Survivors of Unethical Therapy

I do not use mds - I trust western medicine less than I do therapists.
I do not believe that overall therapy works and I think it is irresponsible to put forth it does. There is no good of measuring it. Their data collection is slanted towards themselves. Certainly there are clients who report being helped by it, and I have no interest in telling them they have not - but even a blind hog finds an acorn sometimes.

Have you read any of the peer reviewed literature published examining outcomes for various types of therapy? That's the evidence that therapy works.
In terms of our own experiences and others' anecdotes, it's easy to fall into confirmation bias. Studies and larger scale meta analysis show that overall therapy is more helpful than harmful, though, of course there are exceptions.

It's not so much a straw man as an analogy. Someone whose baby got a vaccine, developed a fever from the vaccine, had a seizure, and died can go online and find plenty of other people who were hurt by vaccines or whose kids were hurt by vaccines. There are very real and sad cases of this.
But then those people take it too far and think that because they and so many other people they talk to were hurt by vaccines that they do more harm than good. They're not talking to or paying attention to the countless other people who've had good experiences with vaccines, and they're not acknowledging the lives that have been saved by vaccines.
And then people get scared away from vaccines, and vulnerable people get hurt.

If therapists were completely unnecessary to get the benefits of therapy, then why do people benefit from therapy (as demonstrated in a plethora of studies)? I'm sure there are a million different answers because different people need different things.
My therapist provides a reality check regarding my cognitive distortions. He provides a safe place for me to talk about and process things. He points out things I can see or am selectively ignoring.

I think therapy becomes unethical and damaging in part because the practitioners absorb grandiose and distorted ideas about their abilities.

Many therapists claim to address wide ranging issues like grief, anxiety, depression, trauma, anger, relationship problems, addiction, eating problems, behavioral issues, and more.

Anyone who presumes expertise in all these areas such that they can advise or "treat" any person that shows up... I would have to regard them as dangerous.

I think therapists are granted power that is absurdly out of proportion to reality. Power corrupts, and within context of a secluded 1-1 relationship, that gets pretty scary.

In my view studying psychology only qualifies one to share general knowledge about psychology. It does not equate to better insight into human nature, knowing what is healthy or not, or ability to orchestrate a series of healing relationships.

Yes, if therapy was billed as simply an outside person to talk with, it would deliver what it promises. But I think therapists promising sagacity, wizardly, reparenting, superparenting, transformation and healing is magical thinking. Unfortunately my therapists believed their own publicity.

I trust common sense + direct accounts from therapy consumers more than convoluted studies full of conflicts of interest.

Also for therapy to be ethical, i think evidence has to be convincing, not just show that therapy kinda helps once in a while for reasons nobody can explain.

I regard manipulative relationships, synthetic drugs, vaccines, invasive medical procedures, routine "screenings", MD visits as toxic and avoid them as if my life depends on it.

You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I want to extend my sympathy to OP and OP's attempt to reach out to all survivors of unethical therapy with the message of solidarity and support.

HD, I appreciate your call for solidarity, empathy and support very much. And I am so sorry to see that, once again, this beautiful act of compassion is being sacrificed for the sake of yet another useless debate that doesn't help anyone. Sorry again that your well-meaning act was unappreciated and dismissed.

Thank you for saying this. It means a lot.

Hd7970ghz

Apologies if i have contributed to taking the thread away from what OP intended, but calling the discussion useless seems rather weird. OP left things pretty open based on the original post. Discussions about unethical therapy are bound to provoke strong reactions and some disagreement. Is the objective to just repeat over and over that therapy has been unethical or harmful, or is to have some substantive discussion about that?

I welcome discussion and disagreement! It is important! I just hope the conversation stays productive and doesn't veer off into ad hominem, invalidation or put downs. Let's keep it civil as best we can.

Goodness. I think myself eligible and able to define the shrinks that I’ve known as nothing like what you describe. I am not damning or praising all psychotherapists, yet you’re damning the lot. I think that damning all — cognitive scientists, e.g., would be as far from the mark.

I had four semesters of psychology as an undergrad, nineteen months for my MPhil Psychology and a little over two years in my failed attempt for my PhD in psychology. (A few neuroscientists are now calling mental disorders ‘diseases of the brain’ — and I hope that they’re right.) I know something about the subject.

Yes, shrinks claim therapies for a host of mental disorders because therapies addressing issues such as anxiety and depression share common roots. I do not believe that I’m unique in benefiting from varied forms of psychotherapies.

I don’t know of any shrink who doesn’t specialize in treatments for various psychotherapies for more specific disorders. I’ve usually had discussions with my candidates about my needs and any number of ways to manage the crap in my head.

I think that you meant to infer that absolute power corrupts absolutely ? We cede to those more powerful — more knowledgeable — daily. When I have plumbing problems, I call a plumber. Problems with my automobile, I call a mechanic. Problems with my mind, a shrink. Why in the world would I think that I know how best to treat my own mental disorders when I’ve shown, again and again, that I don’t act in my own interests; that I harm myself and, potentially, others?

Why would you believe that ‘psychology’ would be so diminutive when you would gladly put yourself into the hands of a doctor of general medicine? I trust mine to defer to the differently-educated when treating both my mind and body. One-hundred-years from now all 20th-early-21st century treatments will probably sound quaint. It has not been my experience that psychology is as broad or as narrow as you wish it to be.

You must have suffered greatly to have reach the conclusions that you espouse. I’m very sorry for that. I can’t see that the harsh/unethical treatment that you received has anything to do with the beneficial and ethical treatment that I have received these 33 years. I don’t mean say that I cannot empathise with your sentiments when I write of my experiences differing from yours.

The overarching ability to empathise with one another is surely Darwinian evolution?

