disequilibrium1

I think the value of this and like forums is sharing experiences, which serve to help me feel less alone, particularly after society and therapists presented them as such towering authorities. For the rest, I think we're left to build and rebuild going forward in our own ways. There's a limit to what can happen behind a screen.

Yes, that's what I've found. Talking to therapists about harm was like talking to a wall.

Welcome Finley Skye. I found peers understand harmful therapy much better than clinicians who seem afraid of the topic.

Lexie, welcome. Nice to meet you. I don't know your specific details of course, save to say that therapists have vanity, and though they say they support our independence, this group found they can be unhappy to have their "authority" and "expertise" questioned and are very capability of gaslighting. My therapist posed as the ultimate authority on "what was good for me" disregarding my painful protests. On the good news front, sorting this out was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

Both therapists and science deniers in general are skilled at wrapping their logic and illogic, making untruths sound credible and systemic. Therapists build their modalities around a "science" of vocabulary, procedure and diagnoses that sounds just like its physical science cousin, but built on a quicksand foundation.

My therapists unfailingly claimed their version of The Truth, even when it was about me. I'd say something--they talked over me. They claimed supremacy, burying my interpretations, opinions and observations when it conflicted with theirs.

Everything on the internet comes with a strong caveat emptor warning. It's difficult for many to assess the quality of their therapists in person. This must be a difficult burden for those seeking such faceless, truncated assistance.

Thanks for the article link Mary. While I'm always happy to read any therapist who dare dip her toe into the subject of therapeutic harm, I feel she approaches it with the same long-pole detachment they typically approach the subject. Just the framework, the contrived structure, the therapist as authority, the removal from real interaction, the role role play, the emphasis on flaws and wounds, the self-absorption, the labeling, particularly of others, is but a start of what I consider an examination. It's interesting these researchers fail to do more qualitative research with harmed clients and even discredit authors who write of their experiences.

Yes! Sane reactions to crazy events.

I'm confident we'd find a much larger community of flat earthers than those willing to question their therapists' theories and authority. Therapy practically has become the church.

Welcome. Happy to connect with you, when you're so inclined. I find fellow travelers here thoughtful and interesting.

“Giving permission” conveys an utterly infantilizing, authoritarian construct of the therapist’s sagacity towering over the client’s folly and frailty. This mindset can’t possibly be helpful. A strong creative friend who long succeeded as a musician seemingly turned into goo with her therapist. “My therapist tells me my sister is a narcissist.” “My therapist wants me to stay off Facebook for two weeks.” I think it one thing to use the space to mull insights, experiments or resolutions, but I wince at these “expert” decrees.

While I agree with that statement, the devil's advocate guy on that episode absolutely roiled me. He favored questioning the abused clients' perceptions and/or getting the therapist's side of the story. My therapist claimed all the interpretations and knowing all the thoughts in my head. That's the problem with the therapist's side of the story. I was amazed that the woman admitted no mechanism for hearing client viewpoint, therapy existing for the client after all.

Trip, glad you found this place. You describe many parallels to my experiences, therapy's authoritarian nature, the fortune telling, being made to feel foolish. I'd venture most or all humans are "gullible" some times in their lives, particularly when they need answers and someone pretends to have them. I notice you used the phrase "appeal to authority," and since your English is quite nuanced (particularly in contrast to me as a student stumbling to converse in rudimentary Spanish) and wondered if you meant that in the persuasion/propaganda sense: winning an argument by evoking vague, even unattributed "expertise." I doubt the mainstream American, client or provider, looks at therapy critically beyond clinicians criticizing another modality. I read the most thoughtful material coming out of the UK. I usually prepare a written list of symptoms and history when I go to a medical provider with a complicated problem. I too feel doctors tune me out, and I feel less like a jabbering female if I hand them something to read. I hope you find peace. All contributors here seem to have a lot to vent.

Therapist are pretending omniscience and authority no human being possesses.