Is it really necessary to break a patient's heart?

So well said

But you can read in every book that therapy is painful, common thing is attachment to T who cannot meet our unrealistic needs - I think that therapists know this And know that it's real suffering.

But for me, the most important thing is their understanding. They know that a patient suffers, but they are there for us and can help us go through these difficult time. For me - that's healing.

I have absolutely no faith or belief that the therapist knows anything. I never saw that they have any understanding. I never saw therapists as healers of any sort

stopdog, so why are you an active psychotherapy forum participant?

Because I have a different view of those guys and I think it is just as valid as anyone else's.

To generalize a whole profession as utterly incompetent because of some bad past experiences is honestly not a valid view. It's incredibly biased and without solid evidence. There are good therapists, and there are bad ones. That can be said about any profession. Your outright disdain for therapists that I have seen posted on the forums many times has never been helpful.

My view is based on the fact that I sue them for a living. My personal experience with them has been they are simply mediocre flawed human beings who were mostly useless to me. I have never told anyone else what to do and I'm giving my own personal opinion of them and that profession. I have not been harmed by a therapist. No therapist has been harmed by me. Happily some people have reported they find my view useful -if you don't that's fine. I'm still going to give it.

And how many people didn't ask for help they needed because they read and assumed that it's always like you say?

That's giving me credit for a whole lot more power than I have. I think it is very important for people to recognize that not everyone benefits from therapy, not all therapists are good at their job, most of them can't even explain what their job in any sort of concrete coherent fashion, therapy isn't the only answer, and there are other ways to feel better. I think people need to know that therapy can be very very harmful and that the client is not to blame if therapy does not work or goes awry. But if you find the therapy works for you super-duper keep doing it. I have never told anyone to stop doing therapy they thought was working for them.

I "asked for help" for 55 years, on and off, because I didn't/couldn't see the alternative perspective. Yes, that was "my" issue, one I went into therapy with, with therapists (and perhaps the therapy profession as a whole) who didn't/couldn't see, and which cost me a lot, both personally and financially.

The problem with therapy is SYSTEMIC, not necessarily with individual therapists, although that can be true sometimes, perhaps often I don't know. To talk about problems with the SYSTEM is not the same as generalizations about individual professionals.

There are good things and bad things about therapy and individual therapists. It works well for some people, not for others. Yet we, as a society, as a group, as a system itself, and therapy as a profession, seem to be unable/unwilling to see or acknowledge the extent of the effect of what is bad on vulnerable people.

I'm very grateful to people with different perspectives whose posts I have read on this forum. I don't assume it's always like they say, but they have different perspectives, which helps me formulate my own, based on my own individual experience.

I voted seldom. J, the counsellor I saw before P or R entered the picture...and before I discovered the deception, had a way of provoking strong emotion in me from the get go. Once we got to the heart of what we were talking about, I think I cried every session thereafter, apart from our last.

R has no intention of wounding me so...but will support me in journeying to the broken places to heal.

I agree with this. It’s important to have different views not just one. Stopdog supports people in her posts. She does have a disdain for therapists but had never denied not liking them. Her view and opinions are just as valid.
People have had many different experiences with therapists, some good and some bloody awful.

So by judging Stopdog for expressing her feelings and experiences, how is that supportive or helpful?

I don't mind different views. I also know that there are bad therapists (as doctors, teachers etc.) and we can talk about this as well.
I just found many of snopdog's posts full of anger towards the therapists.
And often it's not expressing feelings but attacking profession.

How does my lack of respect for that profession or attacking the profession harm you or a therapist?I have disdain for the profession. There may be an individual therapist here or there that is not a complete **** up.
I am giving my opinion of those guys and their profession. And I will keep doing it. You don't have to agree with me or you can put me on ignore if you find my opinions so upsetting. The funny thing to me is that people here get so worked up about how I view that profession - much more so than any therapist I ever hired did - and I certainly told them about it. They took my money and did not seem too concerned that I did not respect them or their profession. Also it is possible that some take me more seriously than I take myself.

