[BudFox]

I had a 20 minute phone chat with a prospective new T a few days ago. Gave her a summary of my issues, including the lingering effects of damaging therapy. She tried to articulate what she could offer. It seemed to amount to -- giving me a safe place + someone to validate what I'm feeling. She seemed nice, did not saying anything crazy, but she also said nothing of significance.

I've done this many times in the last year and a half, and now the whole thing just makes no sense at all. I guess am supposed to sit down in front of another complete stranger and spill my guts, including the gory details of the way previous T left me with cannonball-sized wounds then abandoned me. And the T will tell me as little as possible about herself, will hide her own wounds and afflictions, yet will expect my implicit trust. And using a secret and undeclared method will magically right the wrongs and anoint with me "skills" and "insights" that I do not already posess. Do I have this right?

And the craziest part is, the main thing I need to do is rage against the system and ex T, but I have yet to meet a T who seemed prepared to provide a safe place for that. They say something about honoring that, but they don't say it like they mean it, and their words belie their obvious discomfort and perhaps even their desire to avoid the whole thing.

[Argonautomobile]

Well, ****, BF, with expectations that low it'll be damn near impossible to be disappointed!

I kid! I kid!

Rage on. A good T will be able to let you do that. **** 'em if they can't.

Have you considered talking with the online organization that supports individuals who have been abused by their therapists? I would think that they might have a listing of therapists who specialize in working with clients who have been severely traumatized by previous psychotherapy. I don't know that for sure but perhaps someone here on the site might know if that's the case.

Personally, I'd think that you'd need a psychotherapist who really really GETS the pain and anguish that results from botched therapy--it needs to be a therapist who isn't going to get all offended and defensive about his/her profession when you need to rant and rage about what happened to you. That would take a therapist who doesn't let his/her ego get all tangled up in what is said in a session and as we've all seen here on this site, those kinds of therapists are difficult to find.

I know that when I looked for a therapist, I interviewed at least 20 different therapist. I had to keep a log of who I called and met with so I could keep them all straight. And I didn't go in and "spill my guts", far from it! I went in loaded with pointed questions about what their training was, how long they themselves were in therapy, if they currently engaged in peer supervision and then asked about specific concerns related to my own issues. I even said what I wasn't interested in discussing with them. One of the interviewees actually attempted to push that issue in a second session I had with her and I told her that I'd get back to her if I decided I wanted another appointment. Of course, I didn't call back. I think challenging a "new" therapist in the first one or two "try out sessions" is a great way to determine how skilled, unflappable and engaging the therapist is going to be.

[Focus62]

Originally Posted by BudFox

yet will expect my implicit trust.

I don't think Ts expect this, but they do expect a modicum amount of trust further on down the road... I think you set the pace for this expectation really.

I would keep searching for a new T...there is bound to be one out there that is empathetic to your plight! Perhaps some Ts shy away from the topic because they take it semi-personally? Perhaps they feel you are ragging on their profession in general, rather than about this one horrible T. This isn't your problem because I think you should be able to express whatever you need to about it, and a good T will understand that.

A question though, do you expect the new T to participate in the sacrilege of the ex-T? The way you worded some things kind of gave me this impression, and I don't think you're going to find a T that will do that with you. Their whole job is to accept people as they are, I don't know that they'd express a strong hatred for someone they've never met (that seems genuine anyway). All they can really do is be empathetic towards your struggle with this ex-T.

[precaryous]

Hi Bud,

I'm sorry you had such horrendous treatment by a T.

I was exploited by a mental health professional in the past. I found a treating psychologist who is sensitive to these issues and received splendid aftercare. She let me rage.

I had to leave her care due to a move. It took me many years before I consented to try to find a new T in my state. I was lucky, it only took me two tries to find someone.

I agree, it would be good if you could find a T who specializes in therapy abuse, if possible.

I hope the new T works out. Kudos to you for trying again. I know how difficult it is.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

Have you considered talking with the online organization that supports individuals who have been abused by their therapists?

No I haven't. I know about the TELL website but have not seen a therapist listing there. I could email them.

