Therapy failure

To me, object relations concepts don't match up with my experience very well in lots of ways. Maybe it's just my temperament, and the way I operate is different or something.

But the notion that my last therapist couldn't survive being the "bad object" seems relevant. I was definitely experiencing her that way. I could have turned that "off", in the way that I learned to do things in childhood, in order to "get along", but it was therapy, so -- I didn't.

If the therapists can't "survive" that, and it's a known hazard, . . .the whole profession is unethical in not addressing that somehow. They "know" the potential for harm is there -- can it be they just don't know how really awful and horrible and damaging the harm can be? Or just don't care.

As feileacan said, why should they? They can't feel it and it doesn't affect them.

That just seems so. . .awful. Not a world I like or want to live in. May be the way it is, in which case -- I'm glad I'm not in therapy any more. Maybe I can find some places in the world I like better.

And. . .things change. Surgeons don't routinely perform tonsillectomies on 3-year-olds any more. Certainly not the way they did it 68 years ago, holding the child down kicking and screaming for their life while they slam an ether/anesthesia mask over their face.

The "therapy" of tomorrow, if still around, may be very different.

(((guileless))) i love object relations theory - thanks for the quotes! Esp the part about countertransference, where it points out that sometimes it means the t is taking on an aspect of the client - i.e., its NOT the t's "real feelings" coming out - they are still ours.

I asked and tried to investigate this question myself pretty thoroughly. In part, because I was aware of these concepts from start and also that it's the favorite part of his modality to work with the bad parenting-associated anger and aggression in clients. I knew it about him before start because he talks about his view and approaches to therapy extensively online, but when I decided to contact him, his interest in these specific things was not really on my mind. I basically wanted to try psychoanalysis in general, and this analyst had a lot of info online, happened to live in my city, and claimed to also have addiction (which was my primary issue, although in remission at the time) as a specialty. Looking at his online media, he also seemed radically different from me in his style and personality, and that was a motivating factor at the time because I purposefully wanted to work with a T whom I perceived very different from myself and my usual choice of people. The latter was to kinda counter a life-long pattern - see what comes of it. Maybe he could give me a fresh look at things?

It is a long story of course and I will just cut to the question. For a while, I did not even notice the manipulations or did not worry about them at all. I was not worried about my therapy either - nothing too remarkable happened other than having a place to go every week to discuss personal things and psychology. He was mildly useful around the stress dealing with my rapidly declining/dying father, but not my main support by any means. He actually stated himself that he could not work with me in the way he usually does with most clients (through those bad object/aggression paths), we discussed it multiple times and tended to conclude that it may be because I simply don't have those things significantly in my history, not childhood history at least. Of course I encountered a few manipulative, self absorbed, abusive people in my life (mostly professional life) but who has not? I never had a pattern of seeking them out, more the opposite. So the T and I discussed trying to work with me differently. Well, that was what failed on his end later - I think he just does not know how, quite unable to get out of his own world, what he had experienced, known, and focused on in most of his career. I probably should have left him right away - analogy: why do I go to, say, a GI specialist if I need a cardiologist? Or at least I know I do not need a GI specialist? It was certainly my fault and laziness as well.

With time, specific issues with the T started to accumulate (mostly sloppiness and the occasional condescending tone that irritated me) and I began to wonder what it was all about. I started to pay a lot more attention to the T himself, both in our 1:1 interactions and kinda analyzing his online media and acts. At fist I really believed that his acts with me were therapy techniques, especially since they matched all I knew about his philosophy. I also could not believe someone would do many of the things he did unconsciously - that level of sloppiness, defensiveness whenever we disagreed and I challenged him, all the attempted manipulations (that usually failed, which triggered him even further). Long story short, with time and some of my own manipulative efforts that I am not proud of, I've figured that most of what the T did in my therapy is pretty much how he is and how he tends to interact with the world around him. Very much unable to respond to challenge and criticism in a constructive, thoughtful, respectful manner. Once the challenge starts, all goes downhill with him. He does that online all over the map but makes every effort to quickly remove any posts or comments on his media, including negative online reviews, whenever he can. He very skillfully set up his virtual reality in a way that he has that kind of power, which is, to me, just as fascinating as annoying. I would never be able to do that, or even would have the desire, as for me challenge and constructive criticism is what I thrive on the most, they are far more useful for me than mere support. But realistic, self-aware, respectful and open-minded challenge, not manipulation and defensiveness. I really despise the latter, and not because of some bad objects doing similar things to me in the past. I hate these because they are so against many of my basic values and, not surprisingly, because I intensely hated my own irresponsible and manipulative ways when I was in active addiction (as an adult).

