To those who have been harmed by the "therapeutic relationship"

#Metoo..hash tag (it's a popular joke now) What I've experienced was an illusion of intimacy that my Ts attempted to force on me. They tried very hard to convince me that we had an "intimate relationship" and I felt it was such horse****.

Exactly. I don't understand how a relationship where there is no mutual sharing of intimate inner experiences can be called intimate. How can intimacy exist in the situation where there is no two-way free flow of emotional and intellectual sharing, commitments and spending time together.


It wouldn't even occur to me that being drawn to someone's posts would qualify as intimacy. And, thanks, by the way, though I understand that this is not a compliment and that you've just described what you find helpful in my posts. I also find in your posts something that is similar to how I view everything - as a big picture. I always try to see connections between all things and that entails seeing as many dimensions of each issue/phenomena/event as possible. I hate seeing things from the dualistic (black/white) perspective because I feel it robs me of the richness of life. However, I feel that on the practical level sometimes the dualistic judgment can be very useful. In other words, if I encounter someone who's just gotten out of the abusive situation, I am not going to ask them to look at the complexity of it and to consider everyone's perspective. I would unequivocally condemn the abuser's actions and would stick with this view until the person is healed enough of their trauma to be able to look at other dimensions of the situation.

Here we'd have to differ. While I have no moral judgment of the human needs that prostitution is meant to satisfy, I fiercely object doing so by abusing people. Prostitution, as a part of human trafficking, is an industry of massive abuse of "sex workers" (who are often underage children), who, unlike the popular opinion, don't really have a choice of what to do in life because they've been controlled and abused since early childhood. I don't want to cite all resources that support what I say because I don't want to turn this discussion into politics. If you are interested, you can PM me and I'll send you information. But it is a fact, it is not my opinion that prostitution is abuse of people on a massive scale.

This is something I'd never be able to do. Paying for conversations that nourish my soul violates my basic sense of humanity. That's why I never saw any therapist as a conversational partner, but as professionals who was supposed to help me figure out how to tackle my problems. I pay for professional services only, not for socializing. I feel like I should get the latter for free.

But I do understand why so many people in the US are willing to pay for conversational partners. The American culture is incredibly individualistic and not relational at all, which violates people's natural need for genuine close connections with other human beings. We are social creatures and naturally gravitate toward communal living. But when people are taught to believe the myth of absolute independence, that kills something fundamentally human in them and they can't find any other way to be listened to, to be seen and heard except by paying someone to give them that kind of attention once a week or so. I am sorry, I've come from a different cultural background. I am a naturalized American citizen but I am not an American by birth. I was already 28 when I came here, a fully formed adult, with the formed values acquired in my culture. It seemed insane to me that Americans had no idea how to relate. I mean, I've never seen any culture (and i've traveled around the world) where people had so little tolerance for individual differences and had no problem dumping a "friend", who, for example, expressed a different opinion on some important issue...Anyway, I'd better stop here because I don't want to stir this thread into a completely different direction. But, honestly, many problems of psychotherapy to me originate in the American culture itself. This is just a huge topic in and of itself..

THAT! You've nailed it. I think, "rape" (I am not afraid to say the word) would be the correct word to describe what I felt was done to me after my first therapy.

And I too would like to go further and to get real here. My experience with my last T, the one who committed a formal ethical violation, was not as devastatingly crashing and degrading as with the first one, who never broke any official ethical standard. When the last T started seeing me socially, that somewhat decreased the power inequity and I didn't feel as vulnerable as when I was his client because the rules of the game changed. This is not to say that it was a wonderful experience. I got traumatized by it as well, but I didn't feel "raped" because I was not completely powerless in that relationship anymore. He also put himself in a vulnerable position by changing roles.

With the first one I was definitely raped. But if I'd ever wanted to report it anywhere, my complaint would be undoubtedly dismissed because he was a "good boy" who took care not to cross any officially drawn lines.

Just wanted to comment on American culture being highly individualistic. I wholeheartedly agree.

I come from a collectivist Asian culture and it has its harms as well. The therapists, the justice system and the MDs can be so invested in keeping families together despite them being severely dysfunctional. It is not uncommon for child abuse survivors removed from the home to eventually be returned to the family unit. Even in cases of repeated child rape. Family therapy can't solve everything, unfortunately.

As for therapeutic relationships, I find that western trained ones tend to not be very relational. While some home grown therapists are more "human" and may do things a western trained therapist would consider poor boundaries. Eg accepting a gift of a cooked meal, having a coffee with a client after termination.

