Survivors of therapy and their therapists

For me, I consider it an event or series of events that interfere with a person’s functioning and cause a high level of distress. For example, events that trigger long depressive episodes or panic attacks well after the events are over. It doesn’t have to be a violent or malicious event to be traumatic - in fact I think ‘trauma’ has more to do with how a person processes something as opposed to the event itself. For example, subtle actions like repetitive invalidation or rejection by an important person can carry heavier mental weight than getting robbed at gunpoint or viewing a violent event. I think in this way it can be difficult to understand what is traumatic to each person and how to help.

Traumatized people often seem stuck, and it can be difficult for onlookers to understand why a person just can’t move past something.. toughen up... let it go. Over the years I’ve been reading and posing here, there are a handful of therapy experiences that jump out at me as blatantly traumatic. (Often involving sudden therapist termination, conflict or abandonment.) These are the folks that often get a whiplash of judgment based on frequency of posting about the same thing, seemly demanding needs, and an inability to move on.

Symptoms I experienced with traumatic therapy included: intrusive thoughts that interfered with daily functioning, insomnia, panic attacks, bouts of intense crying, loss of sense of self, heart palpitations, night sweats, day sweats, extreme dependence on the therapist, irrational behaviors, regression to child-like emotions, fear of therapy and therapist, dissociation - and I’m sure there are a lot more. I was in a collapsed state by termination.

Hopefully this helps!

Anna, I think what matters is how we feel and the search for peace and restoration. I was lucky to have friends and plenty if distraction in the immediate aftermath of the worst of it. I crazy-optimistically believe the world gives us assistance, sometimes from surprising directions. It will get better, and gift us many insights in the wake. It is a rocky road less traveled.

I don't think the world at large understands how traumatic and undermining repetitive invalidation and rejection can be. Even therapists. After my last T terminated/rejected me I did eventually recall the feeling of repetitive not-counting to my family and giving up on that hope. So in that sense the therapist's termination and triggering of that compartmentalized feeling may have been "helpful" -- but only because I have found some support outside therapy. Otherwise I feel like the devastation might have remained until the end of my life. She didn't shame and then reject me "therapeutically", she did it reactively, so that left me alone, abandoned, and traumatized by the experience, independent of any unresolved trauma or risk factors I went into therapy with.

The therapist herself could not tolerate it. Nor, perhaps, could she tolerate seeing what her triggered shaming had done, or was doing, to me. I recall another comment of yours about how it must seem gutting to a therapist to see/experience/empathize with what a colleague's treatment had done to a client who was coming to them for help after a bad therapy. So any therapist who can help effectively would have to have their own s**t together.

It seems to me that any healing I might have will also have to be at a gut level, knitting together parts that have been torn apart. I still feel very shaky and unsure of myself. Don't know if that will/can change but don't know it can't either. As I have said, I don't trust any therapist to help me with that at this point. That may change with time, I don't know. I'll deal with that if it comes up.

I would like to hear responses from people who have experienced it about what they experienced but my basic list would be:

Sexual exploitation obviously. Any sex that happens during the therapy process.
Exploitation of other kinds like financially
Narcissistic/sociopathic/psychopathic type abuse especially long-term
Any kind of big verbal retraumatization that occurs due to invalidating or not understanding a client such as going to an expert on trauma who says you werent raped because you werent held down or something, or lots of invalidation over time as noted elsewhere such as constantly downplaying traumas experienced and causing client to doubt experiences and whether they were traumatic such as childhood emotional abuse
Not understanding attachment disorders and retraumatizing that way such as abruptly terminating instead of having a proper termination process of someone who is extremely emotionally attached due to attachment disorder

I relate to much of this.

My therapist couldn’t tolerate the result of my treatment either, or even acknowledge that the destruction happened on her watch. She was quick to question my symptoms as if I were making them up, blamed me for lack of moving past events that had happened in therapy, spoke to me with an angry shaming tone, and generally invalidated how I experienced therapy and interpreted things that had happened in session. She had no idea how helpless I became and how hurtful her anger and indifference was as I was plummeting. The tragic part was that i was expressing myself angrily (angry about the treatment, the trauma, her reactions) which only fueled the fire. This is why having a non reactive and stable therapist is critical.

