Have you ever been hurt or used by a therapist?

I don't agree. As an abandoned baby, and my journey in therapy. I can say that the damage done as a baby could not have happened to a functioning adult in the same way if someone leaves them.
That's my actual experience. Not a definition I've read

We all need other people in our lives to live well. We may not die as adults if we are abandoned, but we can certainly be hurt by it, because we still depend on others for support. If that support is taken away when we are at our most vulnerable because someone just doesn't want to deal with us, and we are left to cope with the loss of that support as well as the pain we were already dealing with, that's abandonment.

That's not to say that there aren't legitimate reasons to walk away from a relationship that's hurting you. If another person is toxic for you, you do have the right to tell that person that you can no longer be a good friend to them and then move on. If you force yourself to stay in a relationship that's destructive for YOU, that will also be to the detriment of the other person, and that also applies to the relationship between a therapist and a client. If the therapist feels like continuing the treatment of a client is going to harm both parties, the most ethical thing would be to refer the client to someone else. To me, that is not abandonment, because it is the only responsible thing that the therapist can do once they have reached that point. At least the therapist is acknowledging his or her limits. Staying in a relationship out of obligation will only hurt more in the long-term.

Self-care is important for therapists as well. We all need to put our own needs first, ultimately, in order to not harm ourselves. Therapists don't WANT to lose clients, because that's their income. Just like any other service provider would not want to lose clients, but would still be obligated to inform the client if they find themselves unable to help them. You wouldn't want a surgeon to perform a procedure on you that they were not qualified for, would you? You wouldn't want a plumber who tells you that he or she is not qualified to fix a more complicated plumbing issue in your house to still give it a go? Think of the damage they could cause!

And would those service providers, if they failed to inform a customer or patient or whatever of their inability to perform a given task, be subject to a lawsuit? Most likely, yes. So they do the responsible thing and refer them to someone else to make sure they don't make mistakes that could get them into serious trouble. Why should a therapist not be able to do the same thing? Why is it unethical to admit inadequacy and give the client a list of other options instead?

If the therapist terminates for no sodding reason whatsoever, and leaves a vulnerable client to fend for themselves, that is completely different. That is an irresponsible thing to do. The client should be clear on why the therapist is choosing to refer them to someone else, make it clear that it's not because they don't care about the client, but rather the opposite as it would be in the client's best interest. Once it is clear that the client has understood what is happening, it is okay for the therapist to make the referral.

Abandonment is when someone just walks away from a person in need of help, with no explanation as to why they are doing so. In the case of abandonment, there is no regard for the other person's needs. They could be left behind with no one else to turn to, with potentially catastrophic results. Adults can be abandoned and left to suffer on their own, and that suffering could end up killing them in the end. It doesn't have to, but it might. Abandonment involves cruelty and recklessness. That is the difference between terminating a relationship, and abandoning someone!

There is not just one experience or type of experience that counts, in my opinion. Certainly infant abandonment is an abandonment, but it is not the only abandonment that counts or causes pain.

I may have thought my reasons for this being personal were obvious but will attempt to be summarical in listing some of the reasoning. Mainly I take it personally..

• ..because I've paid for the privilege of being hurt by therapists not well suited to their profession, at times that I was particularly vulnerable and after being led down garden paths by so many people who insisted I just needed to trust in the process. This made for much more significant injury than most relationship breaks tend to incur.
• ..because victims shouldn't be re-victimized by being told that their experiences are negligible or insignificant.
• ..because recoveries aren't guaranteed; not everything can be fixed, and some of the hurts I received came at times when I was not resilient enough to manage the resulting cumulative effects.
• ..because it shouldn't be at all necessary, in order for individuals to feel good about their own individual psychotherapy experiences, to discourage opportunities for those who have had bad experiences to be allowed to name their hurts.

I am not anti-psychiatry; I'm only anti-bad-psychiatry. There's a huge difference. Saying that everything about it is good all of the time helps no one, and only turns people in vulnerable situations into ineffective consumers of what could otherwise be helpful -- of which I have been one.

I personally think that one of the trickiest and most wholly underaddressed biases for large institutions and industries is that of survivorship bias. As a matter of course, non-survivors are mostly rendered mute in some way and removed from view. As the failures become invisible, naturally we pay more attention to the successes, and we fail to recognize that what is missing might have held important information, or worse yet to recognize that there is missing information at all. Depending on our purview this ofttimes evolves into our not believing that failures exist at all. Beliefs in the need for things like "positive thinking", while not invalid in their own right, provide an abundant cloak under which survivorship biases thrive.

If a surgeon opened you up and then walked away it would be abandonment. Even if you weren't going to die directly as a result. My T opened me up emotionally and then walked away.

I would never be so bold as to suggest I knew the one and only definition of a word.

You are putting your slant on what I said. I didn't deny abuse by therapists. Read my post.

As an aside. All the adults here are writing on a forum/poll about what is or isn't 'abandonment. I don't see any babies/children making polls.

