Signs of a bad therapist

I don't think you should agree with me and didn't say anything implying you shouldn't have an opinion. I think I said everyone has their own style and preference for therapy and that no one can say what is right or wrong for someone else. Saying someone else's therapy is wrong in absolutes or that one doesn't understand the point of their own therapy may well be your opinion- but the way in which expressed isn't very nice and is not like the exchange describe in tbe previous post.

(sorry I didn't catch the edit so I'm just going to leave my reply like this, I do genuinely appreciate your consideration though)


You don't think it's nice, but actually, it's by far the nicest thing I can do, because this way my words and actions mean exactly what I say they mean, and they will continue to mean that in the future, and I am willing to say what I think and what my intentions are, so you may not trust me, but for people who do trust me, at least they won't end up being betrayed down the road just because I changed my mind, because I was concealing my opinions to try to be nice.

A handful of therapists have paved my path to hell with good intentions, and fortunately I found my way out, but you know, eventually you realize that when people are just trying to be nice, and they are afraid of all the ways the sky might fall if they say what they really think, in the long run their words are hollow and you'll regret having trusted them. Nuh uh. Don't like it? Don't read it. I'd certainly rather spend my time writing replies to people that actually want to hear what I have to say, so for my sake and for yours, I'm not going to sit here saying whatever you want to hear.

And as an aside--if people don't want me to give my opinion of the way their therapy is conducted, then I would assume they wouldn't go to the trouble of telling me the way their therapy is conducted after I posted a list of my opinions. I have opinions of the way therapy should be conducted, and I'm happy to apply my opinions to specific examples if people choose to present those examples to me.

You are misunderstanding me because I'm not saying anyone should hide their feelings. Saying that a certain type of therapy is not for you is pretty honest and very clear. Implying someone doesn't understand what therapy is or doesn't know what they need is quite different. If you are not the person involved, or f you don't know the person well, then it's likely you don't know what they need or if their therapy is being conducted in the "right" way (whatever that is). The only thing you and other people in therapy know is what works for you.

Per the other current anti-t thread's list of steps, it went from dependence and infantilization to something else that was NOT therapy. There has to be a safe space created there at that point. Even tho there is dependence, there should be trust between "equals".

Your T clearly means well but in this example, she's encouraging you to acquiesce to her own analysis rather than giving you the space to identify independently for yourself why you have this belief in the first place, what the unconscious motive is.

Actually, this is harmful because she's setting herself up as the good parent that can fix the past. She's rewarding you for testing her with your negative beliefs by proving that she is willing to correct them. This creates dependency because it doesn't change the underlying beliefs, it just meets them in a different way (self-effacement to earn T's affection vs. starving to earn mother's affection)

And then if therapy comes to an unforeseen end, it would end up feeling like maternal abandonment as T has taken responsibility for your dependency needs.

But the T and C are never equals. That's a core part of the problem. The whole enterprise depends on the presence of a hierarchy. If the T is revealed to be just as screwed up as the C, then the process would grind to a halt. When I have tried to assert myself with a T, by necessity they usually attempted to "right the ship".

As for trust, I don't see how genuine trust can exist when one person has the job of revealing as little of themselves as possible. Most T's I have been to are inscrutable and opaque. They were a professional mask, whereas I am expected to reveal all.

I did feel relative safety. But because my T was not being herself, the safety was an illusion.

Protecting a client's life is one thing, but when a therapist is genuinely ethical from day one, therapy doesn't drive a client to increasingly harmful behaviors in the first place.

It is not and cannot be a therapist's job to protect (an adult) client from themselves. If a client already wants to die, or starve, or whatever, that doesn't suddenly become the burden of the client's therapist as soon as the client steps foot in their office for the very first time. A legal burden to report, maybe, but not the actual burden of the client's life. It's an unreasonable burden and it's unreasonable for a T to act like they can bear that responsibility--they can't, they aren't god, they aren't the client's parent, it's simply unrealistic, but to the extent that Ts do try to become responsible, they badly damage their clients by creating unhealthy dependencies on a professional who simply cannot and should not have to promise to be there for the long haul. It's a promise that's well intentioned but completely unreliable and irresponsible and comes from forging a half-hearted enmeshment, an identification with the client's transferences instead of offering insight into them.

What I'm saying is this whole dependency principle is wrong and it creates a cycle of abusive therapy and therapy-dependent victims of therapy. A therapist should NOT be in a position of implicit trust or authority, they cannot be accountable for the client's behavior, they cannot guarantee the effectiveness or soundness of their advice, and they should never identify as being able to.

You may think it's appropriate to intervene in this way, but then what happens is the therapist creates the precedent and expectation in the client for the therapist's intervention, the projections of the transference become an actual reality, the client becomes dependent, the therapy is terminated unexpectedly, and suddenly the client is alone with all the life-threatening behaviors, plus has now been abandoned by the person that misguidedly became responsible for their emotional stability.

If a client genuinely wants to harm themselves, they will do it, but if they start to believe that their own wellbeing is a thread they can pull on to regulate the behavior of the therapist, then they ultimately will do it even more and more severely when the therapist can no longer meet the client's needs.

It's difficult enough to work with a vulnerable population, but it's far worse to exploit them by fostering further vulnerability. Not only is it harmful in its own right but it's completely unnecessary and severely hinders or prolongs the actual aims of the treatment.

Youre right, the safety IS an illusion. A t is like being on a respirator after surgery until you can breathe on your own again. A parent isnt really all-powerful, it just seems that way to the infant. Thats why i put "equals" in quotes. I mean you stay in your recognized roles, according yo recognized rules. .

If a therapist asked me if I trusted them to do their job - I would say no I do not. I don't trust them because they can't explain what they do and why.

Actually I think it does matter. Otherwise then therapy is just an expensive placebo - which may not be untrue but is certainly dishonest in how those guys present themselves in my opinion.

It also matters if it all boils down to no more than a mirage-- a pretty little collusion.