I find it helpful.

I consider the profession largely, though not wholly, incompetent. This is based on a comprehensive examination of the biz, in addition to my own bad (or merely pointless) experiences.

I don't see how being skeptical or critical of what is plainly a dangerous and questionable practice is any less appropriate than preaching the psychotherapy gospel.

Also, people can have their heart or psyche broken (or their time and money wasted) by a so-called "good therapist".

My favorite thing about this forum is the multiplicity of opinions about therapy by really savvy, smart, soulful and seasoned people. StopDog and BudFox are two of the most valuable posters for me, bc I get bewildered by therapy at times, and they help me keep perspective( which I am often in jeopardy of losing). The beauty of the forum is the myriad viewpoints.

From what I have gathered from reading this board, it seems like only those that experince tranference or attachment are subject to getting their heart broken. Luckily I have not experienced this nor does my T encourage it. He holds his boundaries and does not encourage or respond to out of session contact. The relationship is of client and T, not friends. That does not mean he does not empathize and validate my first 20 years of trauma becausr he does. He validates it more than I am willing to admit myself every session.

I have experienced a lot of pain since starting therapy. It has opened whole cases of worms that cannot be undone. But that is not the T fault. He could not possibly hust me more than my FOO and abusive college boyfriend did. From my personal point of view, if he ever started to hurt me whether intentional or not, I would only have myself to blame for sticking around. That would mean I have learned nothing from my past.

He is very caring and I would love to experience the feeling of being cared for as a child should be. I feel very young a lot of times in session, but I also know that thatvship has sailed. He can't reparent me. As much as I want it, I know that cannot happen. I would only be setting myself up for heartache if that is what I was hoping for.

All I can do now is hope that my T can get my head untwisted enough where I can hopefully find a life partner that I can somehow stop beong triggered enough to accept in my life and who is willing to show me the love and patience that I need.

This is probably an unpopular response but we are all adults regardless of how childlike we feel sometimes. We have to take responsibility of our own actions and expectations. We need to face reality and understand that T are only human and cannot turn back time or perform miracles. I can only hope that he can manage to help me put enough of my shattered mind back together to allow me to live a semi-normal life. If we can do that together I will be grateful.

I went out on a limb and said always because I'm just in the mood to project my own experience onto all therapists and all patients everywhere. So, you know, take my opinion with as much salt as you like.

The heartbreak is in the realization that the therapist cannot ever fill that mother-shaped hole in your heart (thank you Can't Explain for that description) or whatever similar attachment trauma or pit of neediness you harbour within. You want so much for your T to fix that primal hurt and all they can do is be with you through your heartbreak and grief about the fact that they cannot provide you that comfort.

On the other side of that heartbreak is the most amazing thing. When you get there you will find that your T has taught you and guided you enough that you can largely comfort yourself. The sadness hasn't gone but the yearning is attenuated. You can hold that needy place yourself and be gentle and loving with it. And somehow the neediness won't run you anymore. It's phenomenal. But your T sort of has to break your heart. Otherwise you will depend on them for mothering that will feel unsatisfactory and inadequate and leave you forever craving them instead of feeling okay within.

I guess I don't know.

I just remembered in session a slightly hellish memory of some things that happened when I was 11/12. On the scale of things that sucked, this wasn't remotely in the list of greatest hits.

The memories came up when it suddenly felt like the emotion being evoked in a recent situation was rather intense and the first thing that popped into my mind were these memories.

I was embarrassed about how awful it still felt and that somehow a part of me (much as I am not comfortable with that terminology, given that I'm an adult) was still "stuck" in that awful-ness of being that 11 year-old.

Current T insisted on asking "What would you say to that 11 year old?" and other than muttering an "It's okay", I really couldn't muster anything else.

After a minute or two, she launched into a full-on defense and validation of that 11-year-old's feelings and basically "spoke" to that kid.

I was of course rolling my eyes and mocking her and asking about her 11 year old and if I could talk to that kid too.

