Survivors of Unethical Therapy

Real people have written books, years ago, and yet here we still are. I think it needs more than individuals, I think it needs an advocacy group of real people, willing and able to use their real names, which I understand not everybody can.

In my experience NAMI is clueless about this stuff. I've tried to talk to them -- they don't get it. Mad in America would be an ally, I think, but this isn't their main focus. I have communicated with them and if somebody wrote a good article, my sense is they would publish it. I just don't have a good sense of what would do any good. Need to describe the nature of therapy trauma, maybe? Then the lack of understanding and acceptance by the therapy community, hence the lack of any resources to help those of us traumatized by therapy.

Since there isn't an accepted definition of what therapy trauma is, maybe the idea could be conveyed by a set of stories?

I agree one hundred percent with that.

They call it Public Judicial Inquiries; where survivors are given freedom to speak up about abuse without repercussions of being sued for defamation or called to court.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

Is this something you have in Canada? Nothing like that here in the USA at this point.

this is quite correct. i participated in a private forum when i was first starting to openly talk and share my stories, it was immensely helpful because it was a place where i could discuss and process the harm that was happening to me while i was still in therapy without being attacked, blamed, or gained up upon. members were understanding, supportive, and validating...no one was trying to make excuses for my T. it was helpful and what i needed at that time.

but now, and similar to what heretoday said, i no longer feel i need to have that private 'safe space' to discuss those issues. i have moved into a differnt stage where i no longer fear sharing things openly. and, like working through any trauma, perhaps that is part of the process.

one reason why i still continue to participate in this PC forum, even though i ended therapy almost two years ago, is i want those who are brave enough to speak up, or question, or have doubts about therapy / their therapist to know they are not alone and that there are are others who understand and don't blame them.

Yes these are things in Canada. I assumed they occur in the USA as well but maybe I am wrong?

Here is a link to our Provincial Government Opposition Parties demanding a full Public Judicial Inquiry into a Culture of Fear and Intimidation in Alberta Health Services.

PressReader.com - Connecting People Through News

Judicial inquiry into Alberta health allegations a step too far - The Globe and Mail

Response to damning report | Edmonton Sun

Currently I am learning about another public inquiry into the abuse of Indigenous Peoples in Canada in the controversial Residential schools. The Inquiry is called the, "Truth and Reconciliation Commission."

Survivors had the chance to speak up about abuse within residential schools. The Canadian Government made it a LAW that all Indigenous families HAD to send their children to these schools. The stats of children dying were higher in these schools than Canadian's who died in World War 1 and World War 2! Families who refused to send their children to these schools were arrested! On legal documents, it is written that the Canadian Government wanted to, "kill the indigenous culture." (NO JOKE) The Government knew about the abuses and no one did anything about it for a long time. Absolutely disgusting. Same filth and gutter trash that exists in healthcare. The system is BROKEN!

Just a matter of time before our voice becomes a huge wave of justice.

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

There is no such thing in the US, unfortunately. We have to be careful here about what we say. In CA and some other states with anti-SLAPP laws you can write a review of any service on yelp and other consumer websites without fear of repercussions, but that's about it. Otherwise, you can talk about your experiences without identifying the real characters. There is no public platform where something can be discussed as a social issue without any restrictions and with naming names and giving all the details.

There are very few books written on this subject, actually. And, none of them, as I know of, talked about this in broad terms as a systemic issue of training. It's all personal stories of "bad" therapists who harmed people. Actually, I recall a couple of books that are critical of the psychotherapy process, but those don't address the trauma experienced by survivors and how to deal with it. In any case, what's available out there is a drop in the ocean to be considered a serious challenge to the status quo. This subject needs to be talked about on a mass scale.

Advocacy groups need to know what they are advocating for. At this point, no one knows what specifically has to be done to address the problem because the problem is too massive to have just one specific solution. Everybody wants the abuse to stop, but nobody knows hot to achieve that. There are all kinds of ideas circulating in groups, including this forum. All of them are good ideas, but, realistically, if you want some changes to be implemented on the practical level, they have to be very specific small steps you can take one at a time only, as an advocacy group. For instance, you can advocate for a better informed consent and include all the items you want to see there. You could start petitioning licensing boards and professional organizations about it. What you cannot do, as an advocacy group, is to demand the complete overhaul of the system because that is not specific and no government official or professional body would take this demand seriously. You also wouldn't be able to make a convincing case for the public in order to collect signatures.

