Sylvester McMonkey McBean

hi sapphire! welcome!

hi april! apologies for the delayed welcome, but glad you found this site. it was very helpful when i was trying to make some sense out of some of the harmful aspects of my own therapy and i hope you experience similar.

welcome PsychoLogical! just wanted to say hello and i hope you find this site and it's members as helpful as i have over the past few years.

hi zygomaticus, welcome to the group! that has been my observation and experince, and is exactly why it is nice having this forum. although, the further i have come from de-attaching myself from my ex-T and climbing out from the deep enmeshment trap of the therapeutic relationship, the thicker my skin has become and my fear of being vocal and speaking up about the truth of what happened to me has lessened. i am noticing that on some of the public forums i go to, there seems to be more and more clients who are willing to speak up and share or who are starting to really question and doubt the therapeutic process, especially when there are others, like us, who believe those clients and are willing to help support them.

i've had a few fleeting thoughts on perhaps contacting them and seeing if they would be interested in an aspect of one part of my story, but then i change my mind because i worry that they or any guest therapist they bring to the podcast would use it as a means to twist it into their own agenda to prop up the benefits of therapy instead of as a means to bring awareness that this is kind of shit is going on and throughout the profession, it actually is quite a taboo subject to even bring out into the light of day. through my wanderings on another forum, i recently have crossed paths with one of the guests from one of the podcasts. they were telling a bit of their story and i was thinking i had heard this story before, so i asked them if they were on that podcast and, if so, how was the overall experince for them. they said they thought the interview went well, they felt heard and not judged, but they were never able to bring themselves to listen to their actual interview that was played in the podcast. so, in the end, i don't really know if it was helpful or not for them to do, but i did give them credit for their courage to do it.

i actually liked this episode, #9,for the exact thing you mention above. this too was my ex-T. he thought he knew better than me what was really going on inside my head and what my motivations were. he was so far off the mark more times than i like to admit. plus, even in my detailed sessions notes that i requested from him his interpretations of me in my sessions were sometimes so insanely incorrect that all i could do is shake my head in disbelief and chuckle.

i see that there are two new episodes that have been added and i have not listened to them yet. i hope in later episodes they can find and interview more clients who are not professionals already in that industry, like in episode 5. i'm assuming they approached peers to help with topics until their podcast gains more popularity, but for some reason, i really don't have as much sympathy or empathy for the professionals who have been 'harmed'. it just doesn't have the same impact for me.

has anyone listened to this podcast? it's relatively new and at the time of making this post, only 6 episodes have been released. it's hosted by two 'young and new to the industry' therapists who want to share stories about clients having bad experiences in therapy and finding ways to learn from those experiences. so far, i have listened to all 6 podcasts, and for me, the jury is still out on my general opinion about it. Very Bad Therapy podcast

i'm thinking the same thing. it reminds me of a conversation that ex-T was sharing with hubby and me about his supervisor (now his ex-super, but was his super all the years i was seeing ex-T). ex-T's super was from that 80's psychoT generation and shared that back in those days no one even batted an eye that the Ts were sleeping with the clients...my interpretation from that entire conversation we had was, yes, ex-Ts super was sleeping with some of his clients back then... now off to listen to the forth episode...

welcome echo and thistle you will definilty find that this forum is absolutely more tolerant, understanding and accepting of those who are starting to question or have doubts about their therapy/therapist. i found it both supportive and helpful to read and share here when i was starting to contemplate leaving my therapist a few years ago.

welcome iggy! i have no desire to go back to therapy either...so you found the right place to share your story

welcome therapewpewpew! nice to have you join us

welcome starling this was my experince as well of therapy with my long term ex-T. yes, there were some beneficial moments over the years, but overall, the relationship with my ex-T felt more like an addiction , and a toxic one at that, that i eventually acknowledged that i had to end...overall it was causing more harm than good with no real progress or benefits (except for fulfilling the emotional and monetary needs of my ex-T). similar to you, it took me just over a year to finally build the courage to end and terminate therapy for good. i can't believe that it has been almost a year already since ending! definitly no regrets for doing so either

welcome NonServiam nice to meet you, but sorry for the circumstances that brought you here. hope you will find this forum helpful.

they sent me the second survey and i completed it. they also provided some demographic info about who completed the first survey. it was interesting to see that almost half of the respondents were clients and the other half were professionals.

welcome Smiling Girl i'm glad you found us and hope you find this to be both a supportive and a safe place to share your thoughts. what Mary said above is pretty much spot on.

even though i did start to question and recognise that there were problems in the therapy, i was too sucked into the attachment (enamored) and for a long time felt very powerless to even consider taking steps to ending. i kept telling myself that if i am open and honest with him, and communicate my feelings and doubts with him, like he wanted me to do and encouraged all the time, that he would hear me, be fully attuned and understanding, and change his hurtful ways. if he did change, it never lasted and then the pattern would repeat all over again. i reckon this is similar to being caught up in the muck of a toxic, abusive, and/or narcissistic relationship.

yeah, i had a similar reaction to that comment they made about boundaries and ending sessions right on the mark.