I was asked the question below in another post and I answered as pasted below.

Reading this thread I'm thinking my view of the threshold of trauma is prob another indication of how I'm really hard on myself. I definitely (still) feel what another poster listed as trauma effects and the termination was ****ing abrupt with huge emotional attachment.

What I'm.struggling with now is the road to hell is paved with good intentions. He meant well, he did some very good stuff and now am bloody traumatised. Huge echoes of the original abandonment trauma where all was good intentions also.

I'm in therapy and we do discuss it but it's kind of too new and raw to analyse it. It doesxjelp to have someone to talk to about it though in detail and again and again.



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"Do you feel like you were traumatized, victimized or exploited by your therapist?"

"It's my doctor but I don't believe I was victimised or exploited. A lot of the work he did has proved very healing and he acted from the best of intentions but cptsd is difficult to treat even for the most effective therapists with lots of supervision.

He stopped all contact when he saw that it was turning the corner into real AIT so before it was well bedded in as pathological transference as opposed to a re parenting type interaction.

Was I traumatized? I use the definition: tauma is often the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one's ability to cope, or integrate the emotions involved with that experience.

The stopping certainly traumatised me initially. The first wee bit was bad including SA.

I'm still in it but I do have, at present, a working ability to cope with life so am more distressed but prob not traumatised though not sure done much integration. For all I know I may have buried it deep and I'm riding a fake wave. It's too early to say.

I guess it depends where ones thresholds are. I see my t 3x and my new doc 1x, only working part time, very emotionally liable. I guess I just see, for me, true trauma, as curled up in ball, mute, or seriously agitated and jumping off bridge. So who knows.

But at the moment I see it as a learning experience. I'm glad he cut it off, seems to me to be part of his care, and it's made me think and hopefully grow as realised the falsity of the person Id constructed in my head. I mean he was not false but I was using him in a false manner."

Here today -

The ‘not counting’ part of what you wrote also strikes a chord.

For me, that was part of a second layer of damage from destructive therapy. A layer that isn’t dramatic... nor obvious... nor stabbingly painful... More like a dull ache beneath the surface.

Part of what made therapy so gutting (independently of therapeutic mistakes) IS that feeling of not counting. My session served as a weekly reminder that I had to pay $200 an hour for someone to care about me. I witnessed a plethora of other clients coming and going before and after me, all waiting for their turn - which wiped out my feeling uniqueness and specialness. Lost in a sea of ‘one of many’. As another poster here articulately put - paid caring speaks for itself. Admitting to myself that I was paying for love shattered my self-respect. Especially when I couldn’t stop doing it. Many years of this eroded my inherent worth. I always walked out of sessions feeling like nothing. No hope. Just emptiness. Always waiting for next session when things would be different.

A more experienced therapist could have talked me through my feelings. My former therapist was offended and defensive that I interpreted her care that way. She got angry. She blamed. She gave up on me.

I’m not sure that this is ‘trauma’ but it was painful and life changing.

Did he explain the AIT and that he thought that might be what was going on? Did he refer you to your current T and doc? Or did your health service set up those appointments?

I myself knew that I was having feelings about my last T that had changed and that I thought might be negative transference. I mentioned it to her, too, but we didn't discuss it. She didn't ask about it. And what I didn't have was a sense of self that could contain whatever-it-was, yet, as feelings. So I did what I thought I was supposed to do in therapy and expressed them, only it was that formerly dissociated part of me speaking and thus was intense and, from another perspective, might be seen as acting out. Thing is, though, with me I could -- and did, after the incident in which she shamed me -- keep that part of me quiet, shut up, and out of the room. But then, what was the point of the therapy?

She really did NOT understand. The AIT is, I think, a good way of describing what was going on with me, too, and if there is a way to "treat" that, or to address the underlying factors that give rise to it -- maybe it could have saved me a lot of therapy and associated misery and missing life, if that could have been identified long, long ago. OK, OK, they didn't know about it back then. Just sayin'. . .

