[BlueJeans00]

Has anyone had a bad experience in psychotherapy?
Where your symptoms get worse?
I dont mean you feel bad for a short while in therapy.
I mean you feel worse and your symptoms have worsen over a year therapy.

Plus is there any scientific base that actually psychotherapy works?

[precaryous]

I’ve had BAD therapy a few different times definitely making me worse. The best therapy experience I have had was devoted to digging me out of the hole the unethical therapists put me in.
—-
If you been in therapy for over a year and feel worse...can you bring this up to your therapist? Ethically, if they are not helping you, they should refer you, I believe.

Have you thought about interviewing other therapists?

[BlueJeans00]

Originally Posted by precaryous

I’ve had BAD therapy a few different times definitely making me worse. The best therapy experience I have had was devoted to digging me out of the hole the unethical therapists put me in.
—-
If you been in therapy for over a year and feel worse...can you bring this up to your therapist? Ethically, if they are not helping you, they should refer you, I believe.

Have you thought about interviewing other therapists?

I try many times to tell my therapist what they've said hurt me. But now they say "how I interpret what they say to me and what he thibks he is saying comes out different"
He also blames his dsylixa as to why he pick poor choice of words.

I been recommend a different therapist by my keyworker.

[mindwrench]

I saw three different ones and though I found the last more tolerable I ultimately gave up on the concept. I don't think my experience is typical, as I see a lot of accounts by people who have been helped. Therapy did make things worse for me, though I don't think it was malicious intent by the therapists just an inability to work on my level.

[ZonkedAsianCat]

Yes, it had made things worse for me because it heightened my anxiety. It worsen other symptoms too such as becoming forgetful, delirious, self harming and mean. I'm Schizoaffective with Social Anxiety, ADHD, and OCD and I find it rather hard to open up to a psychologist. I'm not just going to open up to a person who I don't know well at all and I feel because of my shy or timid nature, they can easily take advantage of me. I'm not the assertive type and often would agree with people or say YES all the time even though I mean NO. So it really depends on the patient. Therapy isn't for everyone and it wasn't in my case.

[The_little_didgee]

Yes and it was due to an adverse reaction to an SSRI and a misdiagnosis. The SSRI made me think about suicide all the time and my autism was mistaken for a personality disorder. The apparent PD and the SSRI induced suicidal ideation caused them to also diagnose me with PTSD due to sexual abuse, which wasn't accurate at all. They were convinced that I was violated, but nothing like that ever happened. I just couldn't communicate what I was going through, plus no one was listening. They were too busy judging me and telling me that I would never recover. This profoundly hurt me, along with all the assumptions about my inner experience.

I eventually quit taking the pills and gave up on therapy, because it was killing me. Thinking back there were a lot of warning signs, but I ignored them along with my family. It wasn't until the medication made me very ill that I realized what was going on, and that it was time to get out of the situation. This was the best decision I have ever made, because it saved my life.

I believe therapy can be very helpful especially if the client is respected and heard. It definitely helped me heal from the aforementioned, when I went back about 14 years later for an ASD assessment.

I've seen people enter 'the system' and walk out broken or end up dead, which clinicians seem to blame on the client.

If therapy doesn't feel right or you end up worse, there is something wrong, especially if it is over a long period of time.

Sorry, I cannot answer the very last question.

[stopdog]

Yes. I found cbt to be particularly damaging in the short while I tried it.

Temporarily yes. I had enough with my own issues and had a very self-centered T who provoked all sorts of other things that led to intense fights between us - it did not help at all and just added to my frustrations. I quit quite shortly after he started doing that though (twice, as after the first he convinced me to go back to discuss the conflict, which led nowhere).

[here today]

Yes, they have. In my experience, therapists don't mention it much, but there are some increasingly common reports about it. Here's a list of some articles I got when I searched for "adverse effects psychotherapy":

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C....0.1VIaPHkq-_k

[BlueJeans00]

Originally Posted by here today

Yes, they have. In my experience, therapists don't mention it much, but there are some increasingly common reports about it. Here's a list of some articles I got when I searched for "adverse effects psychotherapy":

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C....0.1VIaPHkq-_k

Thats very interesting because my therapist who isnleaving the public healthnsystem told me its because goverment has stop funding psychotherapist because there is no scientific evidence for it.
Thats when I began researching and thought heck is this why Im getting wrose?