So, "advocacy group" is a lovely idea, but you can't do anything as an advocacy group if all you have is general ideas of what should change and a general rage about what is happening now, no matter how righteous it may be. You need to have very concrete actions in mind you can take. Otherwise, all your activity would stay on the level of dreaming.

NAMI is a Pharma funded "consumer" organization that promotes the idea of mental illness being genetic and advocate for drugging people for every single thing you could drug them for. They are all about pushing psych drugs on people whenever possible. Stay away from them. They are also the ones who need to be exposed for what they do.

That's right. They are more about exposing psychiatric abuse when people are drugged for no good reason and the trauma they endure as a result, which is more severe in many cases than the trauma of therapy survivors, because their physical organs often get damaged.

In my experience, a good article is convincing when it speaks to the heart of the reader, not their intellectual reasoning. For that to happen, the message conveyed in the article also has to come directly from the author's heart. When you get to the place where your heart starts talking, you won't need to figure out what to say and what would do any good. You will start writing just because you'd feel the need to express yourself and to put it out there for others to see, that's all. No other reason. It'd be a healing experience for you and that's all you'd care about. In my experience, when you write with this kind of intention, that is when you are most convincing and effective in your messaging. Whatever you do, do it for yourself and yourself only, and that is when you will be able to help others the most, paradoxically as it sounds.

I agree.

I don't know that psychiatric abuse is always worse than the interpersonal trauma that therapy survivors experience, though. It may be more obvious sometimes. And stuff like lobotomies -- how awful was that!

My sense of self was damaged before I went into therapy, and then the therapy process, and individual therapists "with their own issues", continued the damage. How much they worsened it is maybe a matter for debate, but it's been a lifelong issue for me, my "self" couldn't get out of the dungeon/black hole it was in, which current therapy just perpetuated, while I was trusting them because, as SorryOozit said, I needed to, or felt I "should" trust the "experts", licensed by my government as professional helpers. Since I didn't have a strong, integrated self, despite my best efforts. Or something.

My life is almost over. I have known other now senior citizens in real-life support groups who started therapy early their adult life. Some eventually quit, some are still going! They did not find a way to live up to their potential.

So, I may have lucked out. That still remains somewhat to be seen.

It seems to me that some psychiatric survivors did not have the damage to the sense of self that I, and others I know, did. Maybe it's just how symptoms of early trauma manifest differently in different people.

I think what happened to me was horrible. I know, now, that I am not alone with this kind of thing. That's beginning to give me a certain kind of strength I didn't have before. I wish the best for all psychiatric survivors. I support them in their work and their recovery. I hope that they can find a way to support those of us whose symptoms are somewhat less overtly, obviously "mad". But first, yeah, I have to find a way to talk about it.

Venting here on PC, where I can try to learn to do that -- in a social environment that can allow a connection to grow between my heart and my throat (voice) sometimes. . .maybe that will help. Right now, I just don't know what else to "do".

The word ghetto has a few different meanings. The one I am using is:

"an isolated or segregated group"

Thank you. I'm just posting link to the website since your link doesn't appear active:

Freudian slip: Therapist jailed for sexual relationship with a patient | FOX6Now.com

That’s not my issue. I’ve been writing on this board for years and there is a lot of identifying info that could potentially identify me if people IRL read it. I don’t want to write certain things in the event someone IRL found this site. I would appreciate having a private space to write things that are not readable by anyone with internet.

It is good to have a place to vent anonymously for the people who were/are hurting but I would be much happier if I saw more of these T behaviors scrutinized and stopped somehow directly where it happens, stop these unethical, manipulative, abusive, whatever we want to call them Ts, stop their influence on people. Some at least are but usually only when their conduct reaches a very severe level with tons of hard evidence. People like my first T, who is careful and somehow skilled enough to navigate in the grey areas and to get rid of anything or most that challenges him, keeps doing the same on and on and on. I try not to look at the online activity of that guy anymore because it just angers me and I am not going let it affect me again, but whenever I do, nothing has changed. It is pretty incredible, I would never be able to get away with even 1/3 of that kind of shady behavior in my profession. Of course these people do because most of it happens behind closed doors and there is no hard evidence, not even their minimal documentation is ever followed by anyone unless something really big happens. Or the evidence that is there is easy to twist, the client does not want to deal with revealing it for their own privacy concerns (like scorpiosis says) etc. I would also make a much bigger fuss about my ex-Ts conducts if I did not prioritize my own privacy, I never felt seriously harmed by it but it is very obvious to me that he can manipulate and fool many people. It is not just serial mistakes and sloppiness, much worse than that.

