Therapists do more harm than good

And then of course there is interpretation bias - your take on it versus mine for example.

Right, because we're not using the scientific method.

100% agree. Am surprised it is the same in law!

Continuing education requirements for educators are designed to provide income to regional agencies and the state. It is total nonsense. I am dating RN, he has to renew his license every two years and classes he takes aren't contributing to his improvement whatsoever. They are irrelevant and a waste of time and he can do them in his sleep.

If it is all dumb waste in education and medicine and law then it's got to be the same nonsense for therapists! They do same old same old a year after year!!



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I don't think that is the difference - two sets of scientists can interpret data the same way.
Hence studies that interpret 1 male to several females animals as the male being in charge versus the interpretation that the females simply have no use for a lot of males because the male is simply needed to provide sperm and one of them is enough.

True, but the above quotes from insiders are suggesting that such a generalization is appropriate. Here's a few more:

“DSM-IV is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than scientific document…DSM-IV has become a bible and a money making bestseller—its major failings notwithstanding.”
—Loren Mosher, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry

“We can manufacture enough diagnostic labels of normal variability of mood and thought that we can continually supply medication to you…But when it comes to manufacturing disease, nobody does it like psychiatry.” —Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, Harvard trained Pennsylvania psychiatrist, 2004

“I believe, until the public and psychiatry itself see that DSM labels are not only useless as medical ‘diagnoses’ but also have the potential to do great harm—particularly when they are used as means to deny individual freedoms, or as weapons by psychiatrists acting as hired guns for the legal system.” —Dr. Sydney Walker III, psychiatrist

I wouldn't probably be interested in their interpretations, but in their findings.

I do not have the same faith it appears you do that findings are separable from interpretation. Or that findings matter or even can exist in a sense without the accompanying interpretation. Once one has findings, one puts them into some sort of interpretation.

You know that we could go on a quote war, but I don't think it would be helpful.... you post a page of quotes, I post a page of quotes.....

I think the DSM, like many things, has elements of blessing and bane. I understand those who point out its failings. It has failings. And strengths. I believe in those who believe(d) that naming things can have healing properties, and created a system to help us with common illnesses.

And I personally enjoy it and find parts of it helpful. I don't expect any group would agree with everything in such a massive tome- how would that even be possible? Yet the majority employs it, showing that it is found to be helpful enough despite its imperfections.

It's not faith, it's an observation that the two are separate. I do see how they can be blurred, part of ensuring they aren't during the research process goes back to doing the study scientifically.

We are not going to agree because I do not see it as being even possible to be as pure as you present it. Let alone probable.

I wasn't planning on us agreeing.

I guess he would have more knowledge than most as to what goes into the sausage making of that tome. Thanks for sharing.

But according to Allen, the versions in which he had more control, DSM-III and IV were acceptable at the time, so he wouldn't throw out much of the past content, just parts of the latest edition it seems and the push for quick medication-related diagnoses of the "worried well." Does that change your argument at all? Or is the fact that he was so okay with content of the book's prior editions that he had that managing influence on its publication matter?

http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/conte...3/s3763502.htm

My sticking point is not flaws in the system, or that the flaws are serious, it's that therapy does more harm than good for the majority who use it. I haven't yet seen any evidence of that.

But about psychiatry, the man you quote, Francis Allen says:

"I very much support the diagnostic system and I'm a great believer in psychiatry. I've seen tens of thousands of patients who've benefited from psychiatric treatment. I'm worried about it extending itself too thin beyond its area of competence. Careful diagnosis and careful treatment saves lives and dramatically improves them. What I'm worried about is excessive diagnosis and excessive treatment for the worried well. The worst thing that could come from this is if people lose faith in psychiatry, stop their medicine, get sick and maybe even kill themselves. So people should not lose faith in psychiatry. It's a lot better than DSM V."

Many people that seek theray have been starved and deprived of a figure of authority that listened to them, showed interest in them, paid attention to them and showed a caring, if not loving, stance.
So, off we go to therapy and OMG, there IS someone who does many, if not alll, of those things.
How alluring. How addictive. This person is all about ME. What every young child needs and wants and here they are (albeit they're getting paid).
For many people, a therapist is giving them what they have missed their entire lives!
Not so easy to walk away from, even if the therapist sucks.
Just saying.

There is also the matter of the attachment bond and the possibility that a client may try to preserve this even in the face of wrongdoing or incompetence. I found this terribly conflicting. Even now when someone begins to criticize my ex T, based on what i have reported, I can't decide if I should join in or defend her. In the past I would never have understood how unmet attachment needs from childhood, once activated in therapy, could affect one so powerfully.

