Therapists do more harm than good

musinglizzy: "My upset doesn't come from her taking away this action, it's due to the fact she didn't talk to me about it. So, knowing she can up and change things whenever she feels like it leaves me spending more time in therapy watching for something changing or being taken away, rather than therapy itself. Because I know she's capable of changing boundaries without even letting me know. I've been told by numerous people that it seems like, based on my story, she found herself too attached, realized it and backed off. She was going through a rough time herself in her own life, and was pretty vulnerable herself I'm sure." t.[/QUOTE]

I had a similar experience with my T suddenly changing boundaries or stopping something comforting she had done. Her explaination was that I didn't need it anymore and if she continued then she would be enabling a behaviour I could now manage or control myself. It didn't seem to occur to her that her constant swinging back and forth with what she offered was confusing and hurtful. Consistency from the start would have been far more helpful.

I was told by a second T (at one stage I needed therapy because I'd had therapy!) that the first T was obviously bad with boundaries and consistency.

I don't believe any therapist sets out to harm a client, but I do think there are plenty out there who misjudge how their actions or words will effect a very emotionally vulnerable client. Some are not trained in how to help clients who have certain psychiatric conditions and some are not trained in how to help clients who develop strong attachment or transference feelings. However, they seem to think they can plough on and treat the client anyway. Once they realise the client is having difficulties because of their method then they suddenly snap back into place boundaries that had previously been all over the place. And they seem to think that's ok too.

I did have experience of that with my T. Sigh....took me a while to recover.

I did at one point think the therapy was doing me more harm than good. But I also really wanted to put this right. It was the help of the second T (a very good one) who helped me do that. I was then able to go back to resolve things with the first T and therapy with her got on track in a healthy way so that I could eventually end regular sessions with her in a way that felt ok to me. If I hadn't done that and just walked away from therapy when I was still in that bad place with the first T then I think I would have been disillusioned and harmed in some way by it.

I've had one good therapist. She was legit about her desire to help people, it was obvious that she was passionate about it and that she had that rare trait in people as far as feeling a genuine love for all humans. Our conversations were down to earth. She was able to walk the fine line between, "We're actually connecting as two humans," and "But ultimately this is a professional/client bond." She was also upfront about how if she didn't think there was going to be a good 'click' between her and a client, she would let them know and let them go early on instead of wasting their time and money. She was a cool person in general.

The rest of them all seemed to be in it for the cash, as though they thought therapy was an easy career, just sit there and pretend to be listening, and make $100+ an hour. Not a bad gig, yeah?

So the good ones are out there, but you have to really hunt for them. I think the key is not ignoring early red flags and not being afraid to walk away early on if you see them.

I've had three very good therapists. I've had a few I tried but my gut feeling was very meh about them so I discontinued very quickly. I've had a couple who I suspect would have been horrible for me (again just based on gut instinct) who, again, I discontinued with very quickly. I've never stayed with a therapist who I had any qualms about. Overall, my therapy experiences have been very good and I am so much better now than when I started.

My husband's therapy experiences have been about the same. Several excellent ones; a few really meh ones. He, also, did not stay with therapists that he did not feel right about.

I agree those issues are present in some therapies. I disagree the T is the cause. That is just the beginning of the work.

I always love the "blame the client" posts. Those are amusing. LOL.

I had a similar experience with my T suddenly changing boundaries or stopping something comforting she had done. Her explaination was that I didn't need it anymore and if she continued then she would be enabling a behaviour I could now manage or control myself. It didn't seem to occur to her that her constant swinging back and forth with what she offered was confusing and hurtful. Consistency from the start would have been far more helpful.

I was told by a second T (at one stage I needed therapy because I'd had therapy!) that the first T was obviously bad with boundaries and consistency.

I don't believe any therapist sets out to harm a client, but I do think there are plenty out there who misjudge how their actions or words will effect a very emotionally vulnerable client. Some are not trained in how to help clients who have certain psychiatric conditions and some are not trained in how to help clients who develop strong attachment or transference feelings. However, they seem to think they can plough on and treat the client anyway. Once they realise the client is having difficulties because of their method then they suddenly snap back into place boundaries that had previously been all over the place. And they seem to think that's ok too.

I did have experience of that with my T. Sigh....took me a while to recover.