I think that some of the T's behaviors reminded me a bit of what addiction turned me into. Not caregivers or other people. So, if we wish to interpret in the bad object context, I am my own bad object here, no one else. I discussed these things with the T extensively before I left, or more precise to say that I told him. It seemed to completely escape him somehow - he basically plain ignored some of my truest and most significant insights. Including my analyses on how my upbringing contributed to my later difficulties recognizing and accepting limits and to discipline issues. I really think he ignored them because they did not fit into his own universe and also, perhaps he was a bit envious that I don't happen to have the same stubborn problems he does and maybe a lot of his clients. And that I can easily see a variety of perspectives and think outside of the box. But my problems were not any less serious or destructive in my own life!

Anyhow, that T and I were simply just a bad fit. I do not think he is evil or totally useless, he can probably be quite helpful to clients who happen to fit in his specific modality and therapeutic interest. But too much of a specialist to be useful for me.

I could much better explore my life and challenges in an object relations context with my second T, whom I (this time around) consciously chose to fit a pattern. That guy I really liked and enjoyed the interactions with, much like I have tended to do with certain kinds of people throughout my life. But the therapy with him presented exactly the same kinds of limits - due mostly to both of us being too open-minded, freedom loving, accepting, no criticism, no conflict. This very recognition became helpful though in the end. If we want to put a twist on it, perhaps this second T was more a "bad object" for me because he really resembled a lot of people who treated me too freely in my life, including those who engaged in questionable affairs with me. I just did not perceive him as "bad" and I don't see the other people that way either. I like them maybe too much, and that liking can cause sometimes significant issues when I engage in pleasure-seeking too much and there are no external factors to limit it. That's how therapy with the second guy became very addiction-like. He understood it very well though and did not argue much when I decided to end the sessions. None of us were able to stop it right there though and we continued emailing (for free) off/on for about another year. Again, no good sense of limits and discipline. I've only truly realized lately that the feature I'd projected onto the second T so much (his "professionalism") was not really true. It's been finally over for a few months now though and I am relieved. I can't easily say I would not engage with a similar person again (not T, just everyday life) but I would try to draw better limits even if they won't. In fact, I experienced it more recently with a lawyer, and I was much faster to set clear boundaries and act on them than usually.

I think I know what kind of T might be good for me if I ever wanted to try again, but right now I don't feel a need for it, let alone no way I want to start another cycle of distraction. The lawyer was good because he at least provided superb service.

HT, sorry about digressing so much, I won't continue to distract from your thread topic more I also had that tonsillectomy with ether anesthesia, mine was at age 5. I still remember quite vividly some of the weird dreams during it and how sick I was coming to. Not a pleasant memory but, for me, nothing I perceive as traumatic, as far as I recall the medical staff was nice and I was definitely not ignored by my parents or something like that.

For me, a very effective way to work on myself in a broader object relations kind of sense has been participating in peer groups of all kinds, including using peer support for my issues. That is because, in my childhood, all the significant trauma came from my peers (other kids my age), so overcoming my hesitation to engage and actively contribute has been both enlightening and transformative for me. It is also a main reason why I continue to post on this forum, although here the actual topics interest me very much for their own sake. I guess I could have potentially found similar usefulness in group therapy, but why to pay for a limited group if I can find much better and more varied ones for free and without much limitation and structure?

I also like that part of the article about how we can influence the other person to the point that they won't clearly know what comes from whom really. I think this happens all the time in ordinary human interactions as well and I like to pay attention to it. I think it often takes a great deal of attention and self-awareness to recognize and tell apart these things.

I got really curious who is this psychoanalyst who has such an online presence and who behind the scenes can be so terrible. I guess you wouldn't tell that, Xynesthesia ...?

PMed I don't want to be more direct on the public forum than I have already been.

Unaluna, I know we seem to have very different experiences of therapy. Could, and would, you like to elaborate some on how you have found object relations theory to be helpful to you?

Maybe I'm stuck right now on, if therapists (in addition to the people in my family) can't accept the "bad" in me, how do I accept that and still feel/be acceptable to the rest of the people in the world? Rather than an evil pariah. Although, just having the chance to write this out loud helps to bring the irrationality of that into some focus.