Definitely sounds like trauma to me. It would be if a parent had treated you like that. Therapists aren't parents, aren't expected to be, and we are adults but still. . .if we hadn't learned to cope with being treated like that when we were children. . .

"Betrayal of the highest order", betrayed by the "professional", licensed by the state, whom you were paying -- doing your part of the bargain -- to help you.

It's awful. No wonder nobody who hasn't experienced it doesn't want to see it, doesn't want to go near it.

So glad you're doing better now and were able to make your way through it despite what happened.

I can be a rebel against words and labels. The first therapist, I feel, primed me to see therapists as infallible, omniscient god-like figures. Then I joined a group led by a shrieking psychiatric social worker and a bullying contemptuous psychologist, and after seven months I'd had enough. They tried to coerce me to stay in group, the woman screaming, the psychologist scornfully stressing my deficiencies. I hoped for growth; l left burdened with the therapists' vanities and venom. Probably the worst was the gap between expectation and reality.

I don't intend to paint my experience as truly awful and resist labeling myself. And like others said, calling this trauma would seem to trivialize other's experiences. It's a thing-I-need-to-understand that has led me into much thinking about wider issues around authority and expertise. Still processing it is important, and it helps to interact with others.

The worst of it happened in front of nine or so witnesses who might have been intimidated by the therapists and were largely silent.

I've seen many people have drives after events like this to create a safer community. I hope others can benefit from what helps them, but be less vulnerable to a therapist's blind spots than I was.

Thank you for saying that.

Current EMDR therapist rates what happened to me in therapy as extraordinarily awful as far as therapy damage goes. Especially considering there were no blatant ethics violations.

No other therapist has wanted to touch this. One suggested therapy wasn’t a viable option for me anymore. The few people IRL I confided to about this didn’t seem to know what to say but felt badly. There was truly no place to go with this.

I’ve improved greatly but this has been a period of my life I could never repeat.

He started to explain that I'd done nothing wrong, I was unwell, it was transference. But this was in the termination meeting with another lady doc I'd never met so I just gave him a look and he shut right up. I knew it was transference. He knew I knew. I guess I didn't 'know' it had crossed the line to AIT. I came to that realisation after.

He wanted to talk to me about what doc I'd be referred to (this was all a few weeks in the making I was just wholly blind to it at the time) but then the termination came swift and there was not time.

He mentioned a Dr X but I ended up with Dr Y. Don't know why but I interpret it in my cptsd brain to mean no one wanted me (problem patient) and the most junior one drew the short straw.

I was already seeing my therapist so that was good.

Thanks for your post - it helps to talk.

I relate to quite a bit of this.

I would be curious if there are clients who have been able to work through this in therapy. I know that escape was the only hope for me, and it’s been a long road back to sanity.

I’m so sorry.

I can’t offer much except expressing that I know how you feel and wish you hope and healing.

Could someone tell me what AIT is please ? I've looked it up online but can't see what it is. Sorry if that's triggering for anyone...

Just because there were no ethical violations doesn't mean that there was no trauma.

Ex-T abandoning me was deemed ethical by the board of psychology. It didn't matter to them that she lied to me and traumatized me. Even now that I'm in a place where I can see that the termination was ethical, she still abandoned me. She still hindered my progress even with current T. And she still traumatized me. It has taken almost 4 years to get over what she did (and what I did).

You are always on the top of my list when I think of someone who had to endure horrific therapy trauma. I followed your story many years ago and remember how gut wrenching it was.

I am really sorry for what happened to you and think you’ve worked exceptionally hard recovering. It’s no small task, especially considering the stone-walling you got from ex-T.

Just curious - did you engage in formal trauma therapy?

Adverse Idealizing Transference. You can also look up Dawn Devereux.

Ah , thanks !

Abandonment is traumatic, from our lived experience. And I think that's consistent with the polyvagal theory about our nervous systems that I mentioned above.

