I won't repeat what I have been able to understand so far. I totally get it for several reasons. First I have had a mental health diagnosis (PTSD) that was severe enough to get me on disability. I then started therapy, having no clue and now no longer satisfy criteria for any mental health diagnosis, though of course with a trauma history, especially early and continuous throughout life, I am still vulnerable to stressors. I no longer mention my history to people in the field after trusting and having bad experiences with people who were overly suspicious and not fair minded.

But I have put my personal therapy at the very top in order to get to a place where I know for certain and so do others that I can be a good therapist and if I do have responses, I know what to do with them. That's why I chose analysis rather than any other therapy. Analysts do their own analysis as a requirement. They even compete with each other for how far they can regress to really primitive states. And then later joke about it.

Several great analysts have even had several psychotic breaks, which you would think would somehow disqualify them from serving others. But no, on the contrary, it informed their work. I don't know how public they went when this was occurring and I'm not saying that this is okay universally. It is certainly problematic, but my point is that the field is filled with people who have experienced difficult states in themselves or others and managed to become respected and certainly credible and effective.

This really is not a psychological question, but an ethical one. The fundamental issue is do you put your clients' welfare first beyond yourself and desires and career to know what you have to do to prepare yourself for very taxing emotional work. And do you know what you would do to recognize signs that you were not serving them and what steps you would take to resolve that.

With the criminal record I also feel empathy, not with the particular issues but the whole thing. I have a very old DUI but unfortunately (and I did not realize this until this year) it also included an assault on a peace officer. That is not what actually happened. The cop put her hands all over me when I got a drink of water and I had a spontaneous triggered reaction. They of course did not understand how that sort of thing works. But everyone knows that even touching a cop can result in a battery charge. Thing is I have to compete with people who have a clear record. We have fingerprinting here for all jobs. So far I have been cleared. I think it was so long ago and relatively minor (I paid no fine and was given time served because I sought out treatment).

However, I have since found out that not just once but twice I will have to produce all the documents plus letters and my own account and wait for some unknown committee to respond. I have an A plus record and excellent reviews from supervisors. Still I have to deal with this 20 year old crime anyway. And since it looks on the surface like a violent crime, I could very well be denied. So I get it. They take very seriously any evidence of poor judgement since after all we are signing up to work with mostly very vulnerable people's minds. I totally get it. On the other hand, not allowing for humanness and reform, plus going into "witch hunt" mode which someone told me about several schools they knew about seems very unfair. Schools and placements connected to them or afterwards are usually overseen and if anyone could be seen as a hazard to their standing, they tend to launch a preemptive strike. Strangely enough it is easier to become a psychiatrist and even analyst than it is for these "lower" positions.