FRAUDian Therapy ?

I think psychotherapy is the biggest fraud of the 20th century.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

What about the 21st century?

And how does that make you feel???

I'm sensing a lot of anger...

You can only get out of it what you put into it.

If only you'd added "Discuss" at the end of your post, it would have made a great exam essay question in an psych or ethics course.

Did you want to elaborate and say what's going on?

ETA: Oh, and I love the pun.

I hear you saying that it's not of value and I want you to know it's perfectly normal to feel that way.

How does this make you feel about your mother?

People raise the 'fraud' in therapy all the time. I'm actually starting to think it's a valid and observable stage in therapy itself to think/fear therapy is a fraud, so more power to people who want to rant about it, but let's not pretend they just discovered fire.

Let's face it, if you genuinely think something is a waste of money and have no interest in it, then you don't join a forum about it and post about how stupid it is over and over again. You just don't do that thing. There's a lot of stuff in my life that I don't do. By the same token, there are a lot of people who do those things and that's no problem.

For instance, I'm not on an astrology forum right now telling everyone how I think star signs are rubbish. I'm not on a Hinduism site telling people I think cows suck. I haven't joined Christian Mingle to extol the virtues of atheism.

Like I said, I don't actually have a problem with people bashing therapy, I think most people do it at some stage, it's just a little funny how every few months new people join PC and act like they're the first people to ever be frustrated with therapy and think it's a scam.

I was one of those people not that long ago, which makes it even funnier, IMO.

Anyway, carry on.

I can understand how being harmed by therapy would cause someone to come here. It's devastating and lonely and there's no way to talk about it with people in real life.

And it's sad how the people who are in therapy supposedly getting "healthier" bash, belittle, mock, and make fun of them. But it doesn't really surprise me anymore.

I took it as frustration - not thinking they were the first to discover it can be fraudulent and some therapists are charlatans, therapists are often claiming the forms they don't practice are hokey, and so on. I understand wanting to discuss it here. Among reasons (and I am not claiming these are the reasons for OP nor am I claiming this is an exhaustive list) wanting to be reassured it is not a fraud, wanting to express frustration with it not working, wanting to help those who may be blaming themselves rather than therapy or therapists for it not working, simple discussion of the topic, etc.

I think there's a lot of confusion about what therapy actually is and what it can really do for you. There are a lot of bad therapists and when you've had an experience with one I can understand the need to vent. Therapy isn't something people talk about that openly so PC is a great place to speak openly with people with similar experiences. Or, you may find some people with some real positive information to share, may might give some people hope.

I'm sorry - cows suck?? i needed that, thanks!!

Hey...cows are killers!

That's why I first came here.

Maybe it's time to create a subforum for people who need support recovering from bad therapy. It seems to me a little odd to have 'therapy sucks and is evil' posts mixed in with all the 'general discussion of therapy' posts. There's a separate subforum for erotic transference, and there aren't nearly as many erotic transference posts as there are 'therapy maimed me' ones.

Then people who want to (validly) rage against therapy can do so in a safe place, and people who want to discuss their therapy in a more positive fashion aren't swimming against a tide of these posts all the time. It's almost 50:50 at this point.

I agree there is a lot of confusion and I think therapists need to be a whole lot clearer about what it is they or it can do and how. But there are a lot of therapists out there as well as bloggers and people just generally talk about how it is that therapy will make your life better but with no specific what it is that would constitute better, how it works, and so on. Plus there is the whole how things get worse before they get better arguments that therapists state and clients repeat -with no clear way of determining whether this worse is the good kind of worse or the kind of worse that means therapy is not working.

There is a separate forum: clients betrayed by their T. From what I heard, there was an uproar by the members here to create it.

I had a bad experience with my ex-T. She abandoned me 7 months ago. This forum, the psychotherapy forum, helped me immensely. Most of the time I was depressed, but the members here encouraged me to express my anger. I probably wouldn't have progressed to this point w/o the forums. My current T's priority was my history. We still don't talk about ex-T. So I got most my support from people here and my fiance. I did have a few other sources for support too, but it wasn't constant nor directly about ex-T.

Idk. The title is psychotherapy not positive psychotherapy. There's no positive BPD stories subforum. Nor for really any of the other forums. And sometimes the people who aren't going through the pain are the ones who can help the most. I had 3 or 4 people here who were supportive, but also pushed me to progress.

There are some who rage. But do you know their story? It's really sad reading the stories. You understand why they hurt so much. Why they reject this profession now. I was hurt too. I could have gone down a similar path and abandoned the idea of therapy being helpful. I chose to push myself to go back to therapy. It has not been easy. My T is nowhere close to my ideal T. And I still carry pain and fear for the professionals because of ex-T.

I just think seeing both sides of the story is helpful.

It's legitimate to discuss how therapy harmed you. But I'm sorry, if someone just pops in and says "this sucks" you're going to get sarcastic responses.

Why? The opinion that "therapy sucks and is evil" is PART of a general discussion of therapy. So are the erotic transference issues -- frankly, I don't think THAT ought to be a subforum.

Well, some people might respond sarcastically, while others might respond with compassion, or empathy, or agreement. I don't think "therapy sucks" comments are any more likely than any other kind of post to prompt unanimity of response.

I don't recall sarcasm when someone expresses her awestruck worship, unrequited pining, erotic fantasies, angst-filled separation anxiety or fraught abandonment fears. But be harmed by a therapist, need to vent, risk derision and fury here.

I didn't say that ALL the responses would be sarcastic ones did I?

Really? I've seen a few. In fact I've seen plenty posts painting all therapists/ service workers with the same brush even though some such service workers are ALSO people who come on here looking for mental health support. I'm the last person to defend a bad therapist/ bad doctor. But to deride all people in the profession...as charlatans, crooks, etc, I've seen this here and it's not helpful either.