On the scientific base... well, there are what they called "evidence-based" treatments. Mostly on the cognitive approaches that are more structured, such as CBT. This guy has written papers including some scientific type analyses on psychodynamic therapy:
writings | Jonathan Shedler, PhD

Collecting data and analyzing it is quite difficult for a variety of factors, e.g.
-the population of people that provide feedback is usually very biased
-hard to follow up, once clients leave, usually they don't care to go back and report
-the data are based mostly on self reports
-what would be the criteria of therapy working - very hard to define universally
-the usual limitation of clinical mental health studies: cases are not hard to find but who will be the "healthy controls"?
and a lot more. But there are many so-called studies published, usually not in very high profile science journals.

I do research on mental health for living (mostly basic science rather than clinical) and I am most definitely not convinced about the scientific evidence related to the efficacy of psychotherapy. The government in the US has definitely reduced funding in the past few years even for hardcore mental health-related research and it does not look more promising for the coming years either.

[missbella]

My blog (below) has seven years' worth of comments on harmful therapy.

The writing on the subject --iatrogenesis is slim in ratio to the vast sea of psychotherapy literature, but here is a bit of it:

• The long-lived discussion is "50 Warning Signs of Questionable Therapy and Counseling."
• The Therapy Exploitation Link Line
• "Elephant on the Couch: Side Effects of Psychotherapy"
• "How Therapists Abuse their Clients"
• A Critique of Psychology and Psychotherapy in Social Life
• Surviving Therapist Abuse ? Resources and Support for Healing
• https://www.madinamerica.com/ is more about psychiatry, but covers psychotherapy as well.

[BudFox]

Yes, for me therapy has caused lasting damage -- both psychologically, and in terms of physical health.

Scientific... no. The very idea is ridiculous. It's like claiming religion or friendship or prostitution has a scientific basis. What therapists have done is cloak their practice in quasi-medical language, and put on pretentious doctor-ish airs and affectations, but it doesn't change the basic reality. I'm actually embarassed for them.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

On the scientific base... well, there are what they called "evidence-based" treatments. . .

As I'm sure you know, there is a difference between treatments which have, or may have, an overall positive effect for most people and for the average, and the possibility, which is not included in those statistics, that treatment actually has a negative effective for some.

Of the articles on the list that I posted, the authors of the first were from Australia, the second from Germany, the third appears to be from Britain, and the fourth was PC's John Grohol, from the USA I think.

[here today]

Originally Posted by BudFox

. . .
Scientific... no. The very idea is ridiculous. It's like claiming religion or friendship or prostitution has a scientific basis. What therapists have done is cloak their practice in quasi-medical language, and put on pretentious doctor-ish airs and affectations, but it doesn't change the basic reality. . .

I have a basically scientific orientation to life, and for me it seems possible that a science of the "psyche" is possible -- but we don't have it now.

Psychology uses statistics and claims that makes it "scientific", which for me is ridiculous. But apparently that seems reasonable to other people.

Religion and friendship may have many benefits in life, and I agree that those are NOT essentially scientific. Statistics may, and probably should, have little to contribute to our sense of value about those things. Or prostitution.

"Science of the psyche" is basically experimental psychology and behavioral science. All these use statistics to analyze data, as well as basic neuroscience. Of course anyone versed in statistics can choose or design a model/test that will more likely to support their pet hypotheses. Well, almost. Statistics is based on math, but the models are highly subjective and can be manipulated easily.

I think the OP asked about science showing that psychotherapy works, so not only the negative outcomes.

[BudFox]

If you strip away the BS, talk therapy is basically a social interaction, though a very strange one. It is not, and never will be, a scientific discipline. Same goes for any social interaction.

Talk therapy will also never be "evidence-based" in the true sense of that concept because as everyone knows the deciding factors appear to be so-called non-specific and unpredictable factors relating to chemistry, expectation, belief, coercion, fear, etc.

It's not possible to control human psychology mechanistically or scientifically and the biz ought to stop suggesting such a thing. It's dishonest and delusional.

[here today]

Originally Posted by Xynesthesia

"Science of the psyche" is basically experimental psychology and behavioral science. All these use statistics to analyze data, as well as basic neuroscience. Of course anyone versed in statistics can choose or design a model/test that will more likely to support their pet hypotheses. Well, almost. Statistics is based on math, but the models are highly subjective and can be manipulated easily.

