searching for a new T following bad therapy

Quote Argonautomobile: "I think you mentioned that life advice possibly makes more sense if the client is relatively young and the T a generation older, and maybe that’s where my blind spot is—that I AM relatively young and my T the next generation up. I’m pretty accustomed to relationships where I am in a position to be instructed by the other person."

I was in my early 50's, and the therapist in her early 60's; I was far from being blind. The therapist was giving her best professional suggestions, and it was up to me to accept or reject, and learn how to deal with my feelings if they did not sit well with me. The therapist was always willing to explore those feelings as long as I needed, and I was never forced to match my feelings with hers. This was a big part of my healing process, and had implications on other forward movements in my current life.

Maybe this is the secret right here--having a T who will explore the client's response to suggestions and not force the issue, assert their dominance or 'rightness,' that sort of thing.

I suppose for advice in therapy to be helpful the client has to feel comfortable bringing those responses to the table in the first place. And, for some people, the nature of therapy might discourage that--if the therapist is the "expert," then why question his/her advice?

I know I've held my tongue before (Because he's the expert; he must be right) and that could have burned me badly if T were unethical or incompetent with his suggestions.

I'm glad your T's professional suggestions and everything surrounding them worked for you! It's an interesting topic.

I don't like advice generally. Giving or receiving. To me it implies the giver has answers or insights the receiver lacks. In therapy it seems almost a requirement that the T must instruct the client how to live. This creeps me out to no end. Why not have the client advise the T? The intention might be good and if done the right way, does not have to cause offense. But why does someone need a person in authority to tell them what they already know? Not trying to be a wise *****, this is just my perspective.

That does make a bit more sense to me. The mentor thing.

I do realize that another person can have greater objectivity about one's issues. But yea I do think life advice is inherently condescending and creepy to a degree. I guess it depends o the situation, but in therapy it seems extra creepy. I find it to be an autonomy killer and a dependency generator. I guess I figure people need support and connection rather than advice.

I think you are addressing me... I have not looked into psychodrama. I am in no condition for anything involving a group right now. Serious fatigue and a badly damaged nervous system. I will consider it as a possibility for the future though. Thanks.

For me, at certain moments in my life it was hard to see the forest from the trees.

I was. Sorry I did not make that clear. I was probably mistaken who was going to look into it. I too, suffered from fatigue and periheral neuropathy from head to to toe for decades, so I hear you in not being in condition to do things. For me psychodrama allowed me to be a part of the audience (other group members), which is a vital part of the process for the protagonist and everyone in the group. Also, the pain and physical ills that I let sideline me have abated tremendously, and now allow me to do most anything. The medical doctors had me blind and in a wheelchair within a few years, and mental health professionals counted me out decades ago. I beat their odds.

Your time will come. Good luck to you.

Thanks for this. I appreciate hearing your POV and think I have a greater appreciation for the difficulty you're facing here. I think support and connection are often more useful than advice, and therapy shouldn't become all about receiving advice (since, comparisons aside, a therapist is a therapist and not a teacher, parent, or mentor), but it's difficult for me to imagine what therapy would look like without some level of advising, instructing, telling the client what s/he already knows.

I also think it must take a lot of discipline on the therapist's part to refrain from offering advice. I think it's a pretty natural response to someone's pain--you want it to end, the solution seems clear, how can you not share what you think ought to be done? I know I have a lot of difficulty holding my tongue when I hear something I think is wildly off-base.

(Hello, people in line at the post office. Sorry to butt in, but I just wanted to point out that you can not, in fact, get HIV from a toilet seat, even if it is covered in pee. Urine is actually quite sterile and...etc. etc.)

Anyway, thanks a lot for your response. You're right that advice DOES imply the advisor has something the advisee does not (and I'd do well to keep that in mind!)

I find advice-giving a delicate transaction in any circumstance. (Googling "unwanted advice" shows strong advice against giving advice. However "solicited" advice can be just as tricky.)

I once was in a career transitions group that mandated only to offer opinions through accounts of our own struggles. It's the difference between saying "Boy, I need sunscreen on a day like today" and "Get on some sunscreen; you're asking for cancer!" It leaves the other person to decide if my situation applies.

I get quietly livid when I hear or read someone playing a therapist's role(or an imagined therapist's role) in a non-professional context. I see it as good intentions turning selfish, sanctimonious and presumptuous. I see someone else's life, creations and problems as her house, and I think it important to be a thoughtful, careful guest.

I also find it hard to imagine therapy without some level of advising. Seems natural. But then that is one reason why I no longer can visualize myself sitting across from a T and feeling good about it. I don't know what of value would be said or done. I can certainly see how the right person could have a few helpful suggestions or insights, but I don't see that as a basis for therapy. And finding the right person seems almost impossible, like searching for a best friend.