As for harm in the relationship, of course it happens. I have been harmed in therapy with my very first therapist and have heard a lot of stories too. It's "mild" compared to many here but years later I haven't been able to be unburdened. I trusted him and he harmed me.

((Luc))

I know what you are talking about. We have a lot of crappy attitudes in my culture as well, so I would never say that it gives a perfect environment for human growth. Any collective entity, just like any individual's personality has it's light and darkness. If you have connection to more than one culture, you can just filter out the best from all of them and leave out the rest. That's what I've been doing.

I know this personally way too well. One of the problems in my therapy was that I didn't feel that any of my Ts showed any interest in learning about my cultural background, which felt disrespectful to me because the culture that raised me is a big part of who I am. By the way, therapists are SUPPOSED to recognize their clients cultural influences. It is a part of their training, but they never implement what they learn about cultural diversity in their practices. It wasn't my experience at least. In my grad school we had a whole course on human diversity where the examples you mentioned were given to students to show that gift giving shouldn't be always interpreted as a boundary violation because in many cultures it's just a normal, habitual behavior that doesn't aim to manipulate the one who receives the gift. There were many other examples like that.

I am sorry it happened to you too. I hate to "welcome" anyone into the victims "club". So, I have no joy from hearing that yet another person was harmed by this practice..

Those other professions are not trading in clinical love and clinical intimacy. I see little to no connection.

The other relevant analogy to me is giving confession to a priest.

eta: I do see parallels between doctor interactions and therapist interactions, and some of the same dysfunction, which is why I avoid doctors.

I'd elevate prostitution above therapy, because the former at least is honest about the transaction, while the latter covers up the truth with layers of bullsh*t and salesmanship, and exploits vulnerable people by perpetuating confusion and ambiguity. And for what, some measly crumbs of faux caring from a love-bot?

Seems some people spend years in therapy in part because they are trying to crack the code of the therapist's true feelings. Can become an obsession (been there).

Also, the image of a therapist dispensing love or caring to one customer after another, in private and in secret... man if that don't evoke prostitution, I dunno what does.

True

Been there too. The difference though between me and others discussing their therapy here is that it didn't even cross my mind to go outside of therapy to make sense of my therapy. It seems to me that once you need to consult an outside source about what the heck is going on in your therapy and what your T meant when s'he did or said this or that, that's a clear sigh that your therapy is not working. If I can't discuss whatever problem I encounter in therapy with the T directly, if I can't get a satisfactory info about therapy from the T directly and if I have to go to the outside source to help me figure it out, then what's the point in my therapy? As I see it, one of the therapeutic ingredients of therapy is supposed to be the ability to address and solve any problems that arise in the process between the T and the client directly. If I couldn't do it, I'd consider my therapy a waste of time, money and energy.

Unfortunately, I wasn't this smart in the past and because of that I took the responsibility of resolving what I thought was "misunderstandings" upon myself only. I would explain my intentions and my real needs over and over again to the people, who, as I understand now, didn't give a **** and who made a choice to see me as they wanted to instead of trying to get out of their bubble of preconceived ideas and understand what I was telling them.

I think the point I am trying to make is that the emotional intimacy is not what I am paying for. I am paying for the psychological improvement which I am undoubtedly getting. I pay him by the hour for that outcome. If I didn't think that was happening, I wouldn't pay him. Emotional intimacy or not. I had emotional intimacy (huge attachment actually) with T1 and I left him because I wasn't getting psychological improvement, which is what I was paying him for. On the contrary he was harming me.

It is disturbing (although entirely unsurprising, especially coming from a man since the majority of prostitutes are women) to claim on a mental health forum that prostitution is somehow "better" than therapy. Prostitution is abuse, it's paid rape (you know, actual rape, not "rape" as you claim you've experienced which was not rape at all). Prostitutes suffer from PSTD and dissociation, not to mention the huge risks they encounter of being killed and tortured. It's possible to criticize therapy without dismissing prostitution as something horrific just to make your point.

I believe that BudFox was responding not to the reality of the sex abuse industry, which prostitution absolutely is, but to the idea of how it is presented to the public. The public at large isn't necessarily aware of what's happening in that business.

I understand how someone's ignorance about the horrific realities of life we know about may trigger people, especially people who personally experienced that reality or knew others who did.