I think the OP asked about science showing that psychotherapy works, so not only the negative outcomes.

I'm embarrassed to admit it but I spent 6 years studying cognitive and experimental psychology in the 1990's. All the course work for a Ph.D., no general exam or dissertation. I quit when my husband was diagnosed with a terminal disease AND it became clear that finishing the degree would not provide me with anything I wanted anymore. I had entered the program originally because I was interested in psychology and thought I could use the degree as an add-on to my work in computer science, but really I just wanted to study psychology and have access to the university library so that I could try to learn more and find out what was "wrong" with me. Never found that although I did learn a lot of interesting stuff!

With regard to the OP's question:

Plus is there any scientific base that actually psychotherapy works?

I do understand that a lot of people take the use of statistics to indicate that something is scientific, but there is still the fact that if something is "scientifically", statistically shown to have a "positive" effect for most people, for the average, it doesn't mean that it will have that effect on everyone.
Here are 2 articles I found when I searched for "treatment failure psychotherapy":

The Failure Rate of Psychotherapy: What it is and what we can do?

https://www.psychotherapy.net/interv...ilures-lambert

Originally Posted by here today

Yes, they have. In my experience, therapists don't mention it much, but there are some increasingly common reports about it. Here's a list of some articles I got when I searched for "adverse effects psychotherapy":

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C....0.1VIaPHkq-_k

Some interesting articles in that link!

Wow. I definitely experienced these issues:

Key risks of psychotherapy to the patient include

Excessive self –absorption at the expense of important external demands. (Work, family etc.)
Externalised locus of control may lead to the adoption of a victim role.
Decreased capacity to make independent judgements

It is getting better now, but I seriously did not have these issues before starting therapy years ago. These new behaviors were not specific to this therapy, but they did get much, much worse this time around.

Originally Posted by here today

I'm embarrassed to admit it but I spent 6 years studying cognitive and experimental psychology in the 1990's. All the course work for a Ph.D., no general exam or dissertation. I quit when my husband was diagnosed with a terminal disease AND it became clear that finishing the degree would not provide me with anything I wanted anymore. I had entered the program originally because I was interested in psychology and thought I could use the degree as an add-on to my work in computer science, but really I just wanted to study psychology and have access to the university library so that I could try to learn more and find out what was "wrong" with me. Never found that although I did learn a lot of interesting stuff!

With regard to the OP's question:

I do understand that a lot of people take the use of statistics to indicate that something is scientific, but there is still the fact that if something is "scientifically", statistically shown to have a "positive" effect for most people, for the average, it doesn't mean that it will have that effect on everyone.
Here are 2 articles I found when I searched for "treatment failure psychotherapy":

The Failure Rate of Psychotherapy: What it is and what we can do?

https://www.psychotherapy.net/interv...ilures-lambert

Neuro/behavioral and computer science skills in one package is probably the hottest combination nowadays in basic mental health-related research with plenty of career opportunities, not just in scientific research. Many students strive to get trained this way now but realize how challenging and limited the whole thing is still, in spite of all the tremendous technological and theoretical advances. The fact that you wanted to integrate these back in the '90s, here today, shows a great deal of insightfulness and pragmatism. Unfortunately, these talents infamously do not tend to coincide with exceptional mental health, stability and happiness in life

Of course I also got into the neuro/behavioral sciences field driven strongly by personal, subjective interest. I was always doing research but in different fields when I was younger and made this shift in my mid 30's. In my experience most people in the field get motivated in a similar way - either own mental health challenges or dealing with family members, close friends, romantic partners... Therapists included. All the studies, knowledge, awareness etc did not help me a wee bit to get out of my own biggest hurdle with mental health (addiction) years ago. I would research it officially and successfully - and indulge in it in secret. It was the most horrible state of cognitive dissonance and violation of my own values, which led to awful cycles of self-hatred and desperation. I understood what was going on in my brain, why I could not get better, yet continued the behavior with all the clarity and lack of denial. I often wonder whether therapists go through similar dilemmas and intense conflicts between what they do and who they are... The knowledge and skills had become very helpful though once I reached a relatively decent stage of recovery and was feeling a lot better, but not before.