I don't think threads/discussions like this are useless. What else could we realistically do on a message board than discuss topics and different points of view, even debate? What is kinda sad though is that threads like this tend to get moderated and even closed, while those with adoring comments on therapists while a client is becoming so "attached" that they repeatedly overlook serious professional, often unethical errors are not interfered with. I also almost never see the members who are critical about therapy personally attacking other posters out of proportion - the other end is more common and seems to be left to continue. There is clearly a bias that is not handled on an equally respectful basis.

Good point. I think this is partly related to our tendency as a society to refer to anger etc as "negative" emotions, and love etc as "positive" emotions. When the reality is, anger may be the healthier response in certain situations than love would be. But an excess of either can be cringe-producing. We need a "closed to due hate or love bombing" emoji

I sometimes wonder if there is not a temperament bias -- people who are OK with debate tend not to attack personally, while those who are not OK with debate, and different values and points of view, do tend to attack personally.

As someone who is comfortable with debate, but learned to expect to be rejected because of it, it seems to me it may be a more general phenomenon that just on PC.

The fact that most therapists, and therapy culture in general, seem uncomfortable with debate, just make me wonder a bit. . .Going to therapy with people who didn't/can't respect my basic temperament, just like most of conventional society. . not sure that was healthy for me. I didn't "change" -- I was already faking niceness and conventionality as best I could -- with some bad emotional and other consequences for me personally.

And as for the matter of "fit" -- how is one who is unconventional and not very socially oriented to begin with expected to understand and "know" about that, just going into therapy for "help"? Seems a very short-sighted, cliquish/cultish, uncurious attitude on the part of therapists.

Really scary stuff, here, when, you start to unpack it.

HT - I think that raises a good question. Is therapy a place for debate? New thread? I know my ts feelings on that.

Go for it, una. I've got my comments ready, too.

I agree. I talk about my own experiences, which are not open to debate though. Likewise with my personal impressions of an article belong to me.

I find it extremely interesting that our personal experiences make some people so ferociously angry. I feel I understand these people far better than they understand themselves because I was a devotee one time in my life.

Likewise, I try to be respectful of the therapy-faithful's problems and threads and rarely get involved in the discussion unless I sense they seem to seek affirmation of a problem.

It's too bad therapy (seemingly ) doesn't teach respect and courtesy. I was taught STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF, often without regard for the person on the receiving end.

I absolutely agree that it is a larger, quite general social phenomenon. I am often quite fascinated how anonymous online communities can manifest the exact same social roles and trends, of course it is not surprising, why would't they, just another bunch of humans It also brings out nicely the personality/character patterns and their consequences.

Surely everyone finds positive attitude more pleasant and it's fine, but many of the problems people go to therapy for stem from anger and disagreement regarded as unwanted in their social circuits (past or present). And we can read plenty of stories here how many therapists do not welcome criticism - most say they do but when it really happens, it's a whole different story. I had one of those experiences myself, and I am not someone who is not comfortable with my anger, criticisms and directness - quite the opposite. But when even just a realistic discussion and challenge is met with rejection, blocking and ignorance, that is the end of it - there is no way ahead and into resolving conflict, deeper exploration, etc.

I also think that often criticism is interpreted and responded to in a very black-and-white way, as if it was complete rejection and refusal to see a spectrum. Of course then it easily triggers further resentments because one's opinion is not being heard and considered.

There are obviously people who are wired to be interested in debate more than others and that is fine. What is not is when civil debate and criticism, which is focused on the subject matter and not on any particular person, is not allowed, sometimes with an argument that it is a support forum (if we talk about PC, for example). But support comes in many different forms and I think, at its best, it comes as variety. People also differ a lot in what we find supportive and useful. For example, I keep saying that one of the biggest weaknesses of therapy in my own experience was lack of being challenged in spite of asking for it many times. Then when I was "challenged" (by one T), it as dumped on me in the form of high dose projection, passive aggression and gaslighting. It is true that society often discourages directness, but anger and disagreement will always be there. Then what to do - it comes out as many forms of passive aggression - and that more accepted in general, why so abundant. The problem with it is that passive aggression is often not effective to reach the goal - instead, it creates complicated emotional conflicts and resentments - and the true original goal gets lost. I think this happens in therapy very frequently.

I found the hurt and the anger from my experience with my last therapist often overlapped and switched back and forth.

As I understand it, the key in any trauma is not to avoid the feelings of hurt -- which can be overwhelming, though. And wanting to speak out and "do something about it" are useful responses, too.

It's really horrible to feel how "used" I was by the therapy profession - and how I bought into all that my own self, betrayal all around. Mimics my family, OK. Therapy may recognize that kind of thing, in theory -- but in practice to perpetuate it? Arghh! Yuck!!! Unbelievable!!!

Which isn't to say that most therapists are aware of it. Or their defenses against the awareness of it. There is some good theory about that kind of thing, it seems to me. But the application seems sorely lacking!!!

I tend to agree with this most of the time.

Couldn't remember where I saw this when I posted before, so I started to write about this on another thread. Mine was PsyD too. He didn't exploit me but pathologized every single thing about me, never noted anything good or positive. He was very dark and negative. Which for someone with my backgrounds, is very damaging.

I've never had any real problems with psychiatrists. Mixed results with 2 social workers for brief therapy. One was really shaming and had more problems than me. She was my first therapist, who I was forced to go to in order to use the facility. I got away from there as soon as I could.

It seems their personality, values, insight into themselves (lack of), can greatly impact their competency/ability to apply their training. It can really interfere with their ability to keep their own stuff out of the therapy or really understand what boundaries are about. Some likely don't even have enough insight to know they are on a path to harming the client.

You could have all the best knowledge about psychology in the world and still not apply it appropriately or effectively.