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PsychoLogical

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Hello, new member here. I'm not sure if my post is in the right area or not, so forgive me if it's supposed to be elsewhere.


As someone who has had years of experience being on the receiving end of therapists and psychiatrists since I was a teenager, I can definitely attest to the lack of benefit, true healing, or assistance that they purport to provide. Why is it that not a single "professional" I've seen has ever taken a modicum of responsibility for themselves, or their profession's lack of ability to sincerely help suffering patients improve? None of them has ever at the outset of treatment announced a proviso loud and clear stating that there's a good chance they will fail to help you, that they may possibly harm you or exacerbate your suffering, or just flat out have no effect whatsoever? Why is it that we, the "clients", who are EMPLOYING them and paying their fat salaries, the ones to find out after months, even years, of faithfully seeing them and paying them untold amounts of money, that they are in essence, useless? That they have wasted years of our lives, thousands of our dollars, and left us high and dry? I've never heard of or experienced myself, a single therapist or psychiatrist who after working with a patient and seeing no improvement, has ever admitted that they were unable/incompetent/ill-equipped to provide care for them, failed at what they claimed they can do, and have accepted responsibility for that? If I go to the store and I buy a faulty product, or the product is broken or breaks shortly after it's purchase, I will be refunded my money or reimbursed with a new product to replace the defective one. Not so with therapists and psychiatrists. They will never refund the money you've wasted, the time you've wasted. They will never offer to work with you for free until you are improved. It's sickening, not to mention unethical, not just that there's no recourse for people who are defrauded by them, but the fact that they make a living off of people's suffering. I'm wondering if it's the type of people who are drawn to these professions, or if they actively teach them to abdicate and shirk any personal responsibility for their actions?
At least with a prostitute you get what you pay for and you know what you're getting. Therapists are glorified prostitutes who can't even provide a "happy ending", literally and figuratively. They claim that by seeing them they will assist/cure you and your ills, and help you to "recover". But this elusive state of well-being never seems to come. "You didn't try hard enough." "You didn't truly want to change." "You need long-term extensive therapy." "You're resistant." It's never anything to do with THEM or their supposed "methods" of treatment that are at fault. It's always blame the victim, the one who is suffering, the one whom they're exploiting while they're struggling and at their weakest, while taking obscene sums of money from them, and not providing anything in return. At least a hooker will give you an orgasm. That's more happiness/pleasure than a therapist could ever provide you in years of seeing them. I feel that a large portion of therapists continue seeing their clients even while they're fully aware that they aren't helping them improve or providing them with any benefit. They just don't say anything and keep the gravy train flowing in.

I'd at least have a modicum of respect for them if they were forthright and honest by stating the limits of their abilities, or lack thereof, and would tell people that essentially, they're paid companions there to listen to your problems and try to offer their own subjective advice in return. Granted, there are therapists out there who will teach you methods and techniques for managing your mental afflictions, whether it be through CBT, ACT, etc., but you could easily find the same information in a book or the internet for free.

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Hello and welcome to the forum, PsychoLogical!  All your points are valid, and I personally believe that many therapists aren't as honest as they could be mainly because they can't afford to lose the business. Would people want to try expensive therapy if there was a clear disclaimer of no guarantees or refunds? Their lack of accountability would probably be due to shame, embarrassment, arrogance, and/or denial. The most these "experts" will admit when they screw up is that they're only human and will make human mistakes. There are some clients who have benefited from good therapy,  but I wouldn't expect them to understand if they haven't gone through the negative experiences. It takes a lot of time and venting to recover from this kind of ordeal, and healing afterwards may never feel complete.

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On 2/13/2020 at 10:18 AM, PsychoLogical said:

... I'm wondering if it's the type of people who are drawn to these professions, or if they actively teach them to abdicate and shirk any personal responsibility for their actions?

I think it's some of each -- or, to look at it another way, it is a "culture" that attracts people who crave power,  people who crave intimacy,  people who are off in their own fantasy worlds (or "in denial"), and people who not willing to take responsibility for their part in a problem. And the culture seems to be self-perpetuating. It is all too often  parasitic rather than helpful to clients. There are  some therapists who ask for client feedback and take it seriously, but they seem to be a small minority. It really is caveat emptor, sadly.