What I bolded in the quote above is of course one of the greatest challenges in any study attempting to understand psychological problems and design treatments of any kind: individual variation. There is no freakin' way to integrate all the variety in experimental and analytical models, even the known individual differences, let alone the unknown ones. Surprise that mental health treatments, including medications, have such a low success rate? These days most professionals recognize and try to work with the importance of individual variation, but one can only use what one knows and even that gets extremely complex. And the mechanisms, experiences, permutations etc are seemingly endless in spite of identifiable patterns.

Individualization is the way to go in terms of medical treatments (not that therapy is a medical treatment). I think standardization and applying blanket guidelines to people with so many individualized characteristics is the wrong direction, where individualizing interventions--aided by technology is the future. I realize that many of the technologies are too expensive to be clinically adopted or simply don't exist yet.

I read an article today about the concept of personal microbiomes (https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0511162914.htm) and was fascinated to learn how an obese mouse will become thin after receiving a transplant of gut microbes from a lean mouse. It's interesting to recognize how a human microbiome is like a fingerprint--unique to everyone, but shaped or influenced by genes and the environment from conception until death.

Then I heard the news on TV, where sources reported positive economic growth, and I wondered if this would lead some to believe the growth was a direct result of the tax cuts, and was concerned the economic state would strengthen the belief in trickle-down economics, which I am opposed to. Some experts believe in it; many don't. In my opinion, if it really worked according to 'the research', then we would never have to experience recession and depression.

Which reminded me of my more recent opinion that social science research is one of the downfalls of society. Seriously. I know this is a bit eccentric, but I've recently concluded that I just don't believe in it anymore and think that the alignment of resource investment with social research findings possibly causes more harm than good. Unless concepts and thoughts can be quantified or measured by new definitions, statistics should be left to the hard sciences.

So I don't believe in this. At all.

I do understand that a lot of people take the use of statistics to indicate that something is scientific, but there is still the fact that if something is "scientifically", statistically shown to have a "positive" effect for most people, for the average, it doesn't mean that it will have that effect on everyone.

I realize I have much less expertise in this area than some people here, but I don't believe statistics can account for psychological knowledge. I strongly believe this. There are too many errors and its impossible to account for or isolate variables. So much money is wasted on this type of research. You see it everyday in PC's headlines (eg, "Materialistic People may use Facebook more"). Article after article of useless research; much of it confirms what we already know. While it may be interesting to read about, and I understand the utility of research variety, I think it's a total waste of resources that takes away from important work in figuring out how to help people.

Social science research is so primitive; and not just psychology. It's too bad we waste so much money on doing it or implementing the findings. I would support a massive population-wide database to analyze patterns if it contained observations accurately, consistently and easily measured (ie I own a dog) inclusive of most of the population.

If you think about it, 'talk therapy' hasn't changed much since the 1800s. While our concepts we use to describe things have become more complicated or evolved, how much as really changed in practice? We talk about mirror neurons, for example, but we still sit across from a therapist and simply talk. Certainly not suprising that the entire population doesn't benefit from it. We could set up a study to measure the effect of owning a dog vs no treatment and find, if we wanted to, that subjects who own a dog have improvements in depression and anxiety and subsequently promote dog ownership. Not much different imo.

Here today--it seems like you still have trouble viewing yourself in a negative light over this; or it least it comes across that way to me. I understand how that can happen but think about it this way--something created in the 1800s didn't work well for you. What have the decades of research and statistics actually accomplished? Not much; what a waste! We have innovations in things like EMDR, neurofeedback....but how did talk therapy actually change for the better? Imagine if we still drove around with Ford Model Ts then blamed ourselves for being unproductive.

We are talking OVER 100 YEARS of research, statistics....investment and not much has changed. There are so many things that could have been created, tested, and implemented, but the industry chooses not to innovate. So much for 'social science research'.

If psychology was truly a science, wouldn't it have technological advances to show for it by now--100+ years later? Interesting that Freud was a neurologist, yet we are on the same path of former centuries. I realize psychology/clinical application/therapy etc are different constructs, so I'm speaking loosely here when I say: it is clearly not a science. So those in the field going around blaming the client for lack of positive outcomes may be ignorant and misinformed at best.

So give yourself a break.

