[here today]

Here's a start toward investigating harm in therapy. Any and all suggestions about this poll are welcome.

Anybody who replies "Yes, other" please let me know how if you are willing to say -- PM me if you don't want to post it.

I was hurt by therapy years ago. I was terminated after seven years, and I then found a therapist who understands.

[Nammu]

I did say anything cause none apply. Yes I was hurt but it was the truth that hurt, it was confrontation of my own deacons that hurt. The Ts I've had never had anything directly to do with the hurt...they supported me.

Maybe you should specify hurt by therapist or by therapy. Sometimes therapy hurts but in the long run is helpful...also the poll is based on personal perception and not nessasarly what really happened.

If asked five years ago, I would have said yes, but I checked the No box, because as I reflect back, I can understand more what the therapist was thinking, so my answer is No.

[junkDNA]

yes,.. sexual involvment w/ contact.. exploitation and shame.

[Out There]

Yes , a supossed trauma therapist completely blew my trauma and knew it.

[precaryous]

I put "other" because I would need the ability to chose multiple choices.
Better that I just select "other" with an explanation:

Abusive PDoc2-Yes, sexual involvement/sexual exploitation/with physical contact and, also, forced sexual contact. Also severe emotional exploitation and severe financial exploitation. Shame. Guilt.

Abusive PDoc1-Yes, sexual involvement/sexual exploitation without physical contact. Also severe emotional exploitation. Abandonment. Shame. Guilt.

[1stepatatime]

I put "other" because I have been hurt by what I feel are inconsistencies in my therapy . It was only about a month ago my therapist said to me that I have been reaching out to her through my emails, that she realizes that I need more .. She was so attentive and tuned in to me.. Now it feels different .
The week before last I got " there was nothing for me to say" regarding her not responding to my email letting her know I was home from the hospital and doing okay. The inconsistencies hurt me.

[Pennster]

I put other as my first therapist accidentally retraumatized me. A good guy, but he made some big mistakes that left me in a hard state.

[vonmoxie]

I had to check three: exploited, shamed, and "other".

The other I referred to was a hurt by way of spitefulness on the part of the therapist. There had been what seemed to be a romantic or sexual interest on her part, which did not become a sexual involvement (or any kind of involvement -- I declined all invitations for extracurricular activities), and which over time developed into this spitefulness over what I suppose she felt was my rejection, even though all I was doing was trying to put therapy first which I kind of thought was the point. Unfortunately I became invested in the therapy relationship as she did start out offering me valuable insights, and it was heartbreaking to face up to the fact that her behavior towards me was only continuing to devolve.

[Ididitmyway]

Nice poll and striking results even though I understand that the sample has been small so far.

I put "other" also because I'd need to check multiple boxes to explain how I was hurt and not all of them are in the poll. Most cases, I think, are complicated enough to describe in one way.

Originally Posted by here today

Here's a start toward investigating harm in therapy. Any and all suggestions about this poll are welcome.

Anybody who replies "Yes, other" please let me know how if you are willing to say -- PM me if you don't want to post it.

Adults can't be abandoned. They can be left.
Hurt? It hurt in the beginning when T had a break. But she wasn't hurting me. I hurt.

Sexual abuse in therapy is abuse. It's not being hurt. That belittled it.

I've got to say, there is a small portion of clients in therapy that have issues that need addressing by professionals. Not a poll. They're some who have been abused. But, there also some with a phantasy life that feels real to them. A poll is not an indicator of anything.

[The_little_didgee]

I selected Yes, other.

My experience with "traumatic" therapy was due to misdiagnosis. It caused the therapist to come up with all kinds of absurd theories for my way of being. The most painful one was being told I was sexually abused which never happened. It briefly made me question my childhood. Eventually I realized it was a part of their scheme to fit me nicely into the wrong diagnosis, because it was easier for them not to consider other possibilities. Now I am very cautious with psychotherapy and all the theories that come with it.

[vonmoxie]

Originally Posted by _Mouse

Adults can't be abandoned. They can be left.
Hurt? It hurt in the beginning when T had a break. But she wasn't hurting me. I hurt.

Sexual abuse in therapy is abuse. It's not being hurt. That belittled it.

I've got to say, there is a small portion of clients in therapy that have issues that need addressing by professionals. Not a poll. They're some who have been abused. But, there also some with a phantasy life that feels real to them. A poll is not an indicator of anything.

