Can't get over feeling demeaned in therapy

Me! I can relate to this feeling-I've experienced it at times through my years of treatment; I have concluded that one reason may be the abnormality of relationships somewhere else in life. It's kinda like the guy who loves his wife, yet pays a prostitute for an ailing area of the marriage he can not communicate about. (Sorry if the analogy is a little lame) I don't know if that's the specific case for you, but alienation from mainstream society, or damage in core relationships (parent/child, siblings, spouse), can reak havoc with well being and basic belonging. It's humiliating to admit this to a therapist, due to the fact that they are a clinician-not really a friend or family member. In reality, they are a stranger you may be discussing intimate details about your personality with; thank God for HIPAA, right?

I found real healing within a local church family; I wish you well, and am strongly impressed that it is your spirit which needs some TLC

Looking at therapy against the simple yardstick of our ordinary social responses and conditioning, I think it normal that a relationship can make us feel like the inferior. The therapist often makes all the rules and doesn't always tell us the rules until we smack against them. The therapists draws a limit to relationship with attention and intimacy beamed at us for an hour, then time is up, and we're ejected. We sometimes don't even learn how the treatment works, or how we know when treatment is successful, even when we ask. Usually we're identified exclusively as the one with detects, problems and anxiety while the therapist plays the role of the masterful, motionless figure.

I certainly wouldn't want a friend or lover who treated me like a therapist. Core wounds and our responses to this highly staged relationship are two separately moving parts.

I think it is a demeaning relationship. I think it is set up to be.

I wonder if all service relationships have this element to them. How do you feel about your hairstylist, your manicurist, your dentist?

At least those other guys are clear about what they do and you know whether it is done or not.

I would suspect that no relationship in life is purely equal, but that rather, relative power in relationships is continually in flux. When we do encounter in life a relationship that is intentionally demeaning, a healthy response is to disengage. And while a client/T relationship may "feel" demeaning (this was not my experience), that does not equate necessarily with a reality that it "is" demeaning. The client is usually participating freely and can choose to leave at any time and that is tangible power.

Yeahbut the question was, how does the client FEEEEEL? i was asking the question because if a person feels the same way towards those servicers, it may lead to an insight. I wanted to be clear about what i was doing there.

The dentist, the hairdresser and manicurist assist us with something tangible. We know the task, how it progresses and when the task is completed. The teacher imparts concrete knowledge or a perceptible skill. The service, the delivery is something far more objective and defined.

I find these interactions in distinct contrast to what I imagined or was convinced happened in psychotherapy. My hairdresser doesn't pretend to understand me, solve my problems, have any life mastery or that I have any accountability to him beyond payment. He only presents himself as knowing how to cut hair.

Well, i felt like my dental hygienists were inhuman, until they made a couple of recommendations that i was actually able to use: one was to floss while im watching tv, the other was to make a first loop around my "driving" fingers, then a second loop around my index or pointer fingers to control the floss better. But before that, i could not relate to them at all. Im not asking what THEY do, im asking how YOU feel towards them.

ManofConstantSorrow, jo thorne, JaneTennsison1: Yes I did tell T that I knew about the things he was telling me. It wasn't a big deal. But the more I learn the more frequently it is happening, and I wonder if their expertise is worth what I am paying them. And any hint of presumption that I would not know what they are telling me makes it feel like instruction, and then I just want out.

True my assumption of presumption (ha) could be tripping me up. But I trust my gut and my gut is saying watch out. In fact our initial contact via email triggered concern in me but I went to see him anyway. Frustrated with myself that I blew through this warning sign, and frustrated even more with doing the needle-in-a-haystack search for that elusive good therapist.

Joining in the pretense, yea that is not good. I think its cuz I don't feel a connection with the guy so I can't work up the energy to be real.

Yes everyone tells me things I already know, but I ain't paying them USD$150/hr.

Well said. I have noticed these sorts of things in therapy also. Furniture… I have noticed quite frequently Ts will sit in a position that is physically higher, and will be looking down at you slightly. It really makes a difference. One guy had me sit in a chair that was identical to his, and I felt tangibly more at ease.

A striking example of this -- I had a hearing before a judge for a disability claim. He sat very high up, and I sat directly in front of him, much lower. I felt like a little insect.

And the body language, tone of voice, etc makes a huge impact.

I've had this feeling in my therapy session the other day so I think I can relate. I've had a lot of experience in therapy and I'm in school for it too, so when someone makes simplistic observations it feels like an insult to my intelligence- as if I didn't already think of that before mentioning it here??

I think to addressing it in session is a good way to handle it and I think a good t would appreciate the feedback.