HT, I know you did not address the question to me but... do you think extreme aggression and "evil" (whatever you men by it, the word implies extreme) is actually socially acceptable? Or fair to treat others with? We still don't know what exactly you did but if it is truly hostile, I think people reject it fairly. Even Ts, beyond a certain limit. Maybe the thing to ask also is what the source of that behavior was in the first place. You say that your family members rejected your aggression, but what made you aggressive, to start with? What tends to trigger it even in your adulthood, when it happens? I don't think babies are usually born hostile or evil unless someone has an unfortunate genetic background for it, which also exists. If nothing extreme, I think most people learn to self-regulate aggressive impulses and that sort of control is not negative, but a necessary part if the interpersonal world.

Please don't take this negatively, I am just asking questions to perhaps expand these discussions a bit beyond rejected aggression in childhood and adulthood and resulting frustration, because I can't easily see how dwelling on only that on and on could solve the problem or move things far ahead. People will always avoid and reject unfunded hostility (unless they have another issue inviting and allowing it), it is healthy self-defense. It is not the same as having reasonable conflicts.

Maybe my bad is different from your bad? My bad that was found unacceptable by family was related to self-actualization and simply being who i was - my therapists easily survived that. Also, my family was - idk, mistaken? - in their evaluation of me, and were actively lying amongst themselves, most of which i didnt even know about. They were kind of like the "polite" Japanese culture who will SAY they agree with you but they really do not. So really bad communicators.

So my therapy was really about figuring out wth was going on, and to start acting like my true self. Not to always be feeling like "this is not my real life, this is not the real me, i am in the wrong place but i cant get out." Now i have a sense of agency.

You talk about a split at age 3. I remember similar splits around that age, where i realized i could not trust my parents to COMPREHEND - i knew i was smarter than they were, they were simple-minded, i was grasping concepts they could not. That is what i thought they could not survive, and its what i probably would not have survived - they told me that in the old country, a daughter like me would have been honor-killed, but not in the usa - they didnt want to get into trouble for my garbage butt.

Did i successfully break away? Probably not. More like slink away. Life is still hard. Its hard to have happiness. Its an old habit. But yeah, object relations gave structure and sense to the voices and impulses in my head. And for me to write my life story / narrative.

I'm going to try to write a summary of what happened with my last therapist, as honest as I can. It just will take a while. Better to wait, though, than post other just partial stories.

Thanks for the questions and the dialog.

I don't mean to imply therapy is always toxic, but I think many of the basic aspects are toxic. To benefit the client has to overcome a huge pile of crap that is stacked against them. But it's portrayed in the opposite way.

People can protect themselves by recognizing that the system is organized for therapist benefit, instead of buying into this ridiculous myth that profession is uncommonly altruistic and self-aware and just really really wants to help. Most of them seem blind as bats and self-involved, some are manipulative narcs, and all are trying to profit from misery.

We have to match the delusional, wishful, exaggerated thinking of therapists with critical thinking. When that tool Lambert states categorically that only 5-10% of adults clients who "enter treatment" get worse, people should be skeptical not accepting of his garbage PR stats.

Doctors, surgeon's, lawyers all profit to a great extent from misery!

Notice the reasons Lambert gives for failure: "external events" and situations where the client "feels" rejected, neglected, etc. This is the language of manipulation. The rest of what he says is likewise slippery and revolves around therapist point of view and needs.

Also he argues that therapists have the same "self-assessment bias" that all professionals have. But therapists are supposed to be more psychologically sophisticated than other people and not so easily drawn into cognitive distortion, so this is a red herring and crappy argument.

I think most of the biz is a fraud.

Dont get sick, dont have a baby, dont leave the house, and with luck you may avoid them. I think they just "profit" from life. Does life equal misery? I was raised Catholic, so my first impulse is to answer from my training - yes! Thats a given! Hey even your fast food server profits from your hunger. Or are we all just helping each other?

therapy doesnt work for everyone. mental health providers and insurance likes to pretend that it does, that theres a set of steps that will cure everyone if followed, if youre willing. but its just not true. not everyone is going to get better not everyone is going to heal, and it isnt the clients fault...it just is what it is...

WahWahWah (trombone sounds)

The Great Gabbo 1929
"I'm Caught in the Web of Love"

Therapy history -- long story. For anyone who want to make their way through it.

