Therapy and powerlessness

They might say it, but I don't have to buy it or go along with it.

I do agree those guys deliberately keep information from clients and try to keep clients in the dark about how it works.

Do they even know how it works?

The first one I see claims not to, but she lies about things - I have no trust that she does not lie about that also. I think their pretense about not knowing and in not explaining is one of their manipulative techniques.

My t knows everything. I'm surprised his head doesn't explode.

Probably because you keep him in line.

My T says everything comes down to love. Experience unconditional love, learn to show love and compassion to yourself, and you will find healing. I'd say it works, but in part only bevause my T actually knows how to give unconditional love. She has never professed to have any other answer.

I think it matters where you are coming from though. I gather she takes a different approach with clients with say, a phobia, or work related issues . but for the kind of abuse and neglect I've been through she says its just all love .

Strangely despite this I have always felt powerful in my T relationship.

Luckily for me, I doubt either of the ones I see think love enters into it at all or at least not with me. What they do with other clients is not my problem. If either of them answered that I would know they were deliberately messing with me. I have read about the idea of building new brain pathway thingys. I consulted with a neuro guy at the university who showed me brain scans. That was interesting. Scary and I don't want them trying to do that to me, but interesting. I did not tell him it was info for me personally. I went in wearing my law professor hat.

I think she's on to something. So many of the stories on here are about not having that secure base of unconditional love. I was very lucky to get it from my parents. I ended up in therapy anyway, for different reasons that being loved by the therapist wouldn't help with, but I see her point.

Those are interesting points. I definitely experienced a lot of sly and subtle manipulations or machinations which had the effect of creating hierarchy. Things like the positioning of chairs and couches such that the T is physically higher and looking down at the client. Also the monitoring and contolling of time by the T can create a sense of powerlessness as the client scrambles to fit in all their "issues" before being sent away. Or just tone of voice, with suggestions of parent, boss, coach.

With my last main T it was during the period from the approach of termination through final contact on the phone that her authority went from subtle and covert to despotic. I began to threaten her authority, but i was also feeling increasingly desperate and helpless. So she finished me off with a flourish of degrading commands and directives. Don't you lie to me! Mommy said no! Wait till your father gets home!

Thanks for the book suggestions. Would like to read them both. Maybe bit later as i have already drained way too much time and energy on this stuff lately. Seriously pissed about this.

I totally agree with you. I didn't figure this out until recently, it took me a couple of decades.

How do any of us find a therapist like this?

I've tried to find a new one, and the encounters were terrible that I have almost given up. Most wanted clients who are sometimes referred to as "worried well". They didn't want trauma clients yet charged really high fees.

"Mean girls," bullies in our lives do this. Or people without authority presume it by telling us... What we should do. It's establishing hierarchy.

I know a therapist in a non- professional capacity who does this. She doles out unsolicited life lessons like she's the freaking Oracle and was quite taken aback when I told her to stop. She clearly nourished by playing the superior priestess role.

I recently went took a yoga class with a teacher who did the same thing, telling me how to live and moralizing far beyond her role teaching yoga. She had no permission, and it was my first and last class. I think I've caught on to the game now.

There may be something to this, only I haven’t experienced this with any T’s I’ve consulted. I wonder if it may be that very few T’s, like very few people in the world period, are able to give that unconditional love. Good for you if you have found one, but may be like a needle in a hay stack.

Yes, and it makes sense that you would feel powerful if she accepts and loves you unconditionally.

Extremely good points. The role of "relational aggression" in relationships in general seems overlooked to me. For my perspective, that part of me was dissociated away, denied, whatever you want to call it. Did need to come out in therapy but then the therapists rejected it. Something really fishy about that?

Well yeah, I often read threads and think " what's wrong with that T???? Why don't they realize x is normal and just love the person???? Of course I can't judge others therapy but I know I am very lucky.

I WISH I could tell everyone on here how to find a T like mine. Unfortunately all I did was flip through a bunch of profiles of Ts in my area who meet certain criteria ( female, experience with eating disorders, etc . Looked at her pic and said "hmmm . I like THAT one"

I doubt that strategy would work.a second time.

For me, both. Comparing my emotional and psychological and physiological state when my last long term therapy started, with how i am since it ended, it's abundantly clear she did real damage.

Therapists get away with a lot by pinning everything on the client's existing issues. It's the basis for much gaslighting and evasion of accountability. Even when they talk about client harm, they often use the term "retraumatizing", as if the experience cannot be devastating or traumatic in its own right. For one thing, adults do have adult needs, and tinkering with those needs can lead to serious pain.