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

Personally, I'd think that you'd need a psychotherapist who really really GETS the pain and anguish that results from botched therapy--it needs to be a therapist who isn't going to get all offended and defensive about his/her profession when you need to rant and rage about what happened to you. That would take a therapist who doesn't let his/her ego get all tangled up in what is said in a session and as we've all seen here on this site, those kinds of therapists are difficult to find.

I consulted on the phone with 2 therapists who specialize to some degree in therapy impasses and ruptures. One made things decidedly worse, the other was ok but basically non committal. I have yet to talk to one whose ego was not present in the room and ready to defend.

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

I know that when I looked for a therapist, I interviewed at least 20 different therapist. I had to keep a log of who I called and met with so I could keep them all straight. And I didn't go in and "spill my guts", far from it! I went in loaded with pointed questions about what their training was, how long they themselves were in therapy, if they currently engaged in peer supervision and then asked about specific concerns related to my own issues.

Thanks I hear you. I have done something similar. But even with pointed questions I have had a hard time getting meaningful answers.

[atisketatasket]

I guess after reading your OP one question come to mind:

Why do you need a therapist to express your rage to?

I don't mean to sound dismissive, but there are other ways to do that in the internet age. Why is finding a new therapist key to the healing process for you? Because you are very much aware of the many and vast shortcomings of the profession, yet you seem to still be looking to find the exceptional therapist who can surpass those shortcomings and can heal you.

I'm not diminishing your story or your pain, I wish you the best of luck, and I hope you find peace. But it seems like there's a dichotomy at the very heart of your perspective on therapy.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Focus62

Perhaps some Ts shy away from the topic because they take it semi-personally? Perhaps they feel you are ragging on their profession in general, rather than about this one horrible T.

They should take it personally. And therein lies the problem. It is an inherent conflict that to me is unresolvable. I am ragging on their profession, as much as or more than my ex T. I did not just have the one problematic T, it was some of those that followed as well. My T was not horrible, she was just wounded and needy and perhaps narcissistic and selfish. She was done in by what I consider to be borderline insane assumptions that underlie therapy, just as I was. She still blew it badly but the problem, I believe, was in the basic makeup of therapy.

Originally Posted by Focus62

A question though, do you expect the new T to participate in the sacrilege of the ex-T? The way you worded some things kind of gave me this impression, and I don't think you're going to find a T that will do that with you. Their whole job is to accept people as they are, I don't know that they'd express a strong hatred for someone they've never met (that seems genuine anyway). All they can really do is be empathetic towards your struggle with this ex-T.

I don't have any hatred for ex T nor do I want a new T to encourage such feelings. I just want to talk to someone about this without any filtering or worrying about the T's own fragile needs or ego. None so far has demonstrated this capability. And to be honest, I don't really know what the point would be, whereas I can identify concrete perils -- driving myself deeper into the quagmire of all this, becoming dependent again, trusting a stranger, exhausting myself further, getting into that obsessive spiral that comes from talking about painful stuff for a scant hour per week and then being stuck with the spinning wheel for rest of the week.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by atisketatasket

Why do you need a therapist to express your rage to?

I don't mean to sound dismissive, but there are other ways to do that in the internet age. Why is finding a new therapist key to the healing process for you? Because you are very much aware of the many and vast shortcomings of the profession, yet you are still looking to find the exceptional therapist who can surpass those shortcomings and can heal you.

What other ways are you referring to? I don't know that I need a therapist to express my rage to, but expressing it to someone might be helpful. I'd like to express it to ex T, but she got out just in time.

I have basically talked myself out of the idea, but posted here to see if those in a similar position had found any answers. The dilemma is that prior harmful therapy has undermined my trust in authority and in the helping professions and in therapy especially, while at the same time burdening me with serious wounds that are causing major problems. Welcome. To. Hell.

[atisketatasket]

Originally Posted by BudFox

What other ways are you referring to? I don't know that I need a therapist to express my rage to, but expressing it to someone might be helpful. I'd like to express it to ex T, but she got out just in time.

I have basically talked myself out of the idea, but posted here to see if those in a similar position had found any answers. The dilemma is that prior harmful therapy has undermined my trust in authority and in the helping professions and in therapy especially, while at the same time burdening me with serious wounds that are causing major problems. Welcome. To. Hell.

