What if...

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Therapists can abuse their power. This is a fact. Budfox was hurt badly because of an UNETHICAL therapist. It's NOT the client's fault when things like this happen. We go into therapy often BECAUSE we have trouble maintaining our boundaries and it can open us up to abuses of power in a relationship where we are supposed to trust more than we feel comfortable. It makes me sad that people are blind to it... And I guess will be unless it happens to them.

Note: an MA in counselling or even PhD in clinical psych is not an automatic badge that you are always, good, ethical, right, or act in the best interests of the client.

[QUOTE]Originally Posted by stopdog View Post
I think sometimes the problem is that when clients see the naked emperor therapist - it is distressing and causes them to question themselves rather than the therapist. The confusion can be compounded when the therapist seems also unaware they have no clothes on.

/QUOTE]

Great analogy. That helps me. Thanks.

Was reading about cults, and the parallels with therapy are there:
- isolation: the client (adherent) is isolated with the therapist (prophet)
- indoctrination: for both the therapist in training and then the client
- opposition to critical or independent thinking, groupthink
- submission
- authoritarian leadership
- love bombing: showering love and attention to setup emotional dependence

Obviously this is a bit of a stretch, but maybe not so much in some cases.

Ok, let the angry posts fly...

I've thought of things in therapy as "love bombing" before as well.

I totally see this with therapy. I think it might not happen to all clients, but it does happen with many and usually the ones who are the most vulnerable and fragile which makes it even sadder.

I think a lot of therapists are very narcissistic and love the fawning and adoration they get from some clients. It's disgusting and horribly unethical, but they get away with it most of the time.

Therapy should be collaborative. It shouldn't be so lop-sided with the therapist being the authority on everything. The client is PAYING this person for goodness sake. It's not like the therapist is doing it out of the goodness of their heart. It's all so sickening.

my therapist saw me for a LONG time for free. I believed it was because she loved me. Then I thought when everything changed, she just didn't love me anymore. It was very hurtful and confusing. But now I wonder if she was getting something out of it in the first place.

She makes me so angry. She knew she was being unethical. I am sorry you've gone through this.

Yeah that really caught my attention when I read about in a cult article. My T did not exactly shower me with love, but the attention and attunement were very powerful. I was definitely dependent.

I was also love bombing her, in the extreme. And I think she became dependent too in a way. We were both intoxicated, for different reasons, and then the train left the tracks...

My experience for sure. I was laying it on so thick. When I think of it now I am humiliated and horrified. But it was real, I was in love with this woman 100%. I worshipped her and told her she was a goddess. But when I challenged her at the end, she turned hostile, which does seem to point to narcissism. One of the hazards of therapy is the idealization that it encourages. The disillusionment was shattering.

For me this only goes to illustrate why the rules of client/therapist contact are what they are. At best, a client pours their heart soul into therapy, while the Therapist is there to take it all in and provide a mirror to all of that while keeping their own stuff out of the equation. Even the most balanced and self-aware client will be somewhat delusional about who the Therapist is and what they mean to them. That's the nature of the beast.

Even if a T truly cares for the client, they should and will always respect that 'delusion' and they know the balance will always be unequal and must never be exploited.

It can never be 100% equal relationship.

I don't believe in thr whole "Freudian prism" idea. I think it's impossible. Also unnatural. I've also never had a therapist with such a strong psychoanaytic bent that she aimed for this.

I care about my customers and all I do is serve them coffee. I wouldn't want to hurt them. trying to remove this attachment, small as it is, takes away my humanity and it scares me.

Having said this, I know my own relationship with my therapist was unhealthy and way too close.

Thanks for bringing up the analogy.

I'm sorry. This post wasn't meant as a criticism or any comment about what you're feeling at all and certainly not meant to imply that you don't give your all in therapy. It's obvious by how much you feel that you DO. I've been where you're at and I know what it is to giver up "everything" to someone only to have them abuse my trust.

What I wanted to express is this: although it feels like we give someone 'everything' in therapy, every experience we go through is still ours. They can't 'take' anything from us. I mean this as statement of empowerment.

The example I have is of a breakup with a 10 year relationship. I had felt like I lost everything I put into that relationship to a narcissist. It was like throwing all my love and energy into a black hole. I asked myself why I "wasted" 10 years of my life to that person. What I had to realize is that my experience was still valid; my memories, my pain, my growth, my experience was and always will be MY POWER.

When we "give" love there's no loss in our own soul, even though it hurts like hell when the other person refuses to accept it and even though it hurts to not get something in return.

That power and beauty is ours. In short, what I meant to say that Everything you gave is yours and no one can take that from you.

This is really a nice idea and I'm glad that you survived your break-up intact and able to see positivity!

The sad fact is though that a lot of times, certain things exceed our ability to cope and real damage can happen. People don't survive. We are vulnerable to begin with -- that's why we're in therapy. It's a huge risk. Especially when you're working with a population vulnerable to suicide, to encourage dependency and then hurt people. It's a real, valid risk.

Ok thanks for clarifying. Apologize if I overreacted.

I do think though that therapy is different from every other relationship, by virtue of the parallels with the parent-child relationship. I echo what PinkFlamingo said about "certain things exceed our ability to cope and real damage can happen".

It's not for nothing that some critics have used words like "rape" or "incest" when referring to therapy abuse (even if nothing physical took place). My own experience was that of being emotionally seduced, if not overtly by T, then by the process. And i think this process might have reinforced the original dysfunctional attachment and dependence that has been so ruinous in my life. And then the process was aborted.

Thanks for this. Before having therapy I had no idea what it involved, I had no idea of the power it had. Your parallel with cults is thought provoking.

I'm so sorry that happened to you and I'm sorry for my own miscommunication.

This is what I need to learn. If I can somehow believe this and accept this, I know my grieving will be complete. Thank you for writing this!

Budfox – I'd like to make a suggestion to you. The most difficult thing for me in therapy was giving up the perfect mom, a different situation from yours. If I could figure out what my role was then my mother would finally give me unconditional love. It was causing a lot of negative transference in therapy, and chaos in my life. My ex therapist is a big believer in Psychodrama, a type of group therapy, and she thought it might propel me through this impasse. I knew nothing about Psychodrama, but was willing to try anything to move me forward, because I was stuck, and was like a wrecking ball gone wild. For me it was a very powerful way to work through the parent stuff, but also the abandonment and pain caused by a therapist many years before. Psychodrama was successful, for both those needs. I learned a lot from two of my own dramas, and participating in others' dramas or just being in the audience. Groups are usually 6-10 people. The director (the therapist), also shares his vulnerability at the end of the drama – they are not immune.

Please do understand I have great empathy for the pain you are in and it is not something that can be just sloughed off.

Thanks, not something I have considered but will keep it in mind as an option. I think I am too deeply in crisis mode (on multiple levels) and I think 1-1 help is what i need for now. But at some point even basic group therapy might be helpful. Glad this helped you move forward.