I didn't think you said that, I apologize if that's how it came across.

I believe both should be allowed. A public thread and private threads for more intimate sharing / increased privacy.

Thanks,
Hd7970ghz

Blaming the survivors who are at the moment of harm "victims" is described by the psychology of "just world," which is a defense mechanism that people use most likely because they themselves have been harmed or are afraid of harm or both. Even if all of this is so hard and triggering, this concept, not the only explanation by far, but helpful if it is useful as I believe therapy or any other kind of thing that people go to to help them in times of need.

"Just World" means basically the American Dream sorta. That if you work hard and do right you will get somewhere, be rewarded not punished, and probably have a chance at least of the "good life."

But then if people follow this and it doesn't happen and they end up harmed seemingly punished or at least to some degree feel that way, the "just world" belief kicks in to tell people that nothing like that could ever happen to them ever not all.


So it is safer to then look for whatever that person did wrong to make them wrong and punished even if they did all that they were supposed to do, with the normal limitations of imperfections we all have.

There are way more depth oriented ways to look at this and there are also way more social and economic ways too since this is often very early trauma stuff that is often neglect/abandonment reenacted in therapy to some extent. It is what makes many more vulnerable to more harm or not self-protective to see the signals.


But even larger it is part of general culture for many that believing the world is just and safe and rewards you if you follow whatever rules you are told to follow and get in trouble if not.


So trouble can't be just arbitrary or not the "victim's" fault. It has to be at least partly their fault or else this could happen to me too and my kids and family


So OMG no way it has to be something they did that caused this so that homeless person is using and mentally ill and lazy soo that is why I am not like them. Ignoring that that person is a human being with the same rights, who may have been will to die or shed blood for the idea of the suburban person who now is blaming and accusing and rejecting and harsh. The vet of several wars who is on the streets spilled blood for your house but Just World says that person caused that, is responsible, deserves it just as I deserve my warm safe space.


In this larger sense even if people still don't really mean harm, they are causing serious and perhaps lethal harm.

And that is no longer acceptable by anyone who believes in any sort of ethical system. You simply cannot say the victim deserves to be harmed. This is ethically wrong is nearly every system of behavior across nearly all cultures and spiritualities.

No one really can endure or live with the idea that victims deserve harm but just world allows it so in my vocabulary from other activism this is an ideology, a belief system that confuses us but is socially accepted so hard to see or confront.


And "victims" do the same since for some it is "safer" to believe they caused whatever so it doesn't have to happen again. So they also look for what they did wrong to cause the harm

I understand. But you said you had left the group, so I assumed you didn't like it very much or it didn't exactly provided what you hoped it would.

I reported my ex T even though she had “retired” because of her fear when she found out that someone knew about our “relationship”. I rewrote the complaint over and over, finally sending the version which was a timeline of events spanning 6 years, and which included a list of the evidence I could produce. From the board, I got a letter which completely validated my complaint even though they no longer had authority since her license had expired.

It took me 3 years after I left her to make the complaint. I felt like I had to get comfortable with the possibility that I would get a reply which retraumatized me.

I do think it was helpful when the trauma was new especially. It was also smaller, so easier to follow stories.

I am deeply saddened to hear about your experience. You are a survivor and you never deserved to be hurt. Your therapist has failed.

Have you found closure in reporting your therapist?

Thanks,
HD7970ghz

I just found this website. Seems interesting. Some insightful comments made by people who view the website. Some are very similar to our traumas.

Treatment Abuse Checklist – Surviving Therapist Abuse

I just found this website. You can search for public lawsuits made against psychiatrists in some countries. Not sure how much info is available but it is disturbing to see so many...

PsychSearch

Abuse-of-Power - Abuse of Power: Bringing Awareness to the Issue of Abuse of Power and Predatory Therapists: home

Thank you for posting this web site. They didn’t have the psychiatrist in my case listed. I sent them information and links to the licensing boards in the two different states where his medical licenses were revoked.

Good for you for following through!

Did they respond to you? I wonder how admanent they are about keeping their records up to date.

Thanks,
Hd7970ghz

You’re welcome. My pleasure.

No one has contacted me yet, but it’s early.
Initially, I contacted a columnist on that site but I think I found the proper person and have just finished sending the information.

Someone replied!