[greystone]

Personally, I don't believe it. I've had enough therapists to know that it's just not for me. I know it takes time to find the right therapist, but from what I've experienced so far, all therapists do is make me scoff. I can't handle the whole "well, how do you really feel about that?" or "I think the best thing for you to do is..." I just can't. I understand they just want to help poor little ill people like me, but seriously. To me it sounds more like my therapists are making assumptions.
Now, I know that THEY are the ones with the psychology degree, and all. But, does that mean they know exactly how I "feel" or what I'm thinking? No. The only thing that that framed piece of paper on their wall means is that they know what's in the textbooks. I don't know about you, but I don't think the human mind is as simple as reading off of a 500 page textbook.

That being said, the reason I'm asking is because today is my final day with my therapist, and I couldn't be more glad. How do you guys feel about therapy? Is there anyone out there that's with me on this?

Sorry it didn't work for you. It isn't for everyone.

Personally, therapy was life-saving and life-changing. I've never had a therapist say or do the things you said your therapist said and did, so perhaps you just had a really crappy one. Who knows?

Why were you in therapy if you don't believe in it, in its ability to help? Hopefully you figured that out early and that is why you are discontinuing therapy.

[Ellahmae]

Therapy for me is life-saving. I'm blessed to have the T that I do and I'm glad I first walked in or else I wouldn't be able to type this to you now. My T has never said the "how do you really feel" or "I think the best thing for you to do is..." statements to me. I'm sure she never would. I'm sorry that therapy didn't work out for you and I hope you are able to move forward and find the change that you were looking to achieve when you started going.

I'm sure you will find people on here who agree with you. Some who had bad/exploitative experiences of therapy and some for whom therapy simply isn't the answer. As lola says, it isn't for everyone, and no treatment is one size fits all. It has been tremendously helpful for a lot of people, me included, so I think it is a valuable resource for those who require it.

[atisketatasket]

Theoretically? It's a crapshoot. A deeply flawed system that does help some people but simply exploits others.

Personally? It has done something for me, though I am hard put to say what. Maybe now it's just keeping me around and semi-functional.

I will say that I have never met a therapist so stereotypical that they say the things you report. Mine have been stereotypical in other, more subtle ways.

[stopdog]

I have no reason to disbelieve those who say they have been helped. I think the profession over-sells what it would like to be seen as doing rather than what it actually does do. I wish it would admit it is a lot more stab and guess than they like to portray it as.
For me, it has not worked in the way the therapist tried to sell or some people here report. I have found a use for it and so it is useful and a sort of hobby because I like to observe what they do and how they do it - and how they respond when thwarted.
One of the biggest flaws, in my opinion, is that they try to convince people they know more than they really do and sometimes clients believe it and are harmed.

[Salmon77]

I have found therapy to be very helpful. Discussing my life and issues with my therapist has helped me to clarify and deal with some things and to identify my priorities, which will hopefully make life better going forward. I think I've also learned a lot about being more empathetic and honest, which helps me to relate better to others.

My therapist has never told me how I feel, what to think, or what to do. Sorry that yours did, it sounds like it was a bad experience and not helpful to you.

[JaneTennison1]

It really seems to depend who you get. On this recent round of T searching I called someone who said "I don't have time to talk right now" to which I replied don't answer the phone then lol. Silly T. No T has ever said such trite things to me. I would probably want to leave if they did. I have found therapy useful as when I went I had a problem I couldn't tell anyone. I was so stressed I thought I was having a heart attack.

Do I continue to find it useful? I don't know.

Therapy seems to help a certain type of person. At one time I thought it was possibly good for me. Thankfully I have moved beyond that to a better place and I don't have to pay someone anymore for "help."

Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk

[missbella]

I experienced therapy--different types of therapy--as fraudulent, but only after a very deep dive into it. The first therapist went through the motions of helping our family, but didn't. The second was a saccharine fake-sage who pretended to know far more than she did and stoked my feelings of victimhood. Group therapy was conducted by a pair of contemptuous, scolding bullies who unleashed full fury when I tried to leave. My fourth, a psychoanalyst, actually was pretty neutral, smart when she did speak. But three self-indulgent hours a week drove me into temporary psychosis.

In addition to my one-entry blog, here are others:
https://trytherapyfree.wordpress.com...y-free-part-1/

https://therapyisacon.wordpress.com/
And her writings:
A Critique of Psychology and Psychotherapy in Social Life

[greystone]

I was hospitalized for some time and it was required that I go to a therapist when I leave. I had a few therapists in the past, just to give it a shot. But, gave up on that. Once they sent me to the last therapist I had, I thought it would be different, since she was recommended by the hospital itself. That was a bust. I guess puzzle_bug is right; therapy only works with a certain type of person.