My point. Adults can to scream/fight back. Write about it.

Please read my original rely.

Adults cannot be abandoned in the same way babies can be but that does not mean they cannot be abandoned. Why the investment in proving people wrong?

Say we are all wrong and no adult can be abandoned, where is the harm? People hold onto a label to prove a bad thing that was done to them. Taking that away does what??

Here's your original statement in reply to my OP saying that all suggestions about this poll were welcome.

The way I read your statement it sounds like you think this entire thread is a bunch of bunk. You are entitled to your opinion. Thanks for your input. I believe a lot of therapists may have a similar opinion. Which, to me, is personal and frightening because, despite your opinion, I have been hurt by therapy in the past. You are not in a position to tell me, or anybody else, what our experience has been. Your opinion about our experience is not the same thing as our experience.

I wrote originally that all suggestions were welcome. Thanks for your input. I'm not clear what your suggestions are, though. Remove the word "abandoned"? Remove the thread entirely?

Yet one of the definitions of the word abandon is to leave. ??

But why does your experience make you qualified to determine for everyone else who can and cannot be abandoned? Of course the damage abandonment causes a baby is different than an adult. I don't necessarily see that as being any less harmful -- just different.

Do babies/children (young) even have the capacity to make such polls??
Maybe this poll was created by the OP as a way to "scream/fight back' as you say -- which, by the way, not all adults are capable to scream/fight back, or write about it.

Absolutely correct!! And it has taken me so long, first to begin to recognize and feel hurt, and then to overcome the tremendous sense of powerlessness and fury, because who would take me seriously in that state?

Thanks to everyone who participated in this poll and discussion.

One thing that struck me in looking over the replies is how being exploited personally by a therapist, shamed, or abandoned may have a common theme in that we end up with a sense of not counting to the therapist. That was certainly the biggie for me. And then I felt hurt, abandoned, disappointed in this institution of society, stupid me for placing my trust in therapists, and lost about how I could find help for myself. Which got back around to how the society as a whole, and all the people in it, placed no value on me. And the important thing was, of course, that I placed no value on at least certain parts of me either. Still working on that. Still don’t trust my T but I think it may be intense negative transference from all the hurt in past therapy as well as childhood trauma. Time will tell.

Any last thoughts before this thread drifts away or I ask the mods to close it?

In fact I did not apply any slant to what you said. I'm careful not to recharacterize things that other people say as I find that kind of action to be an insidious and manipulative crime against humanity. You asked why it was personal to me and I simply advised of same.

I never said you denied abuse. I only suggested that the types of statements you made could discourage abused persons from speaking their truth, since the existence of this poll represents an opportunity for that and you did seem to indicate in your original reply that you thought a poll had no place in this process. (My comments about survivorship bias were directed at the industry at large and at effects which inform all our experiences, myself included; I believe I was clear in this.)

There have been studies that have shown how putting our feelings into words produces therapeutic effects on the brain; maybe we're attracted to our polls because they nudge us in that direction, of finding language for our feelings. Whether and how we agree and we disagree though, I do think these polls tend to draw us together as a community, as a brain trust, around topics that many of us may not otherwise have opportunity to effectively discuss with the types of benefits a wider audience provides.

Thank you here today, for the thoughtful post and poll.

I chose the "abandon" option in the poll, but all of the following would also apply:
humiliated
shamed
infantilized
pathologized
rejected

As for use of the word "abandonment", seems entirely appropriate, not least because therapists are sometimes acting as surrogate parental figures, and clients regress into childlike needs.

Also this definition of abandon is pretty straightforward: "cease to support or look after someone".

Same here. That's exactly how I thought of it. When we discussed this metaphor on the phone in our last conversation, my T insisted that she had "put me back together" despite my obvious acute pain. I guess that would be another way she hurt me… gaslighting.

And one other major category that would seem worthy of this poll is:

> Therapist using the client to gratify their own needs.

Examples: the need to feel powerful, admired, desired, needed, validated, to be a rescuer, to have controlled intimacy, to be the center of attention, etc.

Translation: Many of those who claim harm in therapy are deluded and would be advised to see a shrink to have these fantasies "corrected".

Reality: Therapists are probably often as, or more, deluded than clients about the outcome of their work. And they exert pressure on clients to comply and to believe they are being helped, possibly skewing polls away from reporting harm. The true outcome of therapy is the subjective response of the client, not the interpretation of the therapist.

There is a difference between "abandonment" and "feels as abandonment". IMHO. If t gives a client three months warning that they have to retire for health reason or to have a baby and follow up with appropriate referrals etc etc but client is mad that t didn't give 2 years warning or dare to have a life and now client "feels abandoned", it is not realty abandonment IMHO opinion. Feelings are still valid and it's ok to feel hurt but it still doesn't mean abandonment of that t is a monster.

