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.

Welcome Duck Hunt Dawg. I too saw experienced the mental health system as a scam, but my worst experiences were my own hiring. My mother dumped me off at a teen group with an overly formal "we need to take care of our psyche's," pointless, but not abusive. My joining community to explore the flim-flam has been invaluable, and as I hope it will be for you. PS. The teen group psychologist didn't approach working with my parents--source of the stress, or as a family.

My reading leaves me understanding that their ethical guidelines cover the big stuff like financial or sexual exploitation, confidentiality, etc. There seems huge interpretive wiggle room beyond that, making it very hard for a client to win a grievance. I lost a grievance involving a therapist who bullied me, ridiculed me in front of a group, all while trying to intimidate me to remain under his ..."care." What appears as common sense to us seems a gray area to them. I read of extended verbal "seduction" scenarios when I was active on Psych Central--highly damaging to clients, but stopping short of "their" line crossing. It leaves clients to sort out, discard their "authority" and pick up the pieces. Ultimately we're the employee and hold our own truths. We're the experts on ourselves and our emotions. They're unextraordinary people who got school degrees in procedures and putting humans in categories.

Nkit,welcome to this forum. So sorry you had to go through this negative experience. My idealizing transference was never romantic, but it definitely was encouraged by all my therapists performing shaman-like, omniscient roles. Idealizing transference was how I related to many people, the issue I most needed to address if I were to move forward into a more self-determined adulthood. My therapists never realized thisbecause the relationship is so distorted and skewed. There's a general "do no harm" guideline that hardly seems helpful. I assume therapists are advised to stop something when you tell them. However, if it's harmful or intrusive to you, then it's wrong. I think the our customs of respect and civility aren't negated at the consulting room door--presumptuousness is still presumptuousness. It's sometimes helpful cut people to size by imagining the biggest jerk or mean girl I knew in school going on to be a therapist. (Actually, one class mean girl went on to become a minister, another performatively righteous, but never mind.) I felt tremendous guilt severing from my most abusive therapist team because of the extreme difficulty of believing my own eyes over their "authority." I somehow "felt," as they asserted, I walked away from their curative powers and the chance to live my best life. It's illogical. Exploring my illogical reactions has been an interesting expedition far more valuable than any therapy. Wishing you peace and silver linings.

Thanks, Mary. I think shame factors many/most personalities, perhaps stemming from our upbringings where we're rewarded, "punished" and constantly assessed for our merits and error. It's hard to lose those reflexes once we emerge from such a supervised setting, even more so when negative consequences were harsh. Perhaps if children's "mistakes" had more neutral values, there would be less cover up for error. Few people I know are comfortable with their all-too-human shortcomings and errors. It also makes sense that trauma results in what the industry labels a "personality disorder." I only know from the laboratory experiment I call my life, that I feel far less "disordered" through the years the further I get from my early reflexes and distresses.

A dramatized series debuted today on Apple TV.

I definitely think the first step is the therapist not only to acknowledge his limitations, but continue to reinforce that message both directly and through minimizing hierarchical language. I believe a therapist can be a sounding board, at most. As a client, I can be more than aware of patterns I repeat, yet still helpless to interrupt them. Part is my fears and reactions that remain and part is how the world responds to me.

Late to the party, I only listened to a couple of episodes out of the many. I applaud anyone who raises this topic, but what I hear falls far short of my discussions with consumers. The practitioners tend believe only damaging clinicians as bad apples, yet I see damage as far more nuanced. I doubt there's a therapist on the planet who'd consider my syrupy maternal therapist "bad"-- she's been hospital affiliated for decades. Yet she was the opposite of what I needed. If I'd given feedback while I had the therapy, I'd think the woman a saint. It's only in retrospect I realize the injuries. Yet reasons for the damage are basic and obvious--to those outside the throes of theory.

Blow-back around these camps, articles, message boards, even movies has existed for a while. More recently a parent told me she had to play unnecessary games in her son's urban-based substance-abuse program. Fear works only temporarily. I (feel I) improved mainly through finding a focus and sense of purpose. I suspect troubled teens need the same.

Welcome, ifyouknowmenoyoudont. Sorry for your experiences, but glad you found your way here. I found recovery from therapy much more real and beneficial than my so-called therapy and my real support sources are peers. I've ultimately find the more difficult road more rewarding.

Aside from a few obvious characteristics, the "experts" don't know why some find mates where others don't. My therapist sent me for a "beauty makeover." She also told me to wear earrings to focus attention on my eyes and long necklaces that focus attention to my chest. Seriously.