Originally Posted by lolagrace

Sorry it didn't work for you. It isn't for everyone.

Personally, therapy was life-saving and life-changing. I've never had a therapist say or do the things you said your therapist said and did, so perhaps you just had a really crappy one. Who knows?

Why were you in therapy if you don't believe in it, in its ability to help? Hopefully you figured that out early and that is why you are discontinuing therapy.

[Mike_J]

I didn't think it would be of any help to me, but my first psychiatrist kept pushing me so I finally relented and he recommended someone. And for pushing me and for his AWESOME recommendation I will be forever grateful to him.

For me therapy has done so much, way more than any medications ever did. But it's not for everyone, and every therapist isn't a good fit for every patient.

Therapy was a game changer for me.

But, it was an awful lot of work on my part.

[BudFox]

I think the "therapy is not for everyone" notion is often used as a convenient rationalization for negative outcomes. It's a way to blame the client without blaming the client. And it's usually packaged with suggestions about the client not working hard enough, or trusting enough, or believing.

I'm with the OP -- training in psych and behavioral theory does not automatically translate to anything of value clinically or to any sort of ability to help another human being. And yet the profession depends on this conflation to sell it's product.

Like Misbella, it was only after diving in to some of the literature and online content that I could see any of this.

Originally Posted by BudFox

I think the "therapy is not for everyone" notion is often used as a convenient rationalization for negative outcomes. It's a way to blame the client without blaming the client. And it's usually packaged with suggestions about the client not working hard enough, or trusting enough, or believing.

I'm with the OP -- training in psych and behavioral theory does not automatically translate to anything of value clinically or to any sort of ability to help another human being. And yet the profession depends on this conflation to sell it's product.

Like Misbella, it was only after diving in to some of the literature and online content that I could see any of this.

I admit to being confused by this post, Budfox. At one point on the board, many of the people who talked positively about their therapy experience and encouraged people to seek out therapy or "try" a new therapist if things were going south were told that they were lumping everyone into the same category--"Therapy works! You just need to work harder or find the right therapist". People adjusted, they grew through threads about the harm of therapy to recognize that therapy really isn't helpful to many people and could actually be hurtful. People GREW; they readjusted their thoughts on the value or lack of value therapy can be to others. In other words, people grew to accept and recognize that therapy really and truly isn't the end all to be all to everyone. I do not see how saying, "Therapy is not for everyone." is a slam against anyone. I think it's progress. People are realizing that therapy isn't an undertaking that is valuable or helpful to all people, and often it's actually damaging.

Originally Posted by greystone

Personally, I don't believe it. I've had enough therapists to know that it's just not for me. I know it takes time to find the right therapist, but from what I've experienced so far, all therapists do is make me scoff. I can't handle the whole "well, how do you really feel about that?" or "I think the best thing for you to do is..." I just can't. I understand they just want to help poor little ill people like me, but seriously. To me it sounds more like my therapists are making assumptions.
Now, I know that THEY are the ones with the psychology degree, and all. But, does that mean they know exactly how I "feel" or what I'm thinking? No. The only thing that that framed piece of paper on their wall means is that they know what's in the textbooks. I don't know about you, but I don't think the human mind is as simple as reading off of a 500 page textbook.

That being said, the reason I'm asking is because today is my final day with my therapist, and I couldn't be more glad. How do you guys feel about therapy? Is there anyone out there that's with me on this?

My opinion or my experience?
My experience isn't like yours. My analyst went through 10yrs of her own analysis in training at the pyschotherapy Institute in London.
She has no degrees on her wall, only Henry Moore photos and a wall of many books.
I've never felt her questions to be condescending. I feel I've got something from every session. I'm not sure I'd want to go back if I didn't.
She doesn't pretend to know. We come from a place of enclosing together. She has experience of her own human condition that is useful, gained from her long training and own therapy.

I was drowning before finding her. I'd been through a few 'professionals' before her. They weren't able to help me. I think pyschanalytical therapy is the only really worth while. But that's just what I've come to believe from my many years of looking for help. I'd never felt relieved to be free of help. I didn't have that privilege. I was ill and in a lot of emotional pain.
Well, that's my experience.

[RedSun]

I think my T has done a bit more than read a 500 page textbook, over seven years of academic training. Or she's a slow reader...

Therapy saved my life. It's not for everyone. Nothing is. Many people really benefit from massage, or physical therapy and it makes me want to break things. We are all different.
For me, and where I was, and where i am, psychodynamic relational therapy are what I need to help me grow and heal.