I see the dilemma and I'm sorry for it.

I said the internet age because the internet often appears chockful of therapy survivors. They write. They blog. They may have support groups for all I know. I don't know how much it helps them, but you're articulate, you want to express your rage to someone, and you have things to say worth hearing.

In the face of the pain caused by therapist abuse, I'm sure "blog it!" sounds insignificant and belitting and it is not meant to be. But I'm also not sure you can get the needed relief from traditional therapy, either.

[Out There]

Originally Posted by precaryous

Hi Bud,

I'm sorry you had such horrendous treatment by a T.

I was exploited by a mental health professional in the past. I found a treating psychologist who is sensitive to these issues and received splendid aftercare. She let me rage.

I had to leave her care due to a move. It took me many years before I consented to try to find a new T in my state. I was lucky, it only took me two tries to find someone.

I agree, it would be good if you could find a T who specializes in therapy abuse, if possible.

I hope the new T works out. Kudos to you for trying again. I know how difficult it is.

I also experienced good therapy after very damaging therapy. Yes , Kudos to people who try again. It is very difficult.

[here today]

Originally Posted by BudFox

They should take it personally. And therein lies the problem. It is an inherent conflict that to me is unresolvable. I am ragging on their profession, as much as or more than my ex T. I did not just have the one problematic T, it was some of those that followed as well. My T was not horrible, she was just wounded and needy and perhaps narcissistic and selfish. She was done in by what I consider to be borderline insane assumptions that underlie therapy, just as I was. She still blew it badly but the problem, I believe, was in the basic makeup of therapy.

I agree that SOMEONE in or associated with the profession needs to take it "personally" in the sense that there are serious problems with the way that mental health services are delivered, or not delivered, here in the US. Maybe it's different in countries with a national health service, I don't know.

My current therapist, whom I've been seeing for almost 6 years after many ineffective and sometimes harmful attempts at therapy, says that the system is "broken". Her main beef is that nobody can force therapists to get their own therapy. She HAS had her own therapy and still participates in supervision/consultation groups, plus continuing education.

I believe it may be more than that -- even an otherwise wonderful therapist who has done a lot of therapy can still find themselves blindsided by an issue they didn't know was there. Or a complex, perhaps specialized, problem the client has that they did not recognize. The trouble is if the person is in individual private practice where is there any recourse to resolve the problem? Other than for the client to leave or the therapist to kick them to the curb? Which then frequently means that the client leaves in worse shape than when they started therapy. I know that's been true for me.

[precaryous]

The good news is doctors monitor their own. The bad news is doctors monitor their own!
Physicians I worked for several years ago preferred to refer around a "questionable" fellow physician rather than turn him/her in. In many cases the questionable physician was forced to close shop and reopen elsewhere...continuing to inflict their poor standards on others.

Doctors/mental health workers should be required to take continuing education classes. Medical Ethics classes need to be overhauled...and involve more than just a chapter read in their textbook. Medical boards are swamped and understaffed. Something needs to change. I wish I knew what it was.

I angrily told my T that psychiatry owes me something! They graduated the guy who exploited me. Someone should have known this guy was dangerous. She was taken aback and suggested it was the legal system that failed me, not psychiatry. I still don't agree! But I agree-the judicial system failed me, too.

[missbella]

Bud, I'm sorry for your dilemma. Though my situation was different (my therapist team were incompetent bullies) I still had the feeling of being stranded, that when one is the hurt one goes to therapy, yet it was therapists who caused the hurt.

I conclude from reading that there are different paths to recovery. Some people find assistance re-entering therapy. I returned to therapy twice, once with a friend of the original perpetrators whose interest was to dissuade me from taking action. A second therapist thought her modality so radically different from the abusers’ that she wasn’t threatened discussing it. However the therapy made me crazy in a different way.

I needed to know I wasn't alone. And I needed to knock the therapists off their pedestal, so I could see their behavior, “head games” and lies about me clearly. My process was helped by reading, by talking to others--includingTELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line and conversations in person and over the internet. I read about gurus and cults and identified with much of it.