[here today]

Thanks, Rayne,

I was looking at some more articles about treatment failure and found this one, which I thought was very interesting:

http://www.apa.org/pubs/books/interv...5-lambert.aspx

Transcript
Interviewer: In your recent book Prevention of Treatment Failure you talked about the fact that some patients do get worse in the course of psychotherapy. How common is the problem, what are the causes?

Michael Lambert: In adults who enter treatment, the rate is about 5–10 percent. In children and adolescents who seek treatment, the rate is about 15–25 percent. So it's relatively rare in adults but all too common in children. And the major causes are external events that set people back like a divorce or a death or loss of a job, so it's environmental. And then within the therapy itself, it's usually related to some kind of rejection that the person experiences while they are working with their therapist. It's usually not related to specific therapy techniques but to relationship factors where the patient feels misunderstood, uncared for, or neglected in some way.

I felt rejected, and shamed, over and over by therapists. And since it was similar to the kind of subtle ways that I had been rejected in my family, it didn't compute -- and I blamed myself.

This went on for years, and years, and years -- with different therapists, of course!

I tend to agree with you about the value of current social science research. And as for the basic "talk" therapy -- it could be interesting to look at the different social contexts between the late 1800's and now, for which I think statistics would be very little help.

But I still have the (basically) same problem I did as a "disordered", traumatized teen-ager -- how to make it in the world, both "being" myself AND adjusting and finding a place where I am welcome in society or some part of it.

With determination I think I have found and "fixed" the trauma that prevented me from "being" myself -- but the adjustment and finding a place where I am welcome is still an enormous challenge, with very little experience, skills, and habits to draw from.

There are methods now like you mentioned that there weren't there when I started therapy. Too late for me to go back and pick them up now. As you wrote on another thread, "accepting things as they" are is definitely what I need to focus on now.

But the outlook just looks so lousy!! Oh, well, there is always tomorrow. That's reality, too -- "this too shall pass".

[BudFox]

Michael Lambert: In adults who enter treatment, the rate is about 5–10 percent. In children and adolescents who seek treatment, the rate is about 15–25 percent. So it's relatively rare in adults but all too common in children. And the major causes are external events that set people back like a divorce or a death or loss of a job, so it's environmental. And then within the therapy itself, it's usually related to some kind of rejection that the person experiences while they are working with their therapist. It's usually not related to specific therapy techniques but to relationship factors where the patient feels misunderstood, uncared for, or neglected in some way.

Oh man, such delusion. 5-10 percent of adults... i bet it's 3x times that at least, especially if you include long term therapy that sucks the client's resources dry and wastes years of their life, or that leaves the client just a bit more hopeless or dejected for having paid someone to llisten to their misery.

Notice how he pins failure on changes in the client's life as the main cause, then mentions the possiblity of therapy being the problem. He also uses dodgy language... the client "experiences" rejection. Most likely the client was rejected or humiliated in some way.

[here today]

I don't see the problem -- perhaps it's my naivete? For me, I experienced rejection, yes, BECAUSE I WAS REJECTED. And shamed and humiliated.

Yes, I can accept that it was the therapist's issues, not me. Finally. OK, I have some issues, but when I honestly tried to face and deal with them, and the therapist can't tolerate that -- wtf -- whose issue is that, really?

But it took me FOREVER (well, 55_+ years) to come to that.

And so, OK, I've got it now. But WHAT THE F>>K does that mean now, at 70 F. . G years old?

[missbella]

Originally Posted by BudFox

Michael Lambert: In adults who enter treatment, the rate is about 5–10 percent. In children and adolescents who seek treatment, the rate is about 15–25 percent. So it's relatively rare in adults but all too common in children. And the major causes are external events that set people back like a divorce or a death or loss of a job, so it's environmental. And then within the therapy itself, it's usually related to some kind of rejection that the person experiences while they are working with their therapist. It's usually not related to specific therapy techniques but to relationship factors where the patient feels misunderstood, uncared for, or neglected in some way.

Gee. Off the top of my head I can list at least a dozen ways that therapy was harmful to me personally. And this is my grievance with the profession. They don't seem to research harm in the profession, they don't listen to consumers, they don't seem to care. When they occasionally deign to decree some wisdom on iatrogenesis, it seems flipped off the top of their "good brains," and following Uncle Freud's arrogant cloudprints, as often as not blaming the client/patient. Please assume that I walk, drive and function and am not posting this from my regular sink at the Port Authority ladies room.