Hatred toward therapist(s) and therapy

I wonder how improvement is measured. Save something tangible, i.e. overcoming substance abuse, conquering agoraphobia to return to work, I don't see how a quality of life can be evaluated. I was the good-a-gold client convinced therapy was doing great things, and I'm sure my therapists would have concurred. It wasn't until later that I realized the persuasion, that I'd bought snake oil,* and my world, and how I related to it, hadn't changed at all.
*My therapy only. I'm not talking about the universe. OK?

Well-said.

Hi here today,
I thought you'd like this article.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/b...trauma-victims

Regards,
Rayne

Um, yeah, well the thing is — this. Psychotherapy has been researched to death and, with a few bumps, is more efficacious than, e.g., a pharmaceutical treatment. Old studies, new studies. What you suggest is farcical... “third-party organizations?” Like, um, having PEN America fiction writers (each and every one ‘a fallible human being’) study string theory to determine for the world, once and for all, the dynamics between general relativity and quantum mechanics that lead to the conclusion that there exist nine (or eleven) dimensions.

As a rule you’ll find that most scholars and scientists work with their own fields. They ‘do’ what they know best. You simply don’t find astrophysicists studying the efficacy of linguistics in determining the outcome of a political election.

Silly.

I cannot believe that I somehow missed out on being harmed by psychotherapy given my long, long history of being treated with same. You deny that you’re painting an entire method and practitioners with a broad brush but that is exactly what you’re doing. You guys might garner more respect if you’d actually tell your stories of abuse. Most people who visit here are keen to bare their souls for so many different reasons: If you want to be taken seriously, you would do well name the crimes.

Again, there are plenty of stories of harmful therapy on the internet. Seriously. Just do a search on "harmful therapy".

Thanks!!

Very glad to see this alternative point of view, written by a clinical psychologist and also a professor, and "published" in the online "professional" Psychology Today.

Or just read any online therapy forum. Some people consider therapy helpful yet appear to be worse off because of it, or trapped in a dependent relationship. Not judging, i was there.

The people who eventually start questioning the paradigm or reporting overt harm come from this group. There is no separate sub-group of disgruntled clients. i think that's pure fallacy.

Reporting of outcomes for something as dodgy and equivocal as psychological counseling, even in the case of formal studies, needs to include detailed explanation of how bias, distortion, expectation have been accounted for. Otherwise it's potentially meaningless or misleading.

Also when it comes to reporting overt harm, some people are just not gonna go there, or might downplay it, to avoid shame and so on.

There's also this: "The burden of proof lies with he/she who asserts a positive."

I don't even know what to say to this... I am not painting with a broad brush. I still don't understand why you see it that way. I have admitted not all therapists are bad. I won't argue nor will I be baited into it. I think important issues need to be talked about, period. Support for survivors is paramount as is acknowledging that a problem exists and letting go of bias in order to see what is going on and fix it. Speaking about a problem is not biased, nor have we said anywhere that everyone is unethical. It does need to be investigated though... And advocacy is extremely important.

Thanks,
Hd7970ghz

Yes, I'm a former big time "believer" in therapy -- I'm fairly sure my posts from when I first started here will show that. And then. . .problems in the therapy. . .I kept working at it. . .getting more and more frustrated. . .and eventually saw that some people had perspectives other than "therapy is right, I'm wrong." What a novel idea! And change!

ETA: There's no way for any of you to verify this, but if you go back into the history of my life before therapy even, I had a tendency to be self-sufficient, conscientious, responsible, etc. and focused on what I could to help a situation, not blaming another person.

I had an inhibition or blind spot in my ability to see faults in others, sometimes, and to blame myself for everything. This was something I went into therapy with. If a therapist could have been open about their faults, too, instead of defensive -- but none of mine ever were.

What I write about here on PC is mostly the negative, because I don't think that it gets enough light or discussion. I also believe there are good aspects to some ideas in psychotherapy. It's the practice that has been so hurtful in my experience.

I've seen several therapists appear terrified of the topic of harm in therapy. I conjecture they:
. Might suspect they're impostures, suspecting their bag of tricks amounts to a hill of nothing.
. Have power/control issues
. Need to feel omniscient and need a collaborator to play the game.
. Lack the courage to question the paradigms.
. Lack the courage to question authorities in their lives.
. Lack the courage to face the harm they might have personally caused.
. Need to be the smartest person in the room.

I'm half amused, half horrified these "truth seekers"lack the introspection they demand of clients.