Though I assume most mental health practitioners well-intentioned, I do wonder why there seems so little literature, for either the profession or the consumers about harm in therapy (iatrogenesis). Most ethical discussion seems around avoiding lawsuits and the appearance of impropriety. It seems more than a few authors still cling to Father Freud’s certainty about “negative therapeutic reaction,” that all problems are from the patient’s “intrapsychic struggle” and I wonder if that encourages them to dismiss client grievances. Even this 2002 book (which I haven’t read) barely seems to consider it. Personally, I think calling the therapist’s role “countertransference,” still pulling the client into the mix, is skirting the issue. How about simply considering if the therapist is behaving like an unprofessional jerk?
A Primer for Handling the Negative Therapeutic Reaction (Book Review)

I frankly think it’s a mistake to trust “authority figures” absolutely. First, I don’t think anything happens in a mental health providers training or experience that makes them an authority on life, much less anyone else’s. I think the best one can do is finding intelligent advisers, listening, but retaining our own judgments.

I learned far more from bad therapy than I learned from “good.”

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by here today

I believe it may be more than that -- even an otherwise wonderful therapist who has done a lot of therapy can still find themselves blindsided by an issue they didn't know was there. Or a complex, perhaps specialized, problem the client has that they did not recognize. The trouble is if the person is in individual private practice where is there any recourse to resolve the problem? Other than for the client to leave or the therapist to kick them to the curb? Which then frequently means that the client leaves in worse shape than when they started therapy. I know that's been true for me.

True for me also. I was kicked to the curb. I got into a state of dependency, and then when things got difficult my T could think of no better solution than to just "refer out" and get rid of me forever. As magicalprince said in another thread, the referring out thing is sometimes simply a euphemism for client abandonment. And I had no recourse. T could just ignore my attempts at reconciliation and repair, even the emails which alluded to my dangerous spiral and suicidal thoughts.

One of the assumptions I find particularly disturbing is that attachment or dependency in therapy is healthy and is a valid therapeutic device. If it goes badly, perhaps it was just a mismatch, the literature seems to say. Some T's suggested this to me. But perhaps it is a fundamental danger in the process. It's not hard to get someone into a dependent state. But how many T's have any idea what to do next?

[BudFox]

One aspect of this that is very problematic is that something was stirred up by previous T that has the urgency of a life and death survival need. Her approximation of an early attachment figure + our emotional entanglement + plus my wounds triggered something apparently.

But nothing was resolved. The wounds and deficits were just exposed. The person who induced all this has excused herself from the process. I knock, there is no answer.

So now I am effectively shopping around for help among total strangers in a semi-traumatized state. And perhaps unconsciously searching for someone to replicate the attachment figure represented by ex T. Seems like a train wreck waiting to happen. And once again I have no clear idea of what another T would do to help with this (our the original issues).

[Argonautomobile]

Originally Posted by BudFox

One aspect of this that is very problematic is that something was stirred up by previous T that has the urgency of a life and death survival need. Her approximation of an early attachment figure + our emotional entanglement + plus my wounds triggered something apparently.

But nothing was resolved. The wounds and deficits were just exposed. The person who induced all this has excused herself from the process. I knock, there is no answer.

So now I am effectively shopping around for help among total strangers in a semi-traumatized state. And perhaps unconsciously searching for someone to replicate the attachment figure represented by ex T. Seems like a train wreck waiting to happen. And once again I have no clear idea of what another T would do to help with this (our the original issues).

I think ideally you'd be given a space to air your grievances, have your feelings validated and normalized, perhaps be given psycho-education (though you seem well-read in the subject so maybe a T has nothing to tell you that you didn't already know--but, hey, you never know).

Maybe just the experience of having somebody capable of hearing your rage without pushing (or lashing) back will be healing? I'd think it would also be nice to meet a professional who doesn't **** with you (this was a big one for me.)

I appreciate the vulnerability you must feel meeting with a stranger in your semi-traumatized shape. Hell, it was difficult enough for me and my wounds didn't originate in the very place I sought to heal them.

