APA article: "Termination and abandonment: A key ethical distinction"

Why cant we all just get along?

In the article the professionals have decided what constitutes abandonment and what is best for the client, pretty much unequivocally. Abandonment is defined as a clinical concept. That's insane. If the client feels abandoned, they were abandoned. I would NEVER let a T decide anything for me. They can decide with me.

Therapists in my experience believe they can define reality for others. It is the essential therapist arrogance and delusion of omniscience. My ex T and others tried this. They said I was not abandoned in crisis. Oh no, it was an "ethical" termination. They defined ethical for me.

As Psychologist Dorothy Rowe said: "The most dangerous people in the world are those who believe that they know what is best for others. Whenever our own truth is denied, ignored, or invalidated we experience the greatest fear we can ever know: the threat of the annihilation of the self".

That was my experience. Feel traumatized by it still.

Not agreeing is not the same as not getting along.

I completely agree with this. It is one of the scariest parts, to me, about therapists and other self appointed do gooders.

The example cited is for me incidental. It's the analysis and interpretation that follows that i find revealing and disturbing. The client is treated like an object, to be transferred from one "clinician" to the next. The therapists and their clinical reality are at the center. If these guys think they know what is best for a suicidal (or any) client without asking the client, they have well and truly drunk the kool-aid.

I disagree that any code of ethics is to protect the patient. They are mainly about risk management. Here's what the APA says about termination:

10.10 terminating Therapy
(a) Psychologists terminate therapy when it becomes reasonably clear that the client/patient no longer needs the service, is not likely to benefit, or is being harmed by contin- ued service.
(b) Psychologists may terminate therapy when threat- ened or otherwise endangered by the client/patient or anoth- er person with whom the client/patient has a relationship.
(c) Except where precluded by the actions of clients/ patients or third-party payors, prior to termination psycholo- gists provide pretermination counseling and suggest alterna- tive service providers as appropriate.

If the author is at all representative of the profession clearly they do see themselves as omnipotent, or at least of a higher order. Therapist websites also convey the same message in varying degrees.

What makes you think the client is putting the T's life in danger in that vignette? Maybe it is the other way around.

And if the T does not want to deal with a suicidal client, why did they start at all? Therapists are good at getting into terrible messes with clients, but not so good at cleaning up. And the system is set up to give them an easy out. The ethics codes leave it to their discretion. Check a few boxes, no oversight, next client...

Again, if you guys arent doing therapy, arent interested in doing therapy, and think therapy is about as valid as a bag of monkey poop, why do you spend so much time here talking about it? "Methinks the lady (and bud) doth protest too much!"

Seems rather obvious to me. People harmed in therapy need some outlet for networking and speaking out, to preserve their sanity. What would you do?

I would turn the question around -- why post here compulsively if therapy is working for you?

I would argue that in both cases therapy has induced some sort of unhealthy preoccupation with therapy.

Good points. I totally agree.

I don't totally understand why speaking out against therapy harm makes some people so uncomfortable. Maybe it's fear. Not sure.

I don't think it's just speaking out against YOUR therapy that is an issue, or even that you feel the profession needs an overhaul and note issues with it. It is more (coming from my opinion only) the absolutes you guys sometimes use. Not all T's are narcissistic a-holes and incompetent and have God complexes, and in the end will harm the client.

I'm sorry you had that experience. And I would agree that the sentiment, very nicely expressed by Rowe, is true in the vast majority of cases. I wasn't talking about the example in the article so much as I was wondering aloud if others felt there was ever a legitimate exception to the sentiment.

In my personal experience, there has been. I have felt things that weren't true, because feelings do not create reality. Hell, I have heard, seen, tasted, and smelled things that weren't true, either. I was 100% convinced that self check-out machine had a consciousness and had intentionally and maliciously singled me out for ill-treatment. This was confirmed by what I knew, what I felt, what I saw and what I heard with my ears. It was true in every way that it was possible for something to be true.

Except that it wasn't.

Sometimes having your reality denied, ignored, invalidated is the opposite of gaslighting. Just something to keep in mind when we're talking about what therapists do.

A. I would find like-minded folks, not constantly interfere with and attack and bring down people who dont agree with me. Same reason i dont go to westboro church, gun shows, and other things that arent my cup of tea. Lifes too short.