[here today]

Originally Posted by BudFox

I think the "therapy is not for everyone" notion is often used as a convenient rationalization for negative outcomes.

I feel the same way.

I was hospitalized for 11 months when I was a teenager with anorexia nervosa. When I went home I continued “not eating” until one night, feeling terrible from the near starvation, I finally realized that not eating was a dead end road. Literally. And that mattered somehow.

I don’t think therapy itself made the difference but having my disorder recognized and, as things turned out, getting away from my family for 11 months probably did. Anorexia is definitely hard to explain to someone who has not had it. It’s irrational but can be very deadly.

Nevertheless, I’ve still had problems off and on for more than 50 years. When my late husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness I definitely felt I would need help to readjust. Did not find help, fell apart, was blamed and shamed by therapists. But in a fallen apart state where else could I turn but to continue to try to therapy? I definitely considered that voluntarily leaving life would be the most rational thing but I didn’t think I could convince my adult children of that. So I put that idea aside. Ten painful years later I still think that was the most rational thing I could have done. But it’s not over until it’s over.

Six years ago I was diagnosed with DDNOS (now probably OSDD) and PDNOS. It had always been recognized that there was some trauma in my background but the depth of the trauma had not been explored or treated. I didn’t consciously know about it either because of the dissociation.

Fortunately my trauma therapy has been mostly successful. But trying to become my own person at 69 is still extraordinarily difficult. Plus, there are all those lost years when therapists didn’t get it and I was clueless.

The right kind of person for therapy? No, the question needs to be how the therapy profession, university departments of psychology, or maybe the NIMH (here in the US) can develop and provide the right kind of therapy for distressed and disordered people that show up at the doors of clinics and therapists’ offices. Including sometimes telling people they have something the therapist doesn’t know how to help with and that therapy itself can entail some very big risks.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

I do not see how saying, "Therapy is not for everyone." is a slam against anyone. I think it's progress. People are realizing that therapy isn't an undertaking that is valuable or helpful to all people, and often it's actually damaging.

I think context and wording matter a lot. If someone says therapy harmed them, and they are told "therapy is not for everyone", there is an implication that the client was the problem. However, if they are told "therapy can be damaging", that puts responsibility on the system. A world of difference in my view.

I cant imagine someone whose doctor made their condition worse being told "medical care is not for everyone".

The therapy biz seems to be granted all sorts of special privileges and loopholes through which it can escape accountability and scrutiny.

Originally Posted by BudFox

I think context and wording matter a lot. If someone says therapy harmed them, and they are told "therapy is not for everyone", there is an implication that the client was the problem. However, if they are told "therapy can be damaging", that puts responsibility on the system. A world of difference in my view. Ah! Now I understand what you're saying. Yes, I would agree that if someone says, "therapy is not for everyone" and then goes on to say that perhaps they should try another therapist or to examine how THEY contributed to the debacle then I think that saying it is hurtful or blaming would make entire sense. But if a poster says that they agree that a person's description of their therapy is horrendous (something I think when I read your posts and some others on this forum who describe their therapy experience) and then go on to say that finding another path might be helpful, I really don't believe they are being dismissive or shaming. Personally, if I said that I'd simply be letting the poster know that I hope they find something/anything that is more helpful and healing than therapy.

But I think this is where some of the pain and anger comes about when the one's who support or see therapy as helpful vs. those who have been wounded and hurt by therapy clash. I truly believe a lot of supporters, after hearing the stories of pain that others have undergone in therapy, are truly wanting and encouraging others to seek other paths other than therapy. Simply because therapy has worked for me, I don't have the arrogance to believe that it will work for everyone. Can't you believe in the other side of the coin yourself? Therapy CAN BE helpful and healing for some. But the only people who can decide that are the one's who experience that for themselves. I have found myself hurt by statements made about people who experience therapy as helpful as delusional or fooling themselves. BUT I think both sides of the argument have come a long way. People are really trying, on both sides, to talk just about their own experience. Yeah, both sides slip up sometimes, but it happens on both sides and I truly don't believe that anyone is doing it to be shaming or hurtful.

I cant imagine someone whose doctor made their condition worse being told "medical care is not for everyone".

The therapy biz seems to be granted all sorts of special privileges and loopholes through which it can escape accountability and scrutiny.

