Have you ever been hurt or used by a therapist?

God, that's horrifying.

Yeah, but.....and a huge but here!!! Unless you've been on the receiving end of a phantastical account outside of any open forum it might seem -Mouse is dismissing yours and others experiences.

I've personally been harassed over a phantastical account. I wouldn't be bold myself to dismiss nor antagonize such a point of view.

Show me anywhere on PC where there are posts suggesting that people who claim therapy saved or healed them are engaging in fantasy and cannot be trusted with reality. And if can you find some, I would bet they were not tolerated at all.

What a horrid person. He needs to be reported. Total idiot. He gets paid for this nonsense. I am glad you aren't seeing him anymore.

I would say, hurt by a t is probably par for the course. If we go into therapy thinking we are only always going to be petted and praised and uplifted, and never feel badly - ashamed or embarrassed or guilty - wow then you must be a saint. Or superman. Not human, anyway. Godlike. Used by a t - thats different; thats likely unethical and reportable. Thats how i would define those terms.

I completely disagree with this. And it is a not in any way because one expects to be petted or praised or uplifted (good lord - what a horrific thought to have a therapist do either of those things). I do expect a therapist to not intentionally try to make a client feel bad or deliberately embarrassed. I don't usually feel guilty around a therapist but I certainly would not expect one to try to guilt trip me.

Oh there are plenty of posts about awful therapists on this forum and not only poor victims claim that those Ts are awesome ( despite the fact that client is getting worse)but other posters state that those Ts are doing great job with whatever nonsense they are doing. It's very much tolerated.

I dare to say there are as many ( if not more) posts about being harmed by therapy as about being supposedly helped by therapists who are doing some bizarre stuff and I don't see how any of it is helpful ( often client keeps getting worse).

I think it's against guidelines of this forum to quote random people from other threads. But there are many! I am surprised you haven't read them.

But this kind of comment DOES invalidate the feelings of those who feel they have been hurt by therapy. Hurt doesn't have to mean intention or criminality or even negligence on the part of the therapist. I think most of the time it is ignorance.

And how can that ignorance be changed? By getting more information. And how can more information be obtained if people deny that clients have been harmed? Chicken and egg.

What I was trying to do with this poll was to try to see the reason or source of the hurt from people who felt they had been hurt in therapy. I've been very badly hurt and the better I get the more I realize how horribly I was hurt by different therapists over a number of years, worsening my mental and emotional state, and delaying my possible recovery once I got to my current T, a specialist in trauma. I'm not sure that she's a good "fit" in every respect but she did understand trauma and dissociation which other therapists did not recognize.

It was horrible and horrifying and I was a wreck and my attempts to get help just led to situations where I was shamed, increasing my sense of wreckage and inability to function. That is harm. It is not just a matter of my perspective or a fantasy, because I couldn't function, where before seeking help I could.

I think/hope I may be on my way now to being better. But I feel like probably I am very lucky and I was very persistent.

Please don't invalidate me or anyone else who has responded to this poll in a way that feels valid to them. If researchers were to investigate reports of harm in therapy from the perspective of trying to find it in order to learn about the causes, then better therapy could result. Why dismiss the idea before the reports can even be looked at on a case by case basis?

Most certainly many people get horribly very possibly intentionally harmed by therapists. This forum is full of horrible stories of totally scary abusive horrible therapists who need to be immediately reported and shouldn't be allowed to practice. Heck just few posts above person said that t touched her without permission and ate in front of her commenting on weight etc gee there is nothing about perception here. The guy shouldn't be allowed to practice. I can't imagine anyone thinking this is a good t.

My point is that every situation in regards to potential mistreatment needs to be looked at individually case by case.

Probably a bit extreme example but did the t abruptly left because he is terminal and is on a death bed or his mother is dying or he abruptly left because he is an *** and can't care less about clients. Client might feel equally upset no matter why t left but the context does make a difference if we want to determine if it's true mistreatment.

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I am late to this discussion, but the hurt my therapist caused me different from what others described. He financially exploited me and billed my insurance for sessions we never had. I felt very betrayed and used. My new t and pdoc wanted me to confront him or tell my insurance, but I have never been able to. I've felt too ashamed.

In a way I think we are talking about apples and oranges. I'm not so much interested in looking at hurt in terms of who is to blame or not. I willing to grant, for instance, that in my case most of the mistreatments were because of ignorance. I still got hurt and that hurt impacted my ability to function well and to make decisions concerning the next steps in looking for treatment or not.