But, for whatever reason someone's opinion on something disturbs you personally, please, don't resort to personal attacks and don't invalidate the other person's experience. Just explain why you are disturbed by what they say without bringing up their gender ("coming from a man"), profession, race, sexual orientation, age or any other personal characteristics and without invalidating their experience ("your rape was not rape at all"). Acknowledging the sufferings of a specific social group (sex workers in this case) doesn't have to come through invalidating the sufferings of others whose opinions you find disturbing. Just like you can't boost your individual self-value by putting other people down. And, telling someone that their experience of being raped is invalid because it cannot be compared with the sufferings of others is hurtful and offensive. Nothing needs to be compared to anything else. Every personal experience is real to the person who has experienced it.

If you want to bring attention to the abuse of a certain group of people that's fine, but there is no need to do it through comparisons and through invalidating the sufferings of others no matter how insignificant or invalid they might seem to you.

I draw a distinction between the differences of opinion and personal attacks. I welcome all opinions on the substance of the topic, not on someone's personal experience unless they asked for it, which, in this case, they didn't. I want my threads to facilitate mindful, meaningful, deep discussions that promote learning and broader understanding of the topics posted. I don't want them to become yet another "battleground". We have no shortage of those here. My threads will not contribute to that destructive dynamic as long as I am allowed to post threads here.

I believe BudFox was comparing his experience of emotional violation in therapy to rape - not that he was actually raped. And, quite honestly, I found that offensive as well. As horrific as his experience was, it was not like being raped. The only thing that is like being raped is...well...being raped.

I'm not intending to derail your thread - I felt a need to respond because this is a bit of a hot button for me personally.

I believe that everyone has the right to experience THEIR OWN EXPERIENCES the way they experience them. If someone says that they've experienced their therapy as emotional rape then this is how it was for THEM. They are not comparing their experience to anyone else's. They are also not suggesting that others should see it the way they see it. All they are saying is "this is how it was for ME" and all they are asking of others is to accept that for THEM is was exactly how they experienced it. It is those who tell them that their experiences were not what they were for THEM are the ones who bring comparisons.

My therapy experience also felt like emotional rape to me and that's how it was to ME. It doesn't imply that this is how it should feel to YOU. No one tells you to believe that my experience WAS a rape. All you and others who like to attack people for feeling differently from how you feel, all you are asked to do is to accept that the experiences of others are valid for THEM.

No one is trying to offend you by talking honestly and openly about their personal experiences in therapy. If you get offended, it has nothing to do with other people's personal stories but it has everything to do with how you choose to perceive them.

If this is such a hot button topic for you that you can't restrain yourself from offending people by invalidating their personal experiences, then this type of discussions are not best for you to participate in.

I would like to encourage everyone, who is genuinely interested in the topic, to disregard the disruptions and to carry on with the topic.

I can understand from your post how individual experiences with intimacy in therapy may differ from person to person.

In my case, there was a point where I no longer believed that my emotional state was improving and that my life was improving. That is what made me feel like I am paying for the illusion of emotional intimacy only, which did bring the analogy of prostitution for me. The key word here is the "illusion" because it didn't feel like real intimacy to me.

But I can put myself in your shoes and see how and why it was different for you.

Therapy felt like I was deceived into disrobing and then invaded. Moreover, they used the weaponry of my own vulnerability that I voluntarily surrendered to them. I felt used, I felt invaded, I felt exposed, thanks to the shared folly that therapists had some unworldly wisdom for me.

I hope that illuminates why destructive therapy would evoke that metaphor to some people.

Here is a serious and scholarly article that compares aspects of therapy with aspects of rape. Maybe it's going too far. Nobody has to agree with it. I found it powerful and liberating. Personally I am tired of, and disgusted by, the profession's whitewashing of its destructive aspects, and think what's sorely needed is more unflinching pieces like this (and more threads like this one). If some people find this upsetting or unsavory, they are free to opt out. No offense meant.

Confession 1

"This exploitation is one that can never be seen as not impinging on the therapist's own psychology, as not constituting a new species of emotional appropriation, and rape. This structure, where client exposure is a pre-requisite, where the therapist is in possession of in some cases, the greatest intimacies the person can admit and where the client knows next to nothing about the person within whom so much has been invested, is a one-way appropriation of personal intimacies, a formal objectification intrinsically comparable to rape".

With T1, it was not dissimilar to what you describe. If I had not had this experience with current T, I may well have had a similar viewpoint to you.
I find the relational aspect of therapy difficult. I still do. My therapist knows it too and I know he doesn't want the relationship to hurt me. But the emotional aspect does not feel illusionary in my current therapy. And it is my therapist's authenticity which has been pivotal in facilitating the process that's happened. But sometimes I do look at therapy, and wonder about whether the good outweighs the bad. I really do, and I take harm seriously because I know the pain it causes. I wish there were more experiences like my subsequent experience out there. I wish there were more Ts like my T out there. And even though my overall experience of therapy is now positive, I don't begrudge those on PC who hate therapy for expressing that here. Because I know how much bad therapy can and does hurt.