I did at one point think the therapy was doing me more harm than good. But I also really wanted to put this right. It was the help of the second T (a very good one) who helped me do that. I was then able to go back to resolve things with the first T and therapy with her got on track in a healthy way so that I could eventually end regular sessions with her in a way that felt ok to me. If I hadn't done that and just walked away from therapy when I was still in that bad place with the first T then I think I would have been disillusioned and harmed in some way by it.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for this! I think sometimes Ts unknowingly can just lump people together and have their boundaries, etc etc... without realizing how vulnerable and hurt one may be. Different people just take things differently. I have a hard time with rejection, but have a hard time with closeness too, it's a very confusing struggle. My T cares very much about me, there is no doubt in my mind about that, and I know she had NO intentions of hurting me. I think she'd probably take some things back if she could.... but what's done is done, and even if she thinks I'm all wrong and she's all right, I think she may do things a bit differently next time. Well I hope so. I'm quite sure she never imagined I would be affected so much. I think she is a good T...and yeah, I probably said it here before, but even at the time, I thought her boundaries were a bit loose, but I enjoyed it. And, as I was warned....it did come back to bite me. I still love my T and I know she has love for me as her client, I just gotta work through this crap. As angry as I get, I blame myself more than her... if I didn't think the way I do it wouldn't have been an issue. But...that's why I'm in therapy! I love my T. I do not agree with how she handled that matter. But I also know Ts are people too, and I also know she would never intentionally hurt me. It's been four months now...and even though I'm still struggling, she's still hanging in there, and still trying to "get me back." I'm trying to come back....it's not been an easy process, but I think the connection we had before this incident is worth it.

IT is not always clear whether a therapist is any good or not. And they only tell the client it is the client's problem to figure it out.

I am under impression that some therapists never want clients to leave so they don't want clients to address the issues and they force unhealthy attachments so instead of working on their issues clients keep coming to therapy because they are crazy about their therapists are in love or are too attached or too dependent to function on their own.

It's like parents who instead of teaching kids be independent foster total dependency so kids never leave! Clients stay in therapy for years paying for it but nothing ever improves and in fact gets worse. All while t gets paid. Awful.

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Gotta say that I disagree. I don't often explain every nuance of my behavior when interacting with someone, but if I'm questioned directly about why I did or didn't do something, then I answer. Any therapist I've ever worked with, even the lousy ones, whenever I confronted them about why they did or said something, they always came right out and told me why. I didn't often agree or think that their explanation was a very good one, but at least they had a reason. I never felt that he/she was lying. Some definitely didn't like being confronted and got defensive, but they didn't try to dodge the question or cover up. I know you've said you think therapists are wily, but I haven't found them to be wily or devious . . . just sometimes clueless or not too aware of why they were doing what they were doing--which in my opinion is due to poor or superficial training and a lack of interest in continuing to grow as a therapist. But as we see things differently, I guess we can agree to disagree!

My experience with those people is very different than yours then. I have not found them generally to be willing to answer and indeed do dodge and cover up.
But my thrust is those people need to explain how therapy is supposed to work, what the therapist is actually supposed to be doing, why they do x or y, and how a client can judge if it is working or not.

I do think most therapist are worthless. Until I had my current T, I had only bad experiences with therapy and T's. And it definitely harmed me. After my last T, I really thought there are all assholes. I had lost hope. I didn't trust them. But my current T is so good. She's so different from all my previous T's. And then my current psychiatrist is also a good one. So now I think that most T's are lousy, but there are also a few good ones. It's just really hard to find one.

I agree, you and I have had very different experiences with therapists and how we engage or in my case, how I don't engage in therapy. But all is good because different opinions in how it all works or doesn't work is what makes the entire process so interesting.

Im really talking more about students and new Ts worrying so much than the experienced ones. Everyone wants to be useful and like an that includes Ts. These may very well be the ones who do harm- so eager to please at first and then overwhelmed when they get in over their heads. I think it means bad therapy can harm people, and that's an important difference. I remember in looking for a couples T, my pdoc gave me some referrals but still said to be careful. He said bad therapy is much worse than no therapy. Coming from someone in the field I took that very much to heart and do still agree. Its something not enough therapists spend time thinking about because their egos are too big - "Am I helping this person?" No one knows the answer to this better than their clients.

I think the experienced ones need to worry about it too.

I don't know the stats on this (would be great if someone could get this data), but what I do know is that people get harmed in therapy way more often to dismiss those occurences as occasional cases of some "bad apples". Harm in therapy is common enough to recognize it as a systemic problem or a series of systemic problems that calls for a big systemic reform.

It sounds quite heartbreaking to me. This is even worse than hearing things from a T, the fact that she approached you physically. Of course she should have thought about the modality before she offered you this kind of comfort, sitting with you when you cried and so on. As you say your T went through a rough time perhaps she in some odd way got some comfort back from you and then she realised she had come to near and that she had gone beyond boundaries.

I think it´s strong you keep up the work with this T.