Here in the U.S. I think part of the problem is the system. When you aren't functioning well you are not in such a good position to know what to do about anything, including what to do about your mental health.

But if we could get some information about how often people are hurt, misdiagnosed, mistreated, etc., then maybe we could do some things to improve the situation? So that was why I posted the poll, to see how easy it might be to try to get some information, if people were interested.

What I really would like is for serious researchers -- and they have started that it looks like in the UK -- to look into how many people report that they have been harmed/hurt in therapy and then, yes, they would research that on a case by case basis. But research into adverse effects of therapy is not happening much, from what I can tell. Part of that may be because to say that someone was hurt often implies blame and people want to avoid that. But if we take therapist-blaming out of the equation and just look at people reporting that they've been hurt, maybe that could help move things along.

I am definitely 100% on board when it comes to subject of conducting an objective independent research regardless of what one thinks or how they feel about the issue, and any issue for that matter. Any resistance to such research implies to me that the one who objects it is afraid to discover something they don't want to discover and face. Any independent research in our profit-driven society, however, is virtually impossible to conduct because there are many powerful entities with a lot vested interest to keep things in the dark.

I also agree that the discussions get muddied with the issue of blame. For many people harming someone always implies intention which isn't always true and, in my experience, in most cases isn't true. My shrinks didn't harm me intentionally and most of them were actually decent people. It's hard for people to wrap their mind about the fact that one may be a decent person and still harm you because of ignorance. That doesn't mean they aren't responsible for their actions, but I differentiate responsibility from blame. Responsibility means I own my actions and acknowledge that they hurt someone. Blame means that So-and-So is an asshole for doing this or that, or, in case of self-blame, it means I am an asshole for doing this or that to someone. Blame is pointless and destructive. Responsibility is meaningful and constructive. I am not interested in blaming those who hurt me. I don't waste my energy judging them as human beings because it serves no purpose to me, but I sure as hell hold them responsible for their actions, and it doesn't matter to me whether those actions were intentional or not, because, in terms of the effect they had on me, it makes no difference.

Another great confusion that inflames emotions and stirs up fights on this forum is a misunderstanding the word "systemic". The meaning of this word is confused with generalization. When some posters, myself included, suggest that the problem is systemic, other translate it as "OMG, they are saying that all therapists are bad, all therapy methods are bad and everything about therapy is bad! How dare they invalidate our good experiences!" Systemic problems don't mean that everything about therapy is bad and all therapists are bad and that it never works with anyone, so it is not a generalization. It simply means that there are certain attitudes within the profession and certain methods it employs that are quite common and are, in fact, cultivated during professional training, and that those attitudes and methods harm a significant enough number of people to acknowledge the problem as systemic.

Another way to conceptualize it is to think about the system as a culture. Every group of people united by something they have in common such as ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, profession etc create a certain culture. Medical profession has its unique culture, legal profession has its culture, and, naturally, mental health profession has its specific culture, with its specific traits, some of which are quite unattractive.

One example that can illustrate the difference between generalization and recognizing something as a systemic problem is child abuse in Catholic Church. No one will deny at this point that Catholic Church has a systemic problem with child sexual abuse. Equally, no one will suggest that this systemic problem implies that every single Catholic priest is a perpetrator or that everything about Catholic faith is destructive and evil.

Oh that's awful! Could you sue him? Although I know it's too much a hassle. What a shame. Scammer!!!!

Thanks so much for your reply. So sorry this happened to you.

Your feeling too ashamed to confront your ex-therapist sounds a lot like what what I think I've read can happen to other people who are abused or taken advantage of in other situations. And thus may be part of the difficulty with people speaking out after getting hurt in therapy? At least your new T and pdoc are supportive of you.

Maybe when you're doing better you may find or develop the (ego) strength and motivation to confront him? I confronted one of my ex-T's after I had been with my current T for a couple of years. Didn't help me feel a lot better but it was about all I could do. Maybe helped to prevent him from doing the same ignorant thing to another client, that felt OK, but it didn't help my hurt.

I agree this happens often. Seems obvious to me that harm in therapy does not imply blame or bad intent. Surprised it has to be stated over and over.

In my experience with the therapy culture, it's ok to talk about therapy harm as long as the the therapist is depicted as a monster that everyone can recognize as such. If you say that a good therapist caused bad things to happen, the claws come out because the implications are too unsettling. Usually some sort of client blaming is the result.