On 2/13/2020 at 10:18 AM, PsychoLogical said:

At least with a prostitute you get what you pay for and you know what you're getting. Therapists are glorified prostitutes who can't even provide a "happy ending", literally and figuratively.

I sometimes think of some therapists (especially those who crave power and/or intimacy or have other fantasies) as people who expect the client to pay them so that they (the therapist)  can use the client as a prostitute to be play a  part in the therapist's fantasy.

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Hi PsychoLogical. Welcome to the forum!

I share your feelings about the utter lack of responsibility therapists take for the failure of therapy. It is inherent in the entire industry and embedded in the theory. This is what happens when people get to write all the rules for themselves excluding other stakeholders. It's pure self-interest. I often think that part of the reason that concepts like 'resistance' and 'transference' exist is that, deep down, they know how flimsy what they offer is, how arbitrary and baseless much of the theory is, and they needed pre-emptive deflections to prevent challenges from clients threatening the whole house of cards.

It's similar to self-help books, how the authors promise seductively easy to follow systems, with the only caveat being that the reader has to believe and commit because it's a matter of application. When readers are willing to accept this, probably because they really need something to believe in, maybe when the fool-proof system doesn't work *gasp*, readers blame themselves. Regardless of whether they do or not, the author dines out on book sales and sleeps soundly because that caveat exists as a conscience-cleanser, too, because THEY can blame the readers. And if these systems work so well, why is there such a broad market - whole sections of book stores - for so many of them? When they don't work, however, and the problem remains, maybe hope in the next book lingers, rather than that avenue seeming like a library of folly. Meanwhile, with therapy, if theory is designed to be impervious to revision because evidence it doesn't work isn't taken as such, only as evidence of the shortcomings of clients, then there are some seriously slippery fish concocting it.

It's an interesting analogy about prostitution. What springs to mind is that prostitutes are forced by necessity (or, even worse, coercion) to pretend probably most of the time with punters that they don't find attractive (as well as the situation itself hardly being seductive). They have to fake an awful lot. I've written on here a few times I think about how I believe that an awful lot of what therapists do is basically a simulation. They pretend to like clients they actually dislike, they pretend to care in those instances when, in fact, they feel nothing of the sort. They get their rapport-building from textbooks and role-plays, they feign what domineering people do in order to assert authority over clients, they exaggerate in order to sugar-coat rewards or render punishments harsher and they pretend to ask innocuous questions when they're really mining for information on unspoken queries. They also make a lot of fake claims or are simply silent about the limitations on how effective therapy is. Hell, they even bias findings. I personally have no doubt that a lot of academic psychology pertaining to psychotherapy is flawed and I suspect that academic fraud is part of the mix. Sadly, CBT, ACT and all of the so-called evidence-based therapy models are subject to the same relational and systemic problems, the same manipulations. None of it is fit for purpose, in my personal opinion.

I agree with Mary, it ends up with the clients fulfilling the therapist's fantasies, which probably include being a helper, a healer, someone applying something that has empirical validity maybe, having a certain professional status etc (not an exhaustive list!). I bet the therapists, too, have fantasies about intimacy and confuse textbook rapport with genuine rapport and fifty minute hours with a personal bond (so long as the cheques keep clearing). Those fantasies can't exist without clients, nor can their lifestyles.

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I couldn't have elucidated it better myself, zygomaticus.