Many things aren't what they are perceived. Some things are fantasy. But of course many many people truly are horribly mistreated by their therapists. There are posters now who are being exploited by their therapists in the most horrible ways. Criminal. Bottom line it needs to be addressed case by case. Not every termination is abandonment and not every unproductive therapy is caused by therapists abuse etc etc case by case

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Hallejuier. A sensible reply.

Sensible being one that agrees? All replies here are sensible, they just aren't of the same opinion.

This is classic therapy-speak. It's also sounds like a denial reflex. Many things aren't what they are perceived… what does that mean? Perception is everything. My T tried this sort of mind game. She wanted to substitute her version of reality for mine. It was her version that was fantasy. Her logic was that she meant well, was trying to protect me, therefore the experience could not have been harmful. And with the right insights from another T I'd see how it was actually helpful, even though I was clearly wrecked. Who's crazy now?

The example you give about three months warning, etc is an idealized scenario. Some T's terminate abruptly, irrationally, unilaterally, and with the client in crisis.

Yes some people are horribly mistreated. But others can suffer quite badly in ways that are not so obvious, and which are conveniently dismissed by those who wish to avoid facing such things. Some of this requires nuanced understanding.

I see this as the opposite - abandonment isn't abandonment without feeling abandoned.

A client's therapist could dump the client on the spot in a careless way but if the client takes it reasonably well and rebounds quickly, I wouldn't consider that to be clear abandonment.

On the flip side, I would argue that a therapist having a baby and leaving a vulnerable client in a bad state is definitely abandonment.

Also, IMO what makes a monster is intention.

I got mad at my T a while ago. One of her responses when I told her so was to say -- 'Oh I abandoned you just like your mother abandoned you'.

For the record, my mother always fed, clothed and sheltered me (that she has other issues is one of the reasons I'm in therapy) -- T knows that very well.

I found the use of the word 'abandoned' by my T (both to refer to herself and my Mom) a trifle over the top -- I had to bite my tongue to not say "No, you just eff-ed up and didn't do the job you're being paid to do".

In general as well, I've thought T's characterization of my experiences to often be kinda overwrought -- I thought she was loosely using a lot of words (E.g. trauma etc). But, as I read up stuff, I found that she was actually using the accepted definition of these words.

T also often admonishes me about language -- one of the sticking points in my therapy has been around her reminding me to use specific language rather than my usual hyperbole (E.g. me saying 'I am a horrible person' sets her off on the language watch stuff).

So, when she used the word 'abandoned' to speak of an emotional experience that I had while in therapy, I was taken aback but also it made me pause and wonder about how certain sorts of specific language is used most often only in relation to therapy.

All of that to say, yes, language matters. But, I'd always rather err on the side of someone using the language they feel most empowers them given their experience, rather than have them feeling disempowered because of semantic differences perceived by others who by definition, haven't shared that experience.

I was not replying to anything in particular. I didn't read most posts prior to posting. Certainly I couldn't include every possible scenarios that could happen. I pretty much said it is all case by case individual scenarios. No universal set in stone truth.

As about perception I said it's important and valid as its bases on valid feelings. But the world doesn't function only based on people's perceptions. We have people believing that everyone is after them or that everyone lusts over them or they are abducted by aliens or victims of government conspiracy. It's their reality and there is validity to it as it causes them suffering.

But the rest of the world doesn't share that reality. Not every perception is ultimate truth.

So we can only go case by case and it's not as simple.

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If client perception is not the most relevant and meaningful gauge of the truth of a therapy experience, then someone please enlighten me... what is?

Also, the "fantasy" logic vomited out by some posters in this thread could also be applied to a client's claim that therapy saved them. If you're gonna discount people's subjective experience, you gotta apply it without bias, not just to those experiences that make you uncomfortable.

Oh perception is very relevant, maybe even the most relevant, but it's not the only thing. Let's face it, many people suffer with variety of issues and their perception might be somewhat off. If a woman has a perception that every men desires to have sex wth her (I've met people like that), it's very likely she believes her t wants her too. But isn't necessarily true? I don't know. Maybe yes, maybe no. I've met people who believe some very strange things. All of us at times have perception of things that aren't 100% accurate. Some more than others

I agree that perception that therapy saved the person could be also completely off. I certainly apply it with no bias. I never said that it only applies to certain experiences. It all really depends as much of it is subjective. It also depends what is one in therapy for.

There is very little that makes me uncomfortable, I am just talking, just my opinion, I don't see anyone vomiting anything, just expressing their opinions ( saying that reading about exploitation of vulnerable clients by some Ts certainly is extremely upsetting. I have low tolerance for abuse).

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I had a very bad T once.
He touched me without permission.
He shamed me for not buying him gifts like his other "friends"
He called his clients "friends"
He would eat in front of me and say "I would offer you some but your not dying" I'm overweight.
He gave away my appointment to someone else.
Forwarded the email she sent him thanking him for the appointment.
It had her name and email address in it.