I'm fairly certain my therapist had good intent. But she injured me badly. If people (including Ts) react to that by lashing out, or saying I must be confused about what really happened, or that I should stop blaming her, I assume it is a self-protective move that has nothing to do with me or with reality.

Is there something in this thread specifically that suggests people are engaging in fantasy? I don't see it. Are some therapy clients lost in a make-believe world, yea probably. But I don't see what that has to do with this thread and poll.

My concern is not that Mouse or anyone is dismissing my experience. I am not here to have my experience validated. My interest is the way the system treats its victims. I have firsthand experience with the dangerous distortions that can be imposed on a client's experience, and when I see similar manifestations here, I point it out because I find that therapeutic and because I hope it helps others.

It was part of the discussion of the thread in it's entirety. Nothing wrong with my adding my perspective, is there?

Eta: I am saying that a cultural mindset can affect others self perspectives. I was adding my own experience because of someone's perceived slight and I was harassed as being part of their problem.

How often does psychotherapy make people feel worse?

One in twenty is a significant minority, even if it is far from okay for 763 people to have been harmed by therapy. It shouldn't happen, but to say that it probably happens more often than not, which is an argument I have seen several times on this forum, is simply unreasonable. I don't think that is something that could be swept under the rug, because no rug is that big!

And yes, I realise that this survey only includes those receiving treatment for either depression or anxiety, but given how those people probably make up the vast majority of therapy clients due to those disorders being the most "common", it makes sense for this group to serve as a sort of starting point (in my opinion).

I think that more people are hurt than that study would reveal. I think it is good that those people acknowledge it in some form at least, but I believe the people who are hurt the most would not be participating in studies nor would the researchers know how to reach them.
I have no idea why it is so hard to believe people are harmed by therapy or at least not helped in equal to or greater numbers than are actively helped by it. I see their studies like asking a butcher if meat is something you should not eat.

A study is only meaningful if they reveal the guts of it. Who asked what of whom, when, using what language, how did they compensate for selection bias, for all the confounding variables, etc.

I also think that only asking current or recently ended clients is misleading, and conflicts with the survey question about "lasting bad effects". I'd have reported something entirely different if I'd been asked months later.

And what about people who just abruptly stopped and disappeared?

"One in twenty is a significant minority"

Where did you get this number 1 in 20? Any available statistics you can point to?

"even if it is far from okay for 763 people to have been harmed by therapy"

And where did 763 number came from?

"but to say that it probably happens more often than not, which is an argument"

No, this is not the argument. The argument (at least mine) is that there is a qualitative difference between the idea of something being systemic and the idea of generalization. People tend to confuse those two but they aren't the same. (See my previous post)

"And yes, I realise that this survey only includes those receiving treatment for either depression or anxiety, but given how those people probably make up the vast majority of therapy clients due to those disorders being the most "common", it makes sense for this group to serve as a sort of starting point (in my opinion)".

Not sure I get the point.

Read the article.

The study says nothing about the percentage of people who found therapy helpful. It may well be that a lot of people find that therapy is of no use to them, and that is fine. It's not for everyone. However, I have to wonder if all of those people were even aware of what type of therapy they were involved in.

Would it be ideal if all of those basic things were explained by the therapist at the start of the process? Absolutely. But most of that stuff is also available online, or you could ask the therapist yourself. You're not going to find something helpful if you are not actively engaging in the process, and I think a lot of those people who find therapy ineffective believed that therapy was going to be "easy", somehow. The therapist can only do so much.

There will, inevitably, be incompetent therapists. Incompetent people are everywhere. Ineffective therapy could be caused by either the therapist or the client, or even both in the case of a bad combination.

The butcher comparison makes no sense to me. The survey didn't ask therapists if therapy works. It asked clients. You don't think a survey about whether or not one should eat meat could reach a group of vegetarians?

This is the psychotherapy thread on a forum for all types of MI. I believe there is more than just anxiety and depressed people responding to this poll. There's Sz, BP and other mood disorders plus personality disorders. I also believe that those most hurt are more likely to respond to a poll of this type so trying to take away any stats from a poll of this type would be misleading.

The point is that there are many other disorders besides those two, so that is one of the limitations of the study. Nonetheless, it is a start.

The rest of your post suggests that you have not even read the article that links to and describes the study I am talking about.