I think if anything good can be said to have come from your experiences with ex-T, it's that no matter how vulnerable you feel, I really do think you have a good safeguard against re-traumatization. You know what to be on watch for, what questions to ask, and I'd like to think your intellectual vigilance and rightful skepticism will go a long way.

One more thing I'd like to say, though I'm not sure I'm articulating it right....You may find that new therapy with someone decent will help improve your quality of life via an indirect path. I'm afraid I don't know very much about attachment wounds or how they're supposed to be healed in good therapy (corrective experience, maybe?) but I would like to think that the hurt caused by ex-T will respond to the same basic interventions that are used to address all sorts of issues--T's support in self-care, in healthy habits, in finding something that interests and engages you and makes you happy.

To draw a rough comparison from my own experience--I (like many people on here) have been hurt by abusive experiences in early life. I don't think it's a stretch to say they're a big part of the reason I wanted so badly to die when I got shuffled into a therapist's office a year ago. My life has improved immeasurably despite never really directly addressing these in therapy. I was always under the impression these things had to be got at directly--that I was in for months and years of telling my story and grieving my wayward youth and all the rest.

I may still do all of those things at some point in my life, but what really helped me was forcing myself to take my T’s irritatingly common-sense advice: “Ya think maybe you’d feel better if you stopped drinking so much? Ever thought about volunteering? Maybe you should read that book you’ve been wanting to read forever?” etc.

I never could have imagined these things would be as helpful as they were. I mean, it’s not like my problems were caused by not volunteering, so why would volunteering fix them? In a way, volunteering (and all the rest) didn’t fix my trauma, not really. All that BS is still there. The only difference is that I like my life much better now—it’s worth living—despite the trauma.

So maybe your new T can’t directly ‘fix’ the damage caused by your old T. But maybe you’ll be surprised what she can do to help you find things that you enjoy despite having been wounded and which will make you more resilient and feel better about yourself despite your experiences.
I really hope it goes well. Sending lots of good thoughts!

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

I think ideally you'd be given a space to air your grievances, have your feelings validated and normalized, perhaps be given psycho-education (though you seem well-read in the subject so maybe a T has nothing to tell you that you didn't already know--but, hey, you never know).

Maybe just the experience of having somebody capable of hearing your rage without pushing (or lashing) back will be healing? I'd think it would also be nice to meet a professional who doesn't **** with you (this was a big one for me.)

I appreciate the vulnerability you must feel meeting with a stranger in your semi-traumatized shape. Hell, it was difficult enough for me and my wounds didn't originate in the very place I sought to heal them.

I think if anything good can be said to have come from your experiences with ex-T, it's that no matter how vulnerable you feel, I really do think you have a good safeguard against re-traumatization. You know what to be on watch for, what questions to ask, and I'd like to think your intellectual vigilance and rightful skepticism will go a long way.

One more thing I'd like to say, though I'm not sure I'm articulating it right....You may find that new therapy with someone decent will help improve your quality of life via an indirect path. I'm afraid I don't know very much about attachment wounds or how they're supposed to be healed in good therapy (corrective experience, maybe?) but I would like to think that the hurt caused by ex-T will respond to the same basic interventions that are used to address all sorts of issues--T's support in self-care, in healthy habits, in finding something that interests and engages you and makes you happy.

To draw a rough comparison from my own experience--I (like many people on here) have been hurt by abusive experiences in early life. I don't think it's a stretch to say they're a big part of the reason I wanted so badly to die when I got shuffled into a therapist's office a year ago. My life has improved immeasurably despite never really directly addressing these in therapy. I was always under the impression these things had to be got at directly--that I was in for months and years of telling my story and grieving my wayward youth and all the rest.

I may still do all of those things at some point in my life, but what really helped me was forcing myself to take my T’s irritatingly common-sense advice: “Ya think maybe you’d feel better if you stopped drinking so much? Ever thought about volunteering? Maybe you should read that book you’ve been wanting to read forever?” etc.

I never could have imagined these things would be as helpful as they were. I mean, it’s not like my problems were caused by not volunteering, so why would volunteering fix them? In a way, volunteering (and all the rest) didn’t fix my trauma, not really. All that BS is still there. The only difference is that I like my life much better now—it’s worth living—despite the trauma.