Being abandoned, as a baby, is life-threatening. Even among adults, being shunned or outcast may be, and we may feel like that even if it isn't objectively the case in today's world. Actually it's more than feeling, because it's at a very automatic level, according to the polyvagal theory. We react as if it is, maybe some people more than others. Maybe some of us are more predisposed to it because of factors we went into therapy with. But once it happens it happens. The possibility that we may have been more predisposed to it because of factors we went into therapy with is irrelevant at that point, in my opinion. The T's didn't help with whatever the predisposing factors maybe were and, instead, we were at risk for the "side effect".

No. I was in a panic. I looked for a DBT T since that was what ex-T wanted for me in a group. Found a T in a full on DBT program. I went twice, but didn't feel it was the right fit. Then I found current T on psychology today. She's psychodynamic and DBT. I knew from her picture and from what she wrote on her website that I wanted to work with her. Normally, T's want to do your intake and history for the first several sessions. My T knew I needed help asap, so she split the sessions up so we could have time for both. We both didn't want me to attach right away. She wanted me to get to know her first, and I didn't want to get close to her. We also had problems because I wanted to understand what happened so current T kept trying to communicate with ex-T. But nothing worked. She refused to give any answers. Once I filled my complaint to the board, things with current T started to get better. It took 9 months!

Funny side note: I remember when T and I were struggling early on. I actually was fed up and told her I was looking for another T. She actually said she'd help me and started making suggestions! I know that's the ethical thing to do, but it just shocked me. Ex-T would have fought me on it.

Gosh I am so sorry!

It has taken me a while to identify that my therapy collapse/reactions were trauma symptoms vs a nervous breakdown caused by my own shortcomings. I can relate to the internal panic and desperate scramble to get stable.

I met with numerous therapists to try to process what happened after with limited luck. I didn’t have the energy or emotional resources to keep going with therapy. I give you credit for having the courage to start over with someone new.

Right now I am involved with a very detached round of EMDR and acupuncture/body work. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to do psychodynamic therapy again.

yes....this...exactly

it often felt quite demoralising and usually left a bitter taste in my mouth. i admit, this is one aspect of the 'therapeutic relationship' that i clearly struggled with. my T could not understand why i struggled so much with it when i tried to bring it up in conversation over and over again. it's as if he was almost expecting me to get to the point where i was actually worhshiping the ground he walked on with no reservations. he was absolutely dumbfounded one session, years into therapy, when i was still questioning and doubting the authenticity of his care. he became quite defensive. it got to a point where i started to notice, like with my own parents, if i was good and cooperated, although it often went against some of my inner core beliefs, he would treat me kindly and the relationship and therapy went smoother. but if i ever put up a fuss and questioned or doubted what he was doing, it usually lead to a rupture or him being defensive and upset with me, resulting in him withdrawing his 'love' and attention. it deeply eroded my self esteem and what hurt the most was the confusion of not knowing if it was actually coming from me (a projection or transference) or if it was because of the actions (most likely covert narcissistic) of my T. this is exactly what lead to me asking my husband to join me in my sessions. i needed a neutral witness to see what was playing out between my T and me and provide constructive input to help me figure it out.

For me, I went into therapy with an ability/adaptation -- I don't want to say it was fake because it was a separate/normal part -- to display a worship of the ground they walk on to an authority figure, especially someone whose help I felt I needed. Learned it in family dynamics, like you,

" like with my own parents, if i was good and cooperated, although it often went against some of my inner core beliefs, [they] would treat me kindly" -- the original loss of self, or the sense of self

So I got along great with lots of therapists until -- I questioned them or got angry. And then, like the people in my family of origin, many would get defensive and recoil or shame me. And I would be shocked and clueless.

What I bolded in your post above helps to define what is "traumatic" and not just "re-traumatic" in these situations. And the fact that neurofeedback helped you regain some of your own calm supports that, it seems to me.

I know we had talked before about how similar our experiences of therapy were.

I can identify with all of this. “Conditional care”.

By the time therapy was over I didn’t know the sky from the ground. Her vs me. No feel for where I had gone wrong - how I had managed to screw up my therapy so badly. All I had done is try and never seemed to be doing it right