My expectations about therapy were formed around the time I went to a mental hospital for anorexia nervosa when I was 15, over 55 years ago. I expected them to “fix” me, eventually. I needed to do my part – face my issues, be honest, etc. But eventually I expected that I would get or be “OK”. That’s my expectation, but it’s what the profession encouraged people to believe at that time, too.

Therapy and even that attitude about it did help me, eventually, kick the anorexia, go to college, get a job, get married, have children and be almost normal, at least to outside appearances. I had meaning in my life, my late husband loved me. When I had problems with the kids that I thought were mine, I owned them, took my daughter to therapy, went to therapy myself.

But the therapy I went to as a parent didn’t really “fix” me. Or the issues I was having with my daughter. I owned them as much as possible and tried not to lay them on her. But that’s about all I could do.

Rage first erupted in a session with a therapist I was seeing originally for parenting issues about 30 years ago. I had been telling her for weeks that I felt like I had a pocket of (infected) rage in my left forearm. I started feeling it after we talked about a particular family situation, but I wasn’t expressing it outwardly.

Then, she double booked on me and I was having a hard time dealing with it. It was therapy so, I expressed myself -- that she was terrible, just like all the other therapists I had seen. I threw my car keys on her sofa. She couldn’t handle it. I left and went looking for somebody with more experience and training, who said that they could deal with rage. I didn’t find anybody I could make any progress with and stopped looking after about 4 years.

Then my husband was diagnosed with a terminal illness and I “knew” I was going to need some “help”. I went looking for a therapist then for about 2 years. No luck. I liked the hospice social worker, and her down-to-earth dealing with reality, and asked her for a referral. I went to see him after my husband died, but it wasn’t anybody like her, just another regular counselor. I didn’t make any progress and quit.

Then, after about a year, my young son mentioned a counselor that his girlfriend at the time liked a lot. I didn’t have very high expectations, but I was getting more and more depressed, so I went to her for awhile in the early 2000’s.

I continue to feel that something was very “wrong” with me. I had been in graduate school in cognitive psychology in the 1990’s and had looked stuff up in the university library. There I came across some books about shame and narcissism that seemed to ring true. Not in terms of outward expression so much as inner experience. I looked up some stuff about narcissism on the internet and showed to the therapist I mentioned above. She said “Why do you read stuff like this.” She, apparently, didn’t see anything like that in me and thought my looking at it was the problem. We continued therapy for several more months. Eventually we reached an impasse. I got angry and one day erupted saying what I don’t exactly remember. Then I said “Now, do you believe I have a personality disorder?” And she said, with disdain and superiority, “Yes. I thought you were better than that.” I left.

So much for trying to face one’s issues honestly.

It’s possible for me to say now that I didn’t so much express my anger as allow it to take over – but that is as much as was possible back then.

I continued trying different therapists, some for several years. I tried several Intensive Outpatient Programs. I went to support groups. Eventually, as I was discussing some problems I was having with my then-therapist, a group member who had DID thought she recognized some symptoms in me and suggested that I go to see a consultant/author/trainer she knew from her history looking for her therapy.

I did. The consultant suggested the diagnosis of DDNOS. She couldn’t take my case personally but recommended the last therapist I saw, I Ph.D. with 2 years of post-doc experience and training in treating patients with dissociative disorders. She diagnosed me with DDNOS, too, and also with PDNOS. She consulted with someone she knew who had more experience with personality disorders and went to see another person whom I had suggested, either for myself or both of us to see together, who was a self psychologist. So, she tried. And I’m not sure that many people can say they are very competent to treat personality disorders other than BPD.

The last therapist, and the consultant who filled in for her for 6 months while she was on maternity leave, did help with the trauma and dissociation, I think, but not on integration and the development of a sense of self. I saw them for 6 years. Although the last therapist may have been thinking about “the relationship”, I wasn’t. I was trying to develop a coherent, integrated sense of who I was. My attitude was “I’m going to make this therapy work, or else. These people are as competent as they come, if they can’t do it no one can, and I’m not going to go try somebody else. That’s ridiculous.” So I pushed.