But, somehow, when she was done, I felt so incredibly comforted (or, I suppose, by current T's terminology, the 11-year old did) and nowhere nearly as raw and just for a few moments, whole and integrated and warm somehow.

It wasn't like she'd been super maternal or anything but more that it seemed as if some adult had recognized that kid's pain and that nothing else was going to be asked now or in the future as "payment" for that kindness.

So yeah, I did not have my heart broken today, so to speak -- but, I can well imagine that if I were to end up relying on her on a near-constant basis to sort out my various 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 etc year-old issues, she'd soon be quite solidly done with it.

Cue heart being broken?

God, I want so much to get to that point. It really is possible, isn't it?

I never thought I'd get there. I mean you can look at the last few years of my posts for evidence of how much I've struggled with this. I'm still working through some things and I have not resolved every single bit of attachment trauma and related transference. The change is that I don't feel a huge vortex of neediness within anymore (sometimes there's like, say, a ditch of need by the side of a slippery road or a crack of need in the pavement that I could trip on). My anxiety and depression really feel like mood states rather than illness, they aren't fundamental to who I am.

A few weekends ago I was completely exhausted and I got a hotel room on points to get away from my life for two days and recharge. I was totally alone with a few books, a newspaper, some takeout and my journal. I slept a lot and felt very contented by the end of it. There was a lot of okay to draw on and none of it came from anyone else, I just had to locate and nurture what was there. It was comforting to know.

Also I have found my lasagna people (the people who would bring lasagna in a crisis--I started a thread about this a while back). I have reached out and built or tapped into community around me and feel a lot more connected. Much of the isolation I felt before came from my depression and the abusive/isolating nature of my previous relationship. Finding friendship and community and stopping the quest for the elusive/impossible perfect connection helps fill the neediness and gives me people other than my T to turn to. So I have better external resources too.

Anyway. It didn't come cheap. Almost seven years of therapy. A devastating, extremely messy, still in progress, shitshow of a divorce. That I now see really had to happen. A few deaths. The deaths weren't important to my healing the way the divorce has been. They were just sad. However, learning to grieve is really important. And experiencing uncomplicated grief now helps me understand the very complicated grief of losing my mom ten years ago and gives me a clue as to the complicated grief inherent to the kind of attachment trauma that left me with that pit of neediness.

So yeah. It's possible. I'd never have believed it.

For me, the dilemma seems (at this point) that the early heartbreaks, and the capacity for a heart to be broken, got numbed out. And it took the therapist breaking it AGAIN for me to feel and realize that in an emotional way.

So, there were probably some inklings of (damaged) attachment things going on with me and the last therapist. But what happened was she shamed and rejected me when we got in a pickle, really she did, and that was just horrendous. Mimicking early experience, I guess. I'm still not "over" that -- or the original early stuff, I guess. I can't reach out, I have no lasagna people, and if I did have some who might be I wouldn't trust them, or trust myself to continue to be nice enough not to alienate them eventually (which would be heartbreaking and disappointing and leave me hating myself again, horribly).

Kinda good I can see and say this, though.

Thanks for the thread topic, and discussion.

Yeah. The heartbreak of the unethical or incompetent therapist who is clumsy or unkind with your heart is a whole different beast. That kind of heartbreak is totally untherapeutic, unjustifiable and really very hard to forgive. I don't believe that kind of heartbreak is necessary at all. I'm so sorry you experienced that. I've had bad therapists too. It's the worst.

On my part, there were things i accepted in this last round of therapy that i would not have tolerated before. Some of these things were "imperfections" in my t; others were my willingness to disclose really uncomfortable feelings. Sometimes those two things co-occurred! But i finally realized that, in order to have an adult relationship, boy howdy things are not always going to be sunshine and roses between people. The people who have relationships are the people who can tolerate imperfection. Yeah, i dont demand much, just perfection. i remember telling my first long term t quite seriously that i was perfect.

I wouldn’t think it would be necessary, but some of them do it anyway

It left me hating myself more... I was so “damaged” but he was perfect.