Like misbella, I learned more from bad therapy than any other therapy. And one thing I learned was just how easily I deferred to others. And how little I trusted myself. I guess that was the gift of therapy. However, I don't credit therapy for the gift, since I had to sort this out on my own.

ps: The famous psychoanalyst Ferenczi (contemporary or protege of Freud cant remember which) came up with something he called "mutual analysis" which was where client and T spent time both as analyst and analysand.

As someone wrote: "The patient is not always distressed or regressed, the analyst is occasionally impaired and needy. Patients are just as capable of accurate attunement as their analyst; analysts are just as capable of mistaken judgment as their patients. Ferenczi was more willing to openly state this than many others."

I think, in general, that therapy is based on the presumption that change is desired (or needed) on the part of the client. With that comes the view of the therapist as an "advisor". Not an infallible authority, just an advisor or even mentor. It's not a requirement, and this applies to some types of therapy more than others, but I think it's often that case. So when a client seeks out therapy without this desire or need, I think the purpose of therapy and the role of the T can get murky. I'm not saying an individual's reasons for going to therapy is right or wrong, just that the therapy process becomes much more clouded in mystery under certain circumstances. What exactly it is the therapist is doing, and how exactly they can be of help is very vague and open to interpretation. And the danger of anything being vague and open to interpretation is that everyone's interpretation is different. I really think this is where the use of smoke and mirrors occurs and the greatest harm can occur.

I completely disagree that it is anything close to a requirement that a T "instructs" a client how to live. In fact I think that most models of therapy point towards this being a prohibition. In five different rounds of therapy, between 18 and 50, none of my Ts has ever focused on anything other than helping me figure out what was right for me. No advice given as a routine manner, and I've asked at least one T not to give me advice, or told them I don't want any suggestions on how to fix it. It's up to the client to communicate what they need to the T. On the other hand, my current T asked when I was looking for a new accountant, do you want the name of mine? She's good. (I did not) I don't have any general problem with people offering me advice. If I don't want it I ignore it or ask them not to offer it.

I also disagree that a therapist is a person "in authority" to me. Not only have none of my Ts ever acted that way, but I as a client specifically reject the idea that someone I pay is my authority. I do understand that Ts, like doctors and lawyers and accountants and my kids' teachers have power in their setting, but unless I'm court ordered to T, it's my choice whether to engage them at all.

I understand that your perspective may be derived from your experience in therapy, but I think it is important to acknowledge that your experience does not mean that's the way therapy is. It was for you, I get that, and I don't have a problem with believing anyone who has had a negative experience. But all this cloaking that you claim therapy has, it doesn't. Your experience is your experience but that doesn't translate into some universal problem with therapy. The reality is complex-- therapy can be a good experience for some, not so much for others. A certain kind of therapy works for some people, not for others. And so on.

I like Ferenczi too but isnt he regarded somewhat as a black sheep? Wasnt he having sex with his patients or stg? My t always gives me the stinkeye when i mention him.

I find myself continually surprised by how many people don't see their T's as an "authority" of any kind and don't receive or want instruction/advice from them. I was stunned by how many people (thinking back to a thread about power in the therapeutic relationship) didn't feel there was a power disparity in the relationship, either.

Again, maybe it's my age (nearly 26) but I feel the world is absolutely overflowing with all the things I don't know, I feel a very keen desire to learn absolutely everything I can before I drop dead, and I'm hungry to absorb wisdom and information from other people, including my therapist.

In fact, I feel that most of my problems are the result of not knowing--not possessing information--and I really don't know why I'd continue to see my T if I didn't feel he knew things that I didn't.

Not knocking anyone else's desires or experiences--it's not like there's one right way to do therapy--I'm just surprised more people don't have the same sort of therapy experience I do.

It's interesting, though. I like reading about it.

I guess I've never felt like the advice-giving I've experienced in therapy was a matter of the therapist just dishing out advice and expecting me to just listen and accept it. What I experienced was always more of a conversation about various options that are available to me, weighing of pros and cons, discussion of how those various options felt to me, etc., and it was up to me to do with that discussion whatever I decided. It was more a matter of the therapist walking me through my own decision-making process, sort of helping me verbalize, clarify, and narrow down what was generally my own thinking to start with.

I believe he became estranged from Freud and therefore didn't get the recognition he should have. He believed more in the mutual relationship between therapist and patient and believed clients claims of abuse (which Freud did not).

I have never looked to the woman for advice or guidance on my life or how to be. The woman might have information on the subject of therapy due to her schooling, but nothing about me.

My perspective is also derived from having done a ton of reading on the subject, and from reading a lot of direct accounts from clients online, talking about harmful therapy. I am no expert, I know relatively little, but enough to see some of the big picture. And I do think there are some universal aspects of therapy that can be seen by studying it, and they are relevant to bring up, and in fact some of us find it helpful and even essential in recovering from bad therapy.