Yes. I hope too that, as we explain how we felt during the process, people, who haven't had the same or similar experiences, would be able to put their own experiences and beliefs aside just for a moment and to allow themselves to feel some empathy. I know this may be a lot to ask and not everyone can do that, but may be some people will be able to.

I think that we, humans, have a hard time feeling empathy for someone whose personal story is something that is far outside of our own life experiences. By saying this, I fully admit that i have the same limitation. I too am limited in how much I can empathize with someone whose experience is very different from mine. But I am aware of this limitation and, being conscious of it, I am trying to push it as far as I can. I am really trying to put myself into someone else's shoes and understand where they are coming from, but it's hard to do it when people, instead of simply explaining what their experience was, start attacking you for experiencing your own the way you did.

When we are unable to really hear other people and to talk about our personal stories openly, we rob ourselves off a great opportunity to expand our views of what matters to us and, frankly, to heal.

So, yeah, I hope that people will continue to discuss this and other hot button topics with an open heart and mind, but one can only hope..

Yea I probably stretched the point too far. But I was not talking about forced prostitution. You are appealing to extremes. My point was about the level of honesty about what is taking place. That's the comparison I was making.

I never said I was raped. That is a blatant straw man. I said one therapy experience was an emotional violation that brought to mind rape. I stand by this 100%. I dont mind if you object to what I said, that is your right, but please don't put words in my mouth to serve your own needs.

Rape is a physical, sexual assault. It is embodied. There are associated emotional violations of course, but rape is a crime which is predominantly carried out by men against women - women are vulnerable because their bodies and biology are reviled. It is a categorical mistake to ignore the purely physical and bodily violent aspect of rape; the kind of violation which is not ordinarily seen in therapeutic (non sexual) abuse.

That is your view, which is perfectly valid. This view, perhaps, reflects the legal definition of rape. Others, like myself, view it beyond its legal definition. For us it is also a subjective psychological experience that doesn't have to include the physical violation of the body. By talking about our subjective experience of a psychological rape, we are not ignoring or invalidating the cases where rape happened on the physical level (as well as emotional) and where the body of the victim was violated.

As I've explained before, we are simply sharing our subjective personal experiences, we are not defining anything for anyone else.

Like it or not, words have meaning. Rape is by definition both a physical and sexual act. You are describing acts which are emotional, psychological, financial, or non-sexual physical abuse. They are damaging and traumatic experiences but they are objectively defined as something other than rape. One abuse is not more traumatic than the other, but it is misleading (borderline gaslighting) to describe them as inter-changeable.

Yeah..I am sincerely glad that you've found authenticity in the relationship with your T and that it's been the main ingredient in your improvement.

For myself, I wouldn't start another therapy venture even if I knew that the T would be 100% authentic. The intense feelings that, I know, the therapy situation would create for me and that, I also know, would remain unresolved and would eat away the vast amount of my energy are not worth it for me.

I sometimes suffer the presence of a therapist with whom I share a creative group. I somehow drew her attention--maybe because I've worked at the craft much longer and have collected some credits. She's a beginner who showboats about the slightest accomplishment.

She reached out to discuss a standing problem in the group, but quickly shifted to act like my therapist. She launched into accusation cloaked in Socratic questioning, jumping from subject she began. I wasn't talking about myself nor requesting her help, but she still reproached me.

Had we been in the consulting room, I'm sure most would consider this competent protocol-- authoritatively using inquiry to "help" her patient toward understanding.

Outside a therapy context, this is cattiness--a subtle dominance display of one female attempting supremacy over another. She twisted her training to weaponize it.

It's striking that good practice in a therapy setting can be positively spiteful outside of it. Since my main problem entering therapy was my self-doubt and deference, my last need was an over-confident queen bee counterfeiting wisdom over mine. My competence and self-assurance had to feel earned of course. But an unofficial "authority figure" could never have transmitted it to me.

As for my adversary, she quickly shut down when I told her she wasn't my therapist, yet rebounding a second time to pose as my taskmaster. She's a braggart to the point of absurdity, with some claims short of truthful. She evidently has a strong need for dominance over others. I speculate her venom is better camouflaged in a therapy setting.