Thanks. I see her twice a week and am trying to move past this, I think she's worth it. It was very heartbreaking though, and I agree...she should have thought about it. Offering something (for four months!) and abruptly taking it away without discussion or any notification was damaging. Very much so. She was going through some rough times with her daughter at the time...so what you say makes sense. Perhaps she was benefiting just as much as I was. There have been a few times since, I've really wanted that from her. Today was one of those days. Wishing for it only makes it feel worse...

Have to agree with Divine1966...therapists will foster transference in the interest of maintaining their own income stream. they have so much power and the consumer is vulnerable, by definition. It's a problem that stems from our fee for service model of health care. Who gets incentivized to get patients well and keep them out of the therapist's chair? No one. The self paying patient is like the goose that lays the golden egg every week. Keep that baby alive and keep it comin'.

True but I suspect this incentive to keep clients dependent may exist more in solo practices than in private group practices or hospitals. In settings like this there are always new clients coming in so the temptation to keep clients longer than necessary is probably not as strong.

Could be. I've never had a therapist try to keep me dependent. They've all had plenty of clients waiting in the wings so perhaps they weren't desperate to keep me. But really, my therapists were all about helping me reach a point where I was healthy and able to move on with my life.

It depends upon insurance also - I have seen hospitals release my clients without insurance a lot quicker than those who have it.

Bingo. Nothing will change until this economic incentive stays in place. Everything is based upon the economy. That's why I don't understand people who discuss mental health care system outside of the bigger politico-economic system and who are disengaged from what's going on in the world because they are "not interested in politics", as if politics and economy don't affect them somehow. They affect every single aspect of our everyday life. For example, if this outrageous trade agreement (TPP) comes into effect in September, then all those issues we discuss here will eventually be irrelevant as the whole mental health and health in general will only be about drugs and drugging people - the more the better as it increases the Pharma's bottom line. This is just one tiny example of how our life as we know it could come to an end, thanks to the banksters and multi-national corporations. I don't mean to get political here but to discuss psychotherapy as if it had nothing to do with the larger politico-economic structures it is a part of and to think it could change without larger politico-economic changes is ignorant. On a positive note, more and more people in the country and around the world are waking up. But this is a very slow process and, I believe, a few decades will pass before we will see meaningful changes in the MH system. For a long time the larger structures will have to go through transformations first. At this point, mental health is not on the priority list for large masses of people let alone talk therapy. Forget therapy issues. Millions of people are just trying to make ends meet.

This might not be a popular opinion, but as someone who once thought therapy sucked the proverbial balls, I do have to say that the client has a HUGE role in how good therapy is or isn't, especially at the point of therapist selection.

There are plenty of ineffective, or outright damaging therapists out there. Which is sad. And unacceptable. But what's more sad and, in my view, more unacceptable, is that people keep seeing them, keep paying them, and even when they know that they are not only not getting their money's worth from sessions, but are actively being harmed, they keep going.

If you had a favorite restaurant which gave you food poisoning every time you went, would you keep going just because it's your favorite? I hope not. I get that attachment is a thing, but at some point you have to be real with yourself and think, hmmm, if I am this attached to a trainwreck of a therapist, imagine how things could be with a good therapist.

I railed against therapy for ages, but then I realized that ultimately, it was my job to make sure I had a therapist I liked and who helped me. And now I do. My therapist is stable, consistent and insightful and I'm happy to be working with him. To be fair, I wasn't overly attached to my previous therapist, but that's because I personally don't find incompetence something particularly admirable, which made it easy to leave.

I'm not saying therapists don't do ****ed up things, or that they aren't often to blame. But the old adage, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me holds true here. You have to stand up for yourself and you have to find someone who can give you what you need.

Countless threads on this board, I would even say, the majority of threads on this board, are from people seeing therapists they are clearly not suited to, and are sometimes even being hurt by, and yet, keep seeing.

If therapy isn't working, it's probably because you are with the wrong therapist. If you choose to keep throwing money, time, and energy into that pit, then that's on you. But it doesn't necessarily reflect how effective therapy can be when done with a decent practitioner.

In fact, it's actually really sad to see how much time, how much money, and how much energy is being put into ******, destructive therapy, when it could be going into something actually constructive.

But at the end of the day, that's a choice everyone has to make for themselves.

Hey Meow, I agree with some of what you're saying about client responsibility, being an effective consumer of mental health services, and retaining the "right" therapist. But we are talking about consumers with mental health problems. Some of us have had horrific life experiences. The therapeutic relationship makes us perfectly vulnerable to Ts who have economic interests that diverge from our economic interests. The T might not be consciously conniving or scheming, but unknowingly strings out sessions and fosters dependency to keep their revenue stream. And Lauliza is right about the private practitioner. That person is especially motivated to hold onto clients. Not just for monetary reasons but because of comfort and familiarity.

Phone acting out

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