I agree with this. My T isn't an authority figure to me, nor does she dispense advice. She has actually said to me "My job is not to give advice," which is fine by me, because I"ve never directly asked for any. She supports me when I am feeling low, she points out when I seem to be slipping back into depression (because I have a hard time seeing it sometimes), she points out my negative coping mechanisms--but she doesn't ask me to stop them. We both know that they may not be the most helpful ways to deal with life, but if it is "working" for me now, she is fine with that. She throws out different ideas, and I can reject or accept them, and either way is ok with her.
For me, I don't see her as an authority figure (and i have with past T's), and I don't ask for advice. Sometimes she is directive, like "Velcro, go do X this weekend. You know it is good for you," because she knows depression and isolation are a strong pull for me, so it helps to hear her voice in my head, which she knows.

I do think there is a bit of a power disparity, but it is only in my head, and it lessens as time goes on. With my past T, I spent FIVE years convinced she hated me/was always one step away from "firing" me because she was so frustrated with my lack of progress. I still feel this a bit with my current T, but I am much more honest and actually tell her when I feel this way, and she is able to tell me that I am not frustrating or annoying, or she doesn't hate me, and that I am at where I am at and it is ok.

I get what you're saying, but that sounds like a life coach essentially. And, as in the case of a life coach, not clear what qualifies one to be in this role. Seems the premise is that therapists as a group or class have access to some higher level of wisdom and insight into life, either innately or through training, with the corollary premise being that clients who are struggling by default must lack this wisdom and insight. It all seems pretty dubious.

Seems that some schools of thought see the T as primarily pseudo-parental figure who will repair attachment wounds via a controlled attachment/disillusionment/autonomy process. Sounds good. Don't know if it works.

Not sure. I just admire his apparent honesty. I think he pissed off Freud and/or some others with his suggestions that the analyst doesn't know any more than the patient, and for saying that analysts are frequently bored, annoyed, disgusted, etc by their clients.

Seems endemic in my experience. Maybe not explicit advice always, but sometimes it's the T furnishing insights and interpretations. In my view this can feel like an imposition or even an act of aggression, as someone wrote. The client expresses a thought or emotion, and the T interprets for the client what it might mean. I know they have training in this and some can do it skillfully… but I can no longer get past this troubling image of T guiding the client "toward the light".

Some life coaches are initially trained as psychotherapists and would likely have that credential. A coach assumes that the client is motivated and has no underlying mental health or substance use issues that would get in the way of achieving goals. They won't be going into the other areas, such as attachment, transference, unconscious drives, etc. The type of therapy you are describing in the last paragraph might be helpful, but it would require a long course of therapy and commitment by both parties to see it through. That is why many therapists are encouraged/advised/ (forced?) to adopt modalities such as solution focused and cognitive behavioral as the methods and outcomes are easily manualized and quantifiable.
As far at the therapist being some kind of authority figure: How much authority can someone who meets with you for maybe one hour per week exert over you? Even if they promote themselves in that manner, it seems it would be an illusion as the client spends much more time out of their purview than with them.
Hope you find what you're looking for.

Nicely put. This explains my experience pretty well.

I think you've picked up on something very real here, though I doubt you'll find many therapists (or therapy clients, for that matter) willing to admit it. I wouldn't think it at all odd to be skeptical of/offended by this premise.

I'm certainly not going to say that all therapists as a group have some sort of special knowledge that clients as a group lack. I don't think that's true and it's a dangerous sentiment. But for me, in my particular case, I suppose I do see my T as having knowledge that I don't when it comes to human psychology/why people do the things that they do. (that's what they go to school for, right? and, anyway, I think you'd have to be pretty dense not to know something about people, if you've been providing therapy for a decade or more.)

Sometimes I'll ask about it, or we'll talk about it in the abstract, and, while I don't exactly take his opinion as written in stone, he usually has something mildly interesting/insightful to say, or simply some information that I can work over and digest and apply to my life (or not, depending).

Other times it's sort of nice to be able to talk to a grown-up type who seems to have his **** together. (Whether or not he actually does, is, I suppose, irrelevant--as long as it's together for a fifty minute stretch, it works for me). I mean, I don't need to pay someone $100-plus an hour to give me common-sense advice or information that I could easily Google, but if it comes up I appreciate that he'll take 2.7 seconds to explain WTF it means to rotate your tires.

I see my therapist as someone who is trained in and has researched the specific problems for which I see him. I don't think therapists as a class are wiser or more insightful than anyone else - I have met several therapists who seemed as thick as planks. But my therapist is good at knowing how the mind works, and how traumatic experiences affect the brain, and he has training in helping people who have had traumatic experiences. That is really useful for me, but this isn't general knowledge about life.

I don't get any sense that my therapist sees himself as wiser than I am. We are both well-educated people and have expertise in our own fields. He gets paid for what he knows, but so do I.