Nothing in this thread makes me change my mind about therapy. In fact I feel more sure than ever that therapy does more harm than good.

I've mostly had either useless or harmful therapists, except for the one I see now and one other. It took me a long time to figure out for myself what to look for and expect. I think I've got that now with my current therapist, but I think it has a lot to do with my own clarity about what I need and finding someone I work well with, and where there's mutual respect.

In the past, I was led to believe I was the problem. The therapist I see now has helped me see where that's not true.

I feel badly for anyone who's been hurt by a therapist. It's devastating.

This 100%. Like a lock and a key. The attachment bond can be quite fierce. And that is a primary reason why some simply can not walk away from bad therapy.

This md guy is more therapy than drugs - interesting considering this topic I thought:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...ts-big-profits

OMG!! How terrible! She sounds like one arrogant T. I'm so sorry you had to go through such a horror. Obviously, she was in the wrong. Didn't she get that??

I can't say anything about the other quotes you posted, but Francis Allen doesn't oppose the DSM itself or of the diagnosing of mental illness. He specifically takes issue with the DSM V and the over diagnosis of mental disorders. He feels that the newest version breaks mental illness down into too many subcategories that, quite frankly, become ridiculous and overwhelming. He seems to think it almost trivializes mental illness, which if used the wrong way, probably does.

To the DSM subject, I like this video of Dr. Terry Lynch where he explains what fundamental fraud of psychiatry is based on
He has other good videos on the subject. Those who are interested can google him. He also wrote a couple of great books: "Beyond Prozac" and "Selfhood".

Dr. Gabor Mate is another psychiatrist who doesn't speak psychobabble, exposes lies and misinformation of psychiatry. He has so many amazing videos with his talks and presentations that I can't list them all here. Just google him and you'll find plenty.

Seems like he is talking out of both sides of his mouth. I wonder about the timing of these quotes, and what is most recent. His incriminating comments seem more notable since it is far more risky to say those things. For the main author of DSM-IV to publicly say "there is no definition of a mental disorder. It's bulls**t. I mean, you just can't define it"… that seems very telling.

Anyway Allen is just one guy. There are so many others of note saying that psychiatry is mostly insane and corrupt and driven by drug company profiteering.

BTW, we are on a major tangent here...

I can relate to this because although I was badly hurt by my former T, I´ve now and then thought about contacting her and ask her if we could try to start therapy again.

Sometimes it feels like things could be solved but my thoughts about it always ends up in what negative things she said and did and I put my thoughts aside about contacting her again.

Another example of a T who did more harm than good is one of the T:s I saw in evaluation. It was just a few weeks ago and just before she went on a rather long holiday she after only two sessions told me I should do a psychiatric evaluation. She talked about different neuropsychiatric diagnoses and I have never before met anyone that thought I have a diagnosis, noone in school, no therapist.

Then she just left me with that! She went on her holiday, I can´t contact her and she of course knows I don´t have another T to talk to while she´s on holiday. I also think it´s very unproffessional to meet with a client for just two times and stir up a lot of thoughts about diagnoses. She isn´t within the psychiatry and she hasn´t worked their earlier on.

Of course she should have waited until she was available again after her holiday and we could then meet up and talk through things.

The quotes were nearly simultaneous- I posted one of the interviews so you can see the timing, indeed the quote I posted was basically *in response* to questions about his earlier quote. So no, the more negative quote is *not* the more recent.

I don't think it's a tangent- you said basically- so and so agrees with me, here's an expert who corroborates my opinion about psychiatry being awful- and so I'm showing that that's not correct. I think it's quite on point, the point of the title of this thread- that therapy does more harm than good, but dismissing facts and evidence to the contrary as invalid without any credible or substantiated defense.

I do see people are hurt by bad therapy, sometimes enough that they leave in worse mental health than when they started. And I've seen evidence of it. But I don't see that in the majority of cases is all.

I'm sorry for those who dealt with incompetent, unprofessional, hurtful, manipulative, or otherwise just... terrible therapists and pyschiatrists and bad meds.

I don't think this is a perfect science or all science or that it's harmless- where there's power to do good, is power to do harm.

But I do want to be fair about discussing it when we have a thread that isn't "I was abused in therapy" or "My bad therapy really hurt me" but "Therapy does more harm than good" in general.