So maybe your new T can’t directly ‘fix’ the damage caused by your old T. But maybe you’ll be surprised what she can do to help you find things that you enjoy despite having been wounded and which will make you more resilient and feel better about yourself despite your experiences.
I really hope it goes well. Sending lots of good thoughts!

Thank you for this post, Argonautomobile. Sensible advice for many that are stuck in a quagmire. I did those things, and found myself on a completely different path. It was not easy, but eventually there were enough good memories and feelings that I could hold onto to counteract the trauma of my past, including with former "bad" therapist.

[Argonautomobile]

Originally Posted by Walkedthatroad

Thank you for this post, Argonautomobile. Sensible advice for many that are stuck in a quagmire. I did those things, and found myself on a completely different path. It was not easy, but eventually there were enough good memories and feelings that I could hold onto to counteract the trauma of my past, including with former "bad" therapist.

Well, thank you for your thank you, Walkedthatroad. It's nice to hear from someone who has, well, walked that road. Jajaja.

I always feel like such an a-hole giving sensible advice. I'll never forget how much I hated receiving it--like people were patronizing me with the obvious, blaming me for not being able to do what even I knew, intellectually, would help. Like they expected that some magical switch would flip and I'd suddenly just be able to do all the things I hadn't been able to.

Sometimes I feel incredibly silly knowing I've paid a stranger to tell me the obvious. I don't even know why it's working. Maybe there's just something about sound advice without the implicit "duh. WTF is wrong with you?" that always seems to accompany the same words when uttered by friends and family.

IDK. When do you see the new T, BudFox?

If you consider that what happened with your ex-t was a trauma (it seems to me that that would be an apt word for it), I'm wondering if it is something that is best not discussed with a new T in depth until you have a secure relationship established with them and can begin to explore more difficult things? With other trauma's we probably wouldn't be advised to discuss then with a T initially. You could just say at the beginning that that therapy was a difficult experience, one that you would want to explore at some time? I'm assuming that the experience helpd you to understand yourself more, but there is some issue at the root of it that is really more important to understand and explore and get healing from?

I too would hope that with a T I could discuss therapy itself.

[AncientMelody]

Originally Posted by precaryous

The good news is doctors monitor their own. The bad news is doctors monitor their own!
Physicians I worked for several years ago preferred to refer around a "questionable" fellow physician rather than turn him/her in. In many cases the questionable physician was forced to close shop and reopen elsewhere...continuing to inflict their poor standards on others.

Doctors/mental health workers should be required to take continuing education classes. Medical Ethics classes need to be overhauled...and involve more than just a chapter read in their textbook. Medical boards are swamped and understaffed. Something needs to change. I wish I knew what it was.

I angrily told my T that psychiatry owes me something! They graduated the guy who exploited me. Someone should have known this guy was dangerous. She was taken aback and suggested it was the legal system that failed me, not psychiatry. I still don't agree! But I agree-the judicial system failed me, too.

Continuing education is indeed required in the medical professional. I'm required 50 hours annually. True not necessarily medical ethics specifically, but requirements of certification are updated periodically. I know in my profession, they are in fact overhauling the requirements to ensure that the hours are "quality" hours of education.

[AncientMelody]

Bud, I know that you have trouble with trust in the helping professions in general as you said, which I understand, but I wonder if perhaps talking to you medical doctor might provide a platform for you?

I wouldn't expect healing from the trauma itself in this way, but if your primary wish is to have a platform to give yourself a voice for how damaging therapy was for you. Perhaps because a medical doctor is not a therapist, they may have more professional distance than someone in the mental health field directly. Or even your doctor's nurse if they have a decent nurse and you feel they may be more receptive.

I know not the best option, but it may be an alternative to look for an answer within the field itself.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

I think ideally you'd be given a space to air your grievances, have your feelings validated and normalized, perhaps be given psycho-education (though you seem well-read in the subject so maybe a T has nothing to tell you that you didn't already know--but, hey, you never know).