B. Youre a therapist now, diagnosing me as compulsive? AGAINST GUIDELINES!

C. They need your great scientific mind to help solve the problem of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Or write school textbooks in texas. So many things you write here are just so blatantly false. Like "therapists are there to serve people." Honestly this used to be a nice website before you started pulling "facts" out of your arse.

I think showing more than one side of therapy is a good thing. And I find the topics interesting and fun to engage with.

I agree they might not all harm the client. And if someone doesn't think the therapist they hire is an assholic narcissistic incompetent god complex ridden do gooder -then why would my opinion about the profession matter?

Because recovering from harmful therapy is like cult recovery. In fact, therapy, excavating my painful childhood memories, was a cakewalk compared to recovery. Recovery has been exponentially more painful, has taken far more strength, honesty and courage than therapy itself.

And, I wish I'd had the information and support when I was going through the worst of it.

And, many of us found no support from practitioners themselves who appear terrified of the topic. I've yet find any literature that discusses recovery. Very little of their literature discusses harm in therapy and much of it blames the client.

And since this is a forum devoted to ...psychotherapy...I surmise I'm as entitled to be here as anyone else.

PS. The discomfort here around the topic mirrors what we've received from providers. We've seen it; we're used to it.

I have found like minded folks here. Are you suggesting total polarization and segregation? Aren't you interfering with this thread? Any time there is a thread that is openly questioning or critical or speaks about therapy abuse, people who have no experience of this will post and put forth a defense of the system anyway. Isn't this a sort of attack or harassment of those who do have a stake in such topics? One could argue that certain threads constitute a mini support place for people who have been harmed in therapy. So why invade the thread with a defense of therapy norms?

The problem is that one sort of view here is privileged over another. Criticism or questioning is considered "negative" and is not tolerated. It's covert censorship and discourages dissent and diversity of views.

Peace out…

I've never seen anyone objecting to people posting their personal painful experiences. We have number of posters who suffered/suffer great deal of abuse in hands of mental health professionals etc horrendous stuff. I see nothing but empathy in people's responses. I don't think I ever saw anyone being censored or asked not post their bad experiences. Quite on contrary. I for sure never even thought for a minute people shouldn't be allowed to share their bad experiences.
I am puzzled now.

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I would hesitate to refer to people posting as "compulsive". People might be posting for number of reasons or some might actually posting a lot and "compulsively" due to obsessive compulsive disorder ( as an example). I would avoid diagnosing anyone or suggesting reasoning behind people's posts.

It's happened to me a lot and many, many people have left this website due to this type of behavior.

I admit to feeling supported here but lately have wanted to post less in case I say the wrong thing and get attacked for supporting therapists by encouraging people.

It doesn't make me think "OMG, my T is secretly terrible!" or anything, but I suppose it feels (for me) a bit invalidating to read such absolutes on therapy/therapists as a whole. Not enough for me to get all up in arms about it, but something about the way some people word their distress as all therapy should be abolished, etc...rubs me the wrong way.

SD, I will say, you always state that this is what you think about your Ts, and don't lump everyone into one box.

I also think discussion on the pitfalls of therapy are a good thing.

If someone feels attacked they should report it to a moderator. They can decide what to do.

Why should anybody feel attacked? Im just standing here with my westboro church sign while you bury your GI son, screaming. Its my civil right.

Just my tuppence worth from a different bit somewhat unusual perspective. I am experiencing forced termination but not because either party wants it. The rules that are in force to protect people are hurting me. A charity cannot fund long term therapy which is working but cannot allow the therapist to see 'the client' privately because it could be abused to hurt people, conning them out of money when therapy is not needed. That is not the case here but there is no way round. Is it right? No. Bit it is what it is and I guess it is just a case of moving on and accepting it. Living in the moment and in the hurt doesn't help anyone, it only leads to more hurt. Is that east? No, but it really is the only way forward. The decision has been made, as in this story, and no amount of hate, hurt, frustration, anger or disappointment will solve that so where does that leave the client. In a quandry where a decision needs to be made. Move forwards, stay stuck or disintegrate. Difficult decision.

Yea true. A better word would have been "frequently".