HelloUniverse000

Sorry to hear that. Welcome! The therapist that you speak of does sound limited in her experience. Glad you aren't seeing her anymore, but the damage a professional does can be hard to move on from.

It's upsetting when I hear clients/consumers of therapy being labeled the "crazy ones", bc it's not always true. My family member told me "you were so much happier before you got involved with therapists". She's right. I also get intrusive thoughts about the harmful things professionals have said.

I agree that every therapist that I have met had their own issues. If they're not taking care of their own stuff (like seeing their own therapist or self-reflecting), those issues can spill into their work with clients. We clients notice things about therapists too: like when they're contradicting themselves (saying one thing during the last session and then something totally different in the next session), not remembering important things, making judgmental faces, and having incongruent body language with what they say. Being friends with therapists did help me look at them in a more realistic way too. My non-therapist friends helped me more bc they had these things : 1) Common sense 2) A practical approach to solving problems 3) Were grounded consistent and stable (at least to me). I didn't find those things in some of the therapists in my life. Given my complex trauma, I was craving security and common sense in someone......

I thought about making a topic on thoughts on therapists' intelligence. Personally, I don't see them as being smarter as a whole than the everyday person. There are clients who are smarter than their therapist.

This is going to sound really bad, but some therapists are also people who weren't smart enough to be MD's, lawyers, or any other high-paying prestigious profession. So, they got into counseling to feel an easy sense of power and importance. (I am half-joking here).

Oh gosh, thank you! I appreciate you sharing. I am so sorry that you went through all of that too. Yes, I was there too when I naively thought that being open about MH issues to therapist friends would be no biggie. I had similar things happen to me, and can resonate with you. One therapist friend also was preoccupied with what's "healthy" and not "healthy". It was funny when she would lecture me on dating/relationships/how to be, when she would tell me about her dysfunctional romantic relationships. She was also very nosy, where she would ask questions that most people understand are tactless . What was hypocritical to me is when she wanted me to open up about all of my problems to her (she told me that being private is unhealthy), but then would turn around saying "I don't want to hear people's sh*t. I already do that for work". Uh...don't ask people nosy questions and push them to open up then? Haha. If we want to talk about what's healthy, it's healthy for me to avoid manipulators as well. Not be someone's guinea pig!

Totally agree! Projection can be dangerous, bc what works for the therapist may not work for the client. Services need to be tailored to the individual. Helping someone isn't a one-size-fits all formula. It is one of my pet peeves as well when someone assumes that I think and feel just like them. I get why some people might think that way about the world, but it's not true. Each client is different. I see a lot of therapists say that they get that each client is unique, but I don't see them actually following what they say.

Thank you both! Heh--my friends who are NOT in the helping profession were the ones who helped me the most. Friends who are therapists are like anyone else: Flawed humans who misread you. What I am struggling with now is when some people justify a therapists' abuse (liking thinking that they had a valid reason to do what they're doing). If something causes harm, I don't see why that is excused.

Therapists are not always the best judges of character

Hello everyone! Glad I found this forum. There's not a lot out there to help with this. I get intrusive thoughts over harmful things that professionals have done. I am wondering if anyone has also had the unique experience of being friends with therapists in their personal lives. I have seen bad therapists for professional help, but I also befriended my coworkers (who were therapists). Some of those friendships did turn out to be toxic. Looking forward to posting.