For every group of two or more we see having lunch, I'd wager there's a social hierarchy. It's established through everything from tone of voice, word choice, sentence structure, who gives the orders, who sets the pace, who makes the decisions, who gives the interpretations or summarizes the narrative, who pretends to have answers, who labels who, who fault finds or criticizes, who acts parental, who interrupts, who stands firm, who controls the space, who defers, who keeps who waiting, who "mentors" (or pretends to). These signals often are very subtle.

I'm in a group with a therapist--not mine. She's a queen bee right out of junior high. She's given me...cough...life lessons, as if she's actually qualified to offer them.

[QUOTE=BudFox;4638161]Well said. I have noticed these sorts of things in therapy also. Furniture… I have noticed quite frequently Ts will sit in a position that is physically higher, and will be looking down at you slightly. It really makes a difference. One guy had me sit in a chair that was identical to his, and I felt tangibly more at ease.
/QUOTE]

I interviewed one who had their chair distinctly higher than mine. I did not go back to that one.

Is it the presumption of thinking you don't know?

Or is the the feeling of being instructed?

I am not clear why a presumption would be so unacceptable - it is a fact of life that your T cannot know what you know or think, so you sort of have to tell them rather than react.

On the matter of instruction - is it really an instruction, I would suggest not as such, but clearly you think it is. Is there any way you can regard it as a suggestion that you can follow or not as you see fit?

I have a hard time with therapy. I just notice stuff.
Like I come in and the office smells like chicken soup. (to help with the anorexics) Or the therapist will dress a center way (and even told me she can't wear a short skirt around certain clients) Or the receptionist asks me about the music in the office. ( that the doc wants classical but that she changes it to rock.)

The whole thing feel like a big manipulation in my opinion.

In my opinion, a socially savvy person has some idea if he's being presumptuous or condescending. I'd expect a therapist to have those social skills. And too, "talking down" has an insecurity/superbity component that I'd hope a self-aware therapist recognizes. He needs the skill to mentor without patronizing.

Though I think a client should speak up when he feels patronized, it's not the client's role to train his therapist. Nor is it the client's role to make the therapist a self-aware human being.

Maybe compare the therapist to a car mechanic. That's more mysterious than therapy to me.


"This is gonna require a major commitment from you."

Oh yes, alienation from society, damage in core relationships... it's all in there. I am an absolute mess. So sure, I am prone to feeling demeaned or lesser regardless of what the other person is up to. But that doesn't mean that therapy in general and this therapist in particular are not contributing to the feeling.

You're right it can be humiliating to divulge painful stuff to a total stranger (talk about "abnormality of relationships"). And anything that is humiliating or demeaning, especially when one person has much of the power and control, can start to feel like abuse and that might not be healthy.

And speaking of damage in core relationships, the only significant therapy relationship I ever had resulted in major carnage. The humiliation was shattering. So I feel a growing sense of being exploited by the system, which itself is demeaning. Each T getting paid to sort out the harm from previous Ts.

That sounds like something a T would say. If it feels demeaning to me subjectively, then it is. I think therapy trains us to dismiss our own responses in favor of what T thinks or what theory preaches.

It's the presumption and the feeling of being instructed. And the problem is when it appears to be their default mode.

With some Ts I get the feeling that they just have to be the expert always, and will constantly seek to reassert that.

I do think i can discern suggestion from instruction. It's all about how the message is delivered, as Misbella pointed out. And if it feels like instruction, then for me it's game over.

If you feel demeaned, it might help to mention this to the therapist.

But if your therapist treats this solely as your problem and keeps demeaning you, you might want to get a better therapist.

Your feelings are real, no one is saying otherwise. But using subjective feelings as a sole barometer of objective reality doesn't give a complete picture because of what projection is. If we don't try to assess what is our psychology and what is outside of ourselves, then no self change happens. My therapy certainly was not about dismissing my responses, but rather about removing past influences that were keeping me from seeing myself, others, and life as it is.

The word projection strikes me as high-toned jargon for saying, "there, there, dear, you're imagining it." (OK, I know there are deeper meanings, but that's what I think when I hear the accusation.)

I found the therapy hour, with its asymmetry, strictures and organization, foundationally demeaning as human interaction. Obviously most at PC don't! A few authors though actually agree with me. I find witnesses have varied responses and interpretations of events and controversies they actually see. On this forum, we haven't witnessed anything and barely know to whom we're speaking.

I discussed the subtle signals in establishing social hierarchy because I think ranking and denigration can happen in subtle ways. Again, everyone has pasts and responses, AND therapists can behave in manners enforcing their (illusory) superiority. The two are independently moving parts.

The therapist I'm forced to interact with occasionally non-professionally is a real Queen Bee. She behaves like a girl out of a mean girl movie.