I don't disagree with this either. I do believe that both the mental health system and the medical system needs some SERIOUS work in the department of accountability and responsibility. But that doesn't mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I believe that the entire field is seriously flawed and should be thrown into the trash. Just as there are people on this forum and out in the world who have been hurt and injured by psychotherapy and their therapists, there are people here on the forum and out in the world who credit therapists and psychotherapy as saving their lives. There is a balance. It isn't black and white. By saying that, I do not believe that I am discounting or belittling the harm that some people have suffered at the hands of abusive or unethical therapists, just as I'm sure you don't want to discount or belittle the good that some individuals have experienced personally in a psychotherapy situation.

[BudFox]

Originally Posted by Jaybird57

Can't you believe in the other side of the coin yourself? Therapy CAN BE helpful and healing for some. But the only people who can decide that are the one's who experience that for themselves. I have found myself hurt by statements made about people who experience therapy as helpful as delusional or fooling themselves.

If people say therapy helped them, sure I believe it. My sense though is that most of the help was not because of therapy, but in spite of it. I think therapy, as it is set up, is quite perverse and abnormal and dangerous, and yet could help in some cases where the two people involved manage to escape the system's million pitfalls and its unfounded theories and methods. Maybe what helped was just having someone supportive and understanding to talk to. That to me is not an argument in favor of therapy as an institution. It suggests, in my admittedly insignificant opinion, that therapy is mainly a better-than-nothing proposition. Not a judgement, as I have been in that place of need, and still am.

The other thing I wonder about is how much of therapy's benefit is palliative. Does the benefit go away or lessen when you withdraw the treatment?

[missbella]

I began as a true believer. I threw myself in. I complied, did all the exercises with gusto, bled, confessed, journaled, recorded dreams. I trusted, was vulnerable, did the work, hung to the therapists' words like they were god, obeyed and so, so would have done anything to change. I did analysis three times a week and swept every corner I could find to sweep. I was convinced all this was world-changing and I was doing great things.

But the process of reviewing some harmful therapy started a rock slide to understand the rest of it. I could come to one conclusion. My so-called treatment had been nothing but a scam. I was their mark and had handed over my secrets, pain and vulnerability as their weapon.

I did change, but no thanks to therapy. Over time I met challenges, solved problems, became more convinced of my competency, became less anxious. It was a seasoning I have to earn, not have handed to me from a role-playing authority-figure in a room. Therapy relationships, in retrospect, felt unwise and phony to me. My need, in retrospect, was to grow up, and to detach myself from pretend gurus and experts. It was a difficult but necessary lesson.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by BudFox

I think context and wording matter a lot. If someone says therapy harmed them, and they are told "therapy is not for everyone", there is an implication that the client was the problem. However, if they are told "therapy can be damaging", that puts responsibility on the system. A world of difference in my view.

I cant imagine someone whose doctor made their condition worse being told "medical care is not for everyone".

The therapy biz seems to be granted all sorts of special privileges and loopholes through which it can escape accountability and scrutiny.

A lot of times, people go for second opinions, or visit many medical doctors before getting their illness resolved. And how often do we hear that a writer's novel was rejected so many times before it became a blockbuster? Stuff happens. Nobody's perfect. And nobody is in charge. Thats life.

[Petra5ed]

I actually enjoy it as painful as it has been at times.

I think therapy is soft science, not a magic formula to heal people. Time heals as well, and I think studies show so can close friendships/relationships. I think some people are disappointed therapy is so nebulous, but sadly it has to be since we haven't discovered anything better yet, and so are even the drugs used to treat mental illness.

Still, if I am just throwing darts trying to regain my happiness, I'd rather throw them with someone than alone. I like having an older therapist who can tell me how things I am going through now were for him. I think it is good on my psyche to have someone who is kind and compassionate assume a "stable" roll in my life. I'll quote stable since obviously there's some big limitations there.

[Petra5ed]

Originally Posted by BudFox

I think the "therapy is not for everyone" notion is often used as a convenient rationalization for negative outcomes. It's a way to blame the client without blaming the client. And it's usually packaged with suggestions about the client not working hard enough, or trusting enough, or believing.

I'm with the OP -- training in psych and behavioral theory does not automatically translate to anything of value clinically or to any sort of ability to help another human being. And yet the profession depends on this conflation to sell it's product.

Like Misbella, it was only after diving in to some of the literature and online content that I could see any of this.

Budfox, you need to mentally label your therapy as what it was, horrible. Being fired for admitting feelings is about the worst "therapy" I can imagine.

I think therapy is not for everyone, it's only for people who like/ want to do it. Not everyone wants to cozy up to a stranger and open up about their deepest fears. My husband hates the idea of a stranger massaging him, but I love it. I don't try to push massage therapy on him. I think therapists are similar.