[DowJones]

I have seen many therapists. At first, I thought I would walk in and after a couple of sessions would walk out a changed person. Not so. For me, nothing came easily. These articles tell the tale.

https://psychcentral.com/lib/therapi...therapy/?all=1
The relationship between client and therapist

[BudFox]

I can't get past the first myth without throwing up:

"Everyone who wants to engage in therapy can benefit. Not surprisingly, people who don’t have a modicum of motivation to change probably won’t. Psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber, MA, stressed the importance of being ready, willing and open to therapy. …Hostile clients do not serve the client or the therapist. Our job is not to fix people; it is to support people who want to heal by reflecting their own strength back to them. There are clearly some clients who are 99 percent against changing their behaviors or thoughts, but it takes 1 percent, some thread of interest or hope, for the process to be successful."

This is incomprehensibly condescending and disdainful. It's also full of cheap cliches and crazy bias. Therapy might not be beneficial because: the therapist is a sociopath, the therapist lacks experience/knowledge/self-awareness, their approach is unhelpful to the client, the relationship itself is toxic or dysfunctional, the therapist is subtly using the client to gratify needs, the client's difficulties are not amenable to the very particular and limited nature of talk therapy. Or despite best efforts on both sides, the therapy might be just plain useless.

[stopdog]

The whole article was gibberish for me

[satsuma]

Originally Posted by BudFox

I can't get past the first myth without throwing up:

"Everyone who wants to engage in therapy can benefit. Not surprisingly, people who don’t have a modicum of motivation to change probably won’t. Psychotherapist Jeffrey Sumber, MA, stressed the importance of being ready, willing and open to therapy. …Hostile clients do not serve the client or the therapist. Our job is not to fix people; it is to support people who want to heal by reflecting their own strength back to them. There are clearly some clients who are 99 percent against changing their behaviors or thoughts, but it takes 1 percent, some thread of interest or hope, for the process to be successful."

This is incomprehensibly condescending and disdainful. It's also full of cheap cliches and crazy bias. Therapy might not be beneficial because: the therapist is a sociopath, the therapist lacks experience/knowledge/self-awareness, their approach is unhelpful to the client, the relationship itself is toxic or dysfunctional, the therapist is subtly using the client to gratify needs, the client's difficulties are not amenable to the very particular and limited nature of talk therapy. Or despite best efforts on both sides, the therapy might be just plain useless.

Yes, I think that both things can be true. Therapy may not work because the therapist isn't competent, or competent in the right area, or all the things that you have mentioned above. AND therapy may not work if the client doesn't want to be there or doesn't want to engage or make any changes. All of those scenarios could lead to therapy not working, and plus probably others as well.
I think you are saying that therapists shouldn't be quick to blame clients when things don't work out, but should instead examine themselves and the kind of therapy they are doing. I do agree.

[itisnt]

I appreciate you posting and sharing the articles, Dowjones, but I have to admit that I didn't get past the first article. I feel that it is just another article "blaming" and "shaming" the client if they don't get relief they seek in therapy. I feel that there are a LOT of inadequate, ignorant and poorly trained clinicians out there, selling a bill of goods that is rotten. And when they fail, it's waaaay too easy for him/her to chalk it up to the client "not trying hard enough", "being difficult or too angry to benefit from the healing process" or "not open to change." One of the things I looked for when seeking out a therapist was one who was open to looking at his/her own issues and how they get in the way of the healing process. I also think that too many therapists enter the profession too damaged themselves to help the clients, and when they're confronted with their inadequacies, they get waaaaay too defensive. That's one of the easiest ways to find out if a therapist has done his/her own work, confront him/her with some type of behavior and then sit back and see how they react. When the defensiveness sends them off the rails, you know that you're working with someone who hasn't done their own healing.

Not all therapists have that viewpoint. I take the Psych Central articles with a grain of salt and find they usually don't have much depth to them. He doesn't sound too experienced with trauma clients, where hostility is under the umbrella of attachment issues, not something rare. Hopefully he doesn't work with this population at all.

Not all clients come to therapy to change, though perhaps many do. Maybe someone is there for support or to be heard. I think therapy success should match the client's goals, so it's arrogant to say this imo.

The other thing I was thinking is that maybe he works for the prison population-where they are doing forced therapy or to pass the time. I can't imagine otherwise why people would pay money for therapy in the first place if they don't want to change, unless changing isn't part of their goal.

I agree with him that therapy isn't to 'fix' people. But yeah, not all therapists think like this or are that uninformed.

Really difficult to read these though-blaming the patient. If the therapist is partly responsible for good outcomes, they are just as much responsible for poor outcomes.

There are clearly some clients who are 99 percent against changing their behaviors or thoughts, but it takes 1 percent, some thread of interest or hope, for the process to be successful."

Originally Posted by itisnt

I appreciate you posting and sharing the articles, Dowjones, but I have to admit that I didn't get past the first article. I feel that it is just another article "blaming" and "shaming" the client if they don't get relief they seek in therapy. I feel that there are a LOT of inadequate, ignorant and poorly trained clinicians out there, selling a bill of goods that is rotten. And when they fail, it's waaaay too easy for him/her to chalk it up to the client "not trying hard enough", "being difficult or too angry to benefit from the healing process" or "not open to change." One of the things I looked for when seeking out a therapist was one who was open to looking at his/her own issues and how they get in the way of the healing process. I also think that too many therapists enter the profession too damaged themselves to help the clients, and when they're confronted with their inadequacies, they get waaaaay too defensive. That's one of the easiest ways to find out if a therapist has done his/her own work, confront him/her with some type of behavior and then sit back and see how they react. When the defensiveness sends them off the rails, you know that you're working with someone who hasn't done their own healing.

Totally agree with this too-great analysis. This is very important, I think. Someone (Unaluna?) said here, and I don't remember the exact words--a therapist can only take you as far as they are in their own issues.