great feedback mary! i added my comments in italics: But there were several good points:1. The mention that some therapists are predatory. But this was too brief, and emphasized just accreditation and licensing, rather than discussing the fact that accredited, licensed therapists can also be predatory. It was also good to mention that it can sometimes hard to distinguish between “good” and predatory therapists. agreed...and i too wish they would have talked about Ts who are predatory in behavior not because of a lack of accreditation. 3. Also good: The therapist needs to have place to go to protect the client from therapists strong feelings in reaction to what the client says. (In my experience, it did often seem as though therapists shot from the hip rather than considering what I said thoughtfully.) this was my experince too at times. 4. The idea of holding client the client hostage (inducing guilt or shame in client for wanting to leave) is worthwhile. I experienced this from three therapists when I said I was going to quit. The first said, “You expect too much”; the second, “I can’t help you if you take everything I say as criticism”; the third, “You’ll never get better if you keep seeking the perfect therapist.” (She was far, far from perfect!) i was really surprised that they talked about this and glad for it, because my ex-T did this exact thing when i was ready to start discussing termination. i felt like he was manipulating me when tears started to well up in his eyes when we talked of how some clients just end and don't go through a termination process. then later when i was officially announced i was ready to end, he pulled the 'but there is still so much more to explore' card. hearing these ladies talk about this definilty helped me to feel validated in my experince and that yes, ex-T was acting inappropriately instead of this just bring me as a disgruntled client ranting. 5. They do talk at times about how “The therapist’s need to help” can interfere with good therapy. yes, this happened in my therapy...6. The discussion of how what happens when therapists “let boundaries slip” can be harmful for client is good. and this definitly happened too... 7. They give some good advice for helping distinguish between good and bad therapy, roughly summarized as:“Basically it comes down to this: You should be feeling better.” (I’d add: If you are getting worse, then it is really bad therapy!) i was't feeling better and was getting worse over the years “Do therapists use your feedback effectively?” mine did sometimes, but other times he was defensive about it “If you experience defensiveness and blaming, then you know something’s going wrong.” yup....as stated in my response above. at first, i thought it was my fault that ex-T was so defensive at times...i was a challenging client and he use to tell me so at times. since i was frustrating him, i use to think i must be doing the therapy wrong and it was something i had to change. he would eventually apoplgise for being defensive, but then would use the therapy get out of jail card 'i'm only human' excuse. it wasn't until later, as i became a wiser therapy consumer that i realised that his defensiveness was inappropriate and the cause of many problems in the relationship and it always diminished my trust in him. “Therapy is supposed to help you build up your sense of who you are.” um, yeah...no.... i was not really getting any of this or much of any other kind of empowering encouragement from ex-T. at one time i felt absolutely and incredibly lost...i had no real fuck'n sense of who i was or who i was suppose to be. so, as you see...according to these Ts, my ex-T is a big fat loser of a T to be greatly avoided... and sometimes that is difficult to swallow because often he seemed so kind and to have his heart in the right place that he wouldn't be trying to fuck me over. that is why it is easiest to just chalk up most of my harmful therapy to his incompetency and his narcissistic traits of ultimately fulfilling his own needs in the T relationship.

have a listen to this podcast about how to recognise when the therapeutic relationships goes bad: the dark side of therapy although the advice is a bit too late to be of any help for me, but they did touch on many of the exact aspects of what went wrong in the relationship with my T. and as per usual, at the end they advise to seek further therapy to help get over the bad therapy instead of daring to take the discussion a bit further and questioning if perhaps there is something inherently wrong with the system of therapy in the first place. what are your thoughts? Is this a step in the right direction that these Ts are bringing this the forefront and discussing it? or just more fluff to make Ts look and feel better about themselves?

yeah, this was my ex-T...he clearly wanted to make it a process...a long and drawn out one that i felt was more about him and his needs than me. the day i told him i was officially ready to terminate (we had already been addressing things and going through the termination process for many sessions prior) and that this would be my last session, he stated he was 'shocked'. he felt there was so much more to address (i'm sure there was from his side ). so i told him that i was happy to come back to discuss anything further that he felt he wanted or we needed to discuss, but that i would no longer be paying for the session time...it was going to be on his dime. obviously, he didn't seem to keen to my idea. so in the end, i reckon that those 'things' that he felt i still needed to address were not that important to him after all.

ha! love this!

agreed...i also had a tough time swallowing that tripe in point #1 about being able to say anything in therapy. i followed that advice on many occasions, and was often met with a defensive and wounded T. so no, therapy definitly is not that safe place where all topics are fair game and perhaps my T missed that day in training where they are suppose to hear statements non-defensively.

seems like the way this has been presented that a lot of emphasis is put onto the client for the therapist to have a meaningful ending. why should it be the clients job to make sure that the therapist has a good ending? this to me seems more about 'taking care of the T' instead of looking after my own needs. i know when i ended therapy, i didn't just up and leave my T or ghost him, because there were things i wanted to say and try to resolve before ending..i didn't do it to help my Ts current and future clients or to protect his feelings. it was out of pure selfishness for me, as a paying client, and what i wanted out of therapy before i left. and in this statement, just rearrange the words, 'therapist' to 'client' and vice versa and it has almost the exact same relevance: I need to add one last piece, as a therapist: It’s hard when a client ghosts, not just for the lost business or the unanswered phone calls. Those sting, but only temporarily. It’s the unanswered questions that hurt most: “Why did you leave?” “What was going on that I didn’t know about?” And the iconic, “Was it something I said?” I come to care about my clients, even after just a session or two, and a disappearance makes an impact. i would just hope, and even expect, because of their training and professional status that the T would be the mature one in the situation and not resort to ever ghosting a client, but as evident in many of the stories on the online forums from hurt clients, this doe not always seem to be the case.

hi pam! welcome! glad you found us