There was the day I came to session and told her in advance I had my activated, antisocial parts(the “demon”) with me. We discussed ways to try to resolve things and move forward. I suggested an idea I wanted to try, based on some ideas I had from Heinz Kohut’s work. She said “That would take a long time.” I said “Yes.” She thought about it then said, “We have to do something that will work for both of us and I don’t want to do that” or words to that effect. My activated state felt just floored and called out “B***”. It was describing what it saw, a woman I had hired to help me, refusing to do what I felt was necessary for me to move forward, because it threatened her position or sense of authority or something. The T glared at me in disdain and disapproval. The combined state of me began to crumble and back down somewhat. Eventually the “demon” left, the T saw what she had done, it was the end of the session.

Next session I came back without the activated state. The T said that she had been “triggered”. Didn’t explain more than that. Expected me, apparently, to accept that it was OK for her to get “triggered” but not OK for my activated state, which I could have kept shut off, to say “B***”. She was just not going to accept that from anyone.

We continued sessions a few more weeks, didn’t get anywhere. She didn’t want me to leave, but then when I said I felt like I was being exploited THEN she said “I don’t want you to feel exploited.” The next session was when she said that she could not continue the therapy because she didn’t have the emotional resources.

Reality, but –

Therapy and therapists suck. That’s my activated state’s conclusion but I do listen to that part of me from time to time, now.

Some might say from all this that therapy “succeeded”. It just surely didn’t “succeed” in any way that I ever expected. And I’m still angry at all the pain, and the time, and the money, and the blind alleys, and. . .There needs to be a better way.

Fascinating story. I'm sorry therapy hasn't worked for you. I don't like how your last therapist reacted. I think I would have quit if I were you.

I think the therapists' own egos got too involved. When they are not adored, their feelings get hurt, they can't admit it to themselves, and take it out on clients.

I avoid docs like the plague for similar reasons. Therapists take it to extremes... weekly payouts for years, exploiting most basic human needs, shirking responsibility for failure, blaming the victim.

(((Here today))) So - whats on your emotional bucket list? I see anger, but i dont know where it comes from. IMHO, it doesnt "count" to direct it at a t or ts, because they are kinda like having road rage - youre just mad at them because they happen to be there? And they are not driving fast enough.

But YOU are on this journey. For me it was important to stop circling the cloverleaf on and off the interstate, going nowhere fast. How would you characterize your journey? Crashed into the median?

It DOES sound like your last t was WAAAAY out of her depth. She just wanted to help you organize your linen closet. And finally what it comes down to, is saying the most painful embarrassing self-disclosing stuff. And hoping the relationship survives. And not angrily. Anger is a cop-out, on either side.

Here Today, what makes me so angry is your last therapist. Hell, the clinical books for DDNOS/DID often write that those angry/anti social parts carry the rage of the system, split off out of necessity. And imo, it's only bleeping natural that the rage comes to the fore as you work to build a integrated self.

Well, I'm glad to know it's in the books! It's actually kinda in the book that my consultant co-authored. Guess it's easier to deal with intellectually than in the flesh!

What's not in the books so much, at least the ones I've seen, is how females in the American South were raised (many of us) not to have an "authentic ego" but a service-focused, kind, helpful person -- and nothing else! I think the last therapist had her own problems with that as well. She dealt with assaults on her ego in snide, passive aggressive ways -- the more common way, avoiding direct conflict. I dissociated from the hurts. Then when it started coming online, which is part of what I was trying to find in therapy, it was direct. I prefer that -- it's honest, at least. And I would prefer my mother's rage -- she was a little different from the Southern norm, too -- than what a friend of mine calls an air of "cold malevolence". Or even just withdrawn haughtiness. It's very creepy and scary to pick up on that, especially from the people you are looking to to care for you.

Anger for me has not been a cop-out. It was at the core of my being. Or all that was there, that I had, to protect the core of my being. And with it dissociated, the core of my being was dissociated as well. So my journey has been -- lost in another world? And then recently, just trying to get on the freeway and not knowing how to drive (much) or avoid crashing or getting crashed into by other cars!

Ugh, cold malevolence is really scary yes. That look in the eyes, for me. I swear for my abusive sibling, there was enjoyment at my pain too, in another kind of cold malevolence. I preferred hot rage directed at me. A friend whose been horribly treated by therapists (sadistic countertransference) sometimes talked to me about how they'd so coolly drip with contempt and use polite but oh so sharp words.

Hot rage I can tolerate. Strong emotion after all. But cold sharp cuts calculated to hurt...those hurt more for me.