The feelings validated things seems like a genuine need. And yet to expect this from a total stranger seems rather bizarre when you think about it. Also how can someone who is receiving payment to behave a certain way -- caring, understanding, supportive of the client specifically -- provide sincere validation? If a T said all the right things, it might still feel like an act performed in return for payment.

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

Maybe just the experience of having somebody capable of hearing your rage without pushing (or lashing) back will be healing? I'd think it would also be nice to meet a professional who doesn't **** with you (this was a big one for me.)

Maybe. Wish I knew of one.

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

I think if anything good can be said to have come from your experiences with ex-T, it's that no matter how vulnerable you feel, I really do think you have a good safeguard against re-traumatization. You know what to be on watch for, what questions to ask, and I'd like to think your intellectual vigilance and rightful skepticism will go a long way.

Yes probably so, thanks.

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

To draw a rough comparison from my own experience--I (like many people on here) have been hurt by abusive experiences in early life. I don't think it's a stretch to say they're a big part of the reason I wanted so badly to die when I got shuffled into a therapist's office a year ago. My life has improved immeasurably despite never really directly addressing these in therapy. I was always under the impression these things had to be got at directly--that I was in for months and years of telling my story and grieving my wayward youth and all the rest.

Sorry to hear all that. But glad that things have improved.

Originally Posted by Argonautomobile

I may still do all of those things at some point in my life, but what really helped me was forcing myself to take my T’s irritatingly common-sense advice: “Ya think maybe you’d feel better if you stopped drinking so much? Ever thought about volunteering? Maybe you should read that book you’ve been wanting to read forever?” etc.

For me this sort of advice, even when given with good intentions, is problematic. I told ex T I did not want advice and she mostly obliged and avoided it. But when she did give it, it felt like an admonishment and automatically put the relationship in parent-child mode. I also find it presumptuous and too close to guru-disciple to have someone giving life instruction (maybe if the client is relatively young and the T a generation older). My T also suggested I should volunteer. She failed to understand my health challenges and why it is too taxing to do this for now. But I felt guilty for a while and thought I should follow her advice. It was because I accepted her version of reality in place of mine. She must know better, she's a T. This was a basic dynamic I had been playing along with, in therapy and in life. But her advice was more about her and her need to be of value and to fix things and I did not have to internalize or heed it. Lesson learned.

Thanks for the dialog and encouraging words!

[BudFox]

misbella: Thanks I relate to nearly everything you said. Stranded is a good way to describe the feeling.

This is quite close to the way I feel about things. Especially the knocking off the pedestal part...

Originally Posted by missbella

I needed to know I wasn't alone. And I needed to knock the therapists off their pedestal, so I could see their behavior, “head games” and lies about me clearly. My process was helped by reading, by talking to others--includingTELL: Therapy Exploitation Link Line and conversations in person and over the internet. I read about gurus and cults and identified with much of it.

And the thing about dismissing client grievances, yes it seems endemic. I got it from T's in the past year.

me: I'd like your help in working through harmful therapy.
new therapist: Ok. Let's talk about what you did wrong, and about how this was actually about your issues. We'll also need to correct your childish and silly notions about life and about your own inner world. Only then will you be able to see that your previous therapist was actually helping you.

Exaggerating, but not so much.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Brown Owl

If you consider that what happened with your ex-t was a trauma (it seems to me that that would be an apt word for it), I'm wondering if it is something that is best not discussed with a new T in depth until you have a secure relationship established with them and can begin to explore more difficult things? With other trauma's we probably wouldn't be advised to discuss then with a T initially. You could just say at the beginning that that therapy was a difficult experience, one that you would want to explore at some time? I'm assuming that the experience helpd you to understand yourself more, but there is some issue at the root of it that is really more important to understand and explore and get healing from?

Yes true that launching directly into a painful area with a new T could be dangerous. But in order to proceed at all, I need to talk about my concerns about therapy and I don't know how I would avoid talking about prior therapy at least some. I'm also not crazy about paying someone for weeks or months to try to build a relationship, while avoiding the most pressing issue (or even paying for the whole get-to-know-you thing in general).

Yes the root issue is the primary thing. But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, I have yet to hear anyone articulate how that would be addressed. I don't know even know that trying to address it is prudent or healthy or realistic.