Maybe you should inform the APA, that adults can't be abandoned. Seems as though they would be anxious to know so that they can correct their documentation, which makes clear distinctions about what does constitute abandonment in therapy: Termination and abandonment: A key ethical distinction (APA)

Why so defensive? If the poll is no indicator of anything (and I think it's fairly obvious to all that these little polls are casual at best and not scientific indicators), why worry? I don't know how anyone can say what the portion of clients in therapy that have similar issues is. No one ever officially asked me what I felt about it. I'm sure every psych professional I've ever had has written down in their notes that I was improved by virtue of the attention they gave me, and maybe they even believe it, but neither their notes nor their beliefs could possibly be considered unbiased. I've had 5 therapists in my life; 1 was great, 2 toed the line leaving me approximately no better and no worse than when they found me, and 2 were so lousy as to be detrimental to my prospects for improved mental health with nearly permanent (extremely difficult to undo) effects.

I mean, I'm about the furthest thing from having a victim mentality as exists. I've suffered without complaint traumas that make people cringe just to hear the broad stroke details of (including most therapists), but the reality is that the vulnerability of the therapy relationship is a sacred trust that is broken and mishandled by many therapists. Pretending that people who are or will be hurt by a therapist must be of such a negligible percent as to render a poll unnecessary, now that is both dangerous and belittling.

Babies are abandoned.
.I'm not defensive. Let's just say, I'm critical. Why are you taking my part so personal?

[Pennster]

I've seen several times on here that adults can't be abandoned and I've always wondered where this comes from. I just looked up a few dictionary definitions and several had the sense of "withdraw support from", which seems to potentially fit what happens when a therapist unilaterally decides to end a therapeutic relationship.

Babies are abandoned, sure, but so, for example, are friends in dire straits.

[Bipolar Warrior]

Whenever someone walks away from another person who needs them, that constitutes abandonment in my opinion. Babies are entirely dependent on their parents and cannot survive without them, so if a baby is left behind that is abandonment in its most extreme form. But if you tell a friend that you are in trouble and need help/support, and they respond by saying that they just don't want to deal with that and then leave you, isn't that abandonment as well? Would you not feel abandoned if that happened to you?

Originally Posted by Pennster

I've seen several times on here that adults can't be abandoned and I've always wondered where this comes from. I just looked up a few dictionary definitions and several had the sense of "withdraw support from", which seems to potentially fit what happens when a therapist unilaterally decides to end a therapeutic relationship.

Babies are abandoned, sure, but so, for example, are friends in dire straits.

Nah. A baby would starve and die if abandoned. Would a friend?

[Pennster]

Originally Posted by _Mouse

Nah. A baby would starve and die if abandoned. Would a friend?

No, but I have seen no dictionary definition that requires death to qualify for abandonment.

A spouse wouldn't die if left, yet "spousal abandonment" is a legal term and grounds for divorce.

The consequences of abandonment may be different for adults and children, but that's not the same thing as saying adults can't be abandoned.

Adults can feel as if. But its not actual abandonment. It may trigger feelings of an early true abandoned. But it's not actual abandonment.

On another level. Why do adults wish to disempower themselves by labeling it abandoment?

[Pennster]

Originally Posted by _Mouse

Adults can feel as if. But its not actual abandonment. It may trigger feelings of an early true abandoned. But it's not actual abandonment.

On another level. Why do adults wish to disempower themselves by labeling it abandoment?

I don't wish to disempower myself, as this isn't about me. I have never been in the situation of being abandoned. I'm just curious why some people want to redefine the term here. It has a meaning beyond what happens to children, and I am curious about the reluctance to acknowledge that.

Doesn't really matter what you call it. It's just a word. Abandoned, left, terminated. It's the word they use in their literature. I don't care.

If you have to starve and die from being abandoned and it only happens to babies then no one survives it I guess?

Who cares about what word you use. I only use it sometimes because that is the word the therapists themselves use in their codes of ethics. I don't understand getting hung up on a word. It doesn't make me feel disempowered to use it. I don't think that is why people use it but who knows.

I voted no. Therapy has been painful at times, but I wouldn't blame any of it on my T.

Originally Posted by Pennster

I don't wish to disempower myself, as this isn't about me. I have never been in the situation of being abandoned. I'm just curious why some people want to redefine the term here. It has a meaning beyond what happens to children, and I am curious about the reluctance to acknowledge that.

"Reluctance to acknowledge that".

OK. Tell me what abandonment means to you? What you think happens to a baby v what happens to an adult.

[here today]

Thanks for your input, Mouse. Here's a definition that may help:

Abandon | Define Abandon at Dictionary.com

When a person goes to a therapist because they need help and the therapist terminates them without resolving issues raised in therapy and/or without a referral they both agree to, that constitutes abandonment to me. And it can be harmful to the person and their ability to feel good and function well, in my view.

If you don't agree, that's cool. You're entitled to your opinion.