Is the quote you supplied referring to psychoanalysis, specifically? He mentions "analyst". My thought on where I think you're going is that there are many, many different types of therapy designed to improve a client's situation. My T and I have talked a lot about her/his authority over me...s/he's among the authority figures I can't seem to question, refuse, etc. My therapy is for my T to become a new attachment figure for me to internalize because my caregivers failed me. While I recognize her/his power (mostly in the form of interpretation of what my defenses are or what I may be feeling), I don't feel as though I have no power. Like Stopdog, I choose what to tell T and know I can leave at any moment - even though being attached to my T makes it more difficult. My particular problem is going to take many years to sort out, simply because changing my behavior-feelings-thoughts is a laborious process.

But, yes, I agree that the more needy, defenseless, powerless clients can become victimized...one of the reasons I think the therapy process should be explained to the client prior to the third appt.

Please excuse my abject cynicism, but if a T said that what she offers to clients is unconditional love or unconditional positive regard, i'd be kinda frightened. That sounds a bit too close to love bombing, with all the perils that implies, including the amassing of therapist power. Seems strange too given that nothing between two adults is unconditional, least of all in therapy where the client must pay for the therapist's attention and abide by many rules and restrictions.

You do you, I'll do me.

After 4 years I am not afraid of anything going down the tubes and she DOES show me pretty unconditional love.

I'm healing In ways I didn't think possible, making new friends and connections, setting boundaries that improve my work life, my marriage is improving, spiritually I'm thriving.....so I am going to go with her methods.

She at least has explained her method. So if I thought it was nuts I'd move on. But I am a believer. Even before my T I was a believer in the "love heals" idea.

My point anyway was that some Ts do explain how therapy works in their eyes

ETA: she has never said " I offer unconditional love". She has only explained that it is her belief that in my kind of trauma, what is needed for healing is "good enough" love and then learning to internalize that and love yourself.

*I* call it unconditional because after 4 years it FEELS unconditional. No matter what I do or say, she is there. I'm not worried about her leaving me. For me, that's a big thing.

Also I'd say it makes me the opposite of powerless. Her unconditional love makes me feel empowered. Even if I needed to take time off , even if I tell her I hate her and I'm never coming back ever( that actually kind of happened though I quickly regretted it), even if I text her 5 times a day ( which I've done) , or complain, or refuse to speak, whatever I do, my Ts love remains the same.

That is incredibly empowering.

I think you Americans should get rid of therapists. Sounds a nightmare out there lol.

This ^ sounds sarcastic, Mouse, "the use of irony to mock or express contempt". Is that what you intended? I don't see how that contributes to the discussion, it just seems to put "Americans" down. And there are Americans here with very different views on the topic.

If you truly have a trusting attachment with a therapist then what you say is more complicated and loaded with ramifications. If you have been working with someone for years and you have been vulnerable in an effort to look at your issues and address them, then you have built trust. Letting go of a trusting, loving relationship is loaded with implications.

Masson's quote is in reference to something said by the well known psychoanalyst Ferenczi, so the language is analyst/patient, etc. But Masson's point (and his whole book) has to do with the therapeutic relationship in general.

My T also became a sort of new attachment figure for me. And there were signs of positive change in me. But I think it was mostly euphoria. And when she took the attachment/attunement away, I crashed. And then I realized how much power she had, and how little I had. It also reminded me that this was, after all, a business relationship. And I also realized that what was developing was dependency not autonomy, which by definition is powerlessness. I know the stated goal in such cases is to build autonomy, but if the threat of ending terrifies the client, is that risk worth the hypothetical reward?

I agree with all that you said about the medical biz. I think it is a bigger threat than the therapy biz, more demonic, more dangerous. But I see therapy as potentially affecting fundamental sense of self in a way that physical medicine cannot. No matter what some lunatic in a white coat tries to foist on me, I am not in the grip of the sort of attachment/abandonment scenario that was induced by the intimacy and psyche-invasion of therapy.

My basic feeling is that the vast majority (there are exceptions) of therapists, psychiatrists, and physicians (dentists too!) should be avoided like the plague. I see them all as infantilizing mad scientists, more likely to harm than to heal. Avoid avoid avoid, unless in crisis, or no other options.

As someone wrote: "In any conflict situation there will often be a winner and a loser".

If significant conflict does arise in therapy and there is a power struggle, what are the safeguards to ensure a client does not wind up being victimized, if they are already in a subordinate and vulnerable position (as many are)? Seems the assumption is that the therapist will behave ethically and put client needs first. Since the image of the therapist as wounded or emotionally troubled healer is a common motif, this assumption seems reckless. Discuss...