I've heard of the term "unconditional positive regard" in the therapy world. I'm assuming it's taught to most psychology students, and they receive training in how to project an aura of genuine caring, affability, warmth, and acceptance towards their clients. I don't doubt that some therapists are inherently caring as people, but no one can be perpetually unconditionally accepting of anyone or anything. It's just utterly unrealistic. But they have to project and maintain that composure and image for their clients, because they know they won't retain them if they're totally honest with them. Which makes you wonder...how can anyone have a truly trusting, authentic relationship with a therapist if it's so asymmetrical? If one party is open and honest and baring their heart, but the other sits with undeserved power, because they don't have to share anything about themselves personally, let alone be completely honest about their own feelings and thoughts? If the therapist/client relationship is based on deception from the outset, how can that not be damaging? Especially when you're going to a total stranger and they're expecting you to tell them your innermost thoughts/fears/feelings/hurts? Even if the client is naive and never considers that the therapist is being dishonest by feigning their acceptance and caring, it's even more incumbent ethically that the therapist should be held/hold themselves to a standard where they aren't intentionally being deceptive, even if they're "trained" to comport themselves this way. Which makes you wonder just how ethical the whole field is. Granted, I would say most people in social relationships are going to exhibit at least a modicum of civilized decorum and tact, and most of us would still behave respectfully, even towards people we didn't care for, but that's not the same as paying someone hundreds of dollars for a 50 minute session and laying yourself bare in front of them, while they display an ersatz sense of total agreement and acceptance for you, thereby deceiving you into thinking this person, essentially a stranger, really understands your pain, your fears, where you're coming from, and agrees completely with everything you've said. I don't think most people would think walking up to a stranger on the street, handing them a few hundred dollars, telling them your personal problems and struggles and expecting them to care/understand/accept you, would be a wise idea. In fact, most people would think that was a little nutty.

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Yeah, 'unconditional positive regard' is one of the 'core conditions' in client-centred aka person-centred or Rogerian counselling, along with empathy and congruence. Of course, how can a therapist be congruent if they're showing unconditional positive regard to a client they actually dislike or disapprove of? The notion of unconditional positive regard is a nice ideal, but I agree that it's unrealistic. A therapist may or may not have a sense of empathy for a client, but even when they do, it's suspended in rations of boundaried 50 minute appointments, and the continuation of its provision is contingent on payment. My contention is that it's an artificial relationship, regardless of the intent and humanity that a therapist might possess. In effect, that ideal is commodified and hence, the good stuff, if it's present, is somewhat cheapened, in my view. Mostly, it's probably feigned 'intimacy' for hire. I think there is something to be said for the need to be heard, understood and empathised with, it can be powerful, and although it might not solve any problems, it can mitigate the pain of them. Ideally, though, it's sincere, accessible and is situated in a reciprocal, personal relationship, like with a partner, good friend or family member. Perhaps, it's because it's in such short supply out there in the world that clients resort to paying a stranger for it. Sadly, it's a deep, profound need that is likely to go unfulfilled in a therapeutic relationship, too.

It's a good point about the asymmetry. I think one part of that is that there are always two elements to what therapists do regardless of the model they employ: there is the client-facing communication and then there is the hidden applications of the theory. The therapist will take what you disclose, run it through their theoretical filters, jargonize and conceptualise it according to theory, and you won't, as the client, have access to that. Nor will you know the method, and there's an awful lot of duplicity in how therapists engage with clients, a hell of a lot of manipulation.

In many ways, I personally see something like client-centred counselling as having less potential for harm and less unethical than many of the directive models, the likes of which generally contrast insincere feigning of rapport and 'social rewards' like smiles, nods, praise and attentive responses (reinforcement) with withdrawal of all of that and ignoring or changing the subject ('negative punishment') or confrontational body language and glaring, scolding, sarcasm, refusing to be civil like not saying goodbye and generally being disrespectful or provocative ('positive punishment'). Crudely put, this is the relational method in behavioural models (check out 'operant conditioning'), which are predicated on the therapist dominating and manipulating the client, and in such models there isn't much in the way of empathy because their theory is that to show empathy would be to reinforce the problem. So, when your symptoms express themselves, you get punished instead. So, in effect, it's all a simulation. I tend to think of it as the practitioner having two masks, the pleasant one and the unpleasant one, as most likely BOTH are simulations based on much rehearsal, though I would swear that some clinical psychologists that have used it on me have applied the punishment with particular relish, like they enjoy it.

The 'process-based' models, like client-centred or psychodynamic counselling/therapy, of course can be harmful, too, and there's always a potential for both harm and poor ethics. Clients can be used as cash-cows and kept dependent because of the obvious financial incentive for the therapist. The lack of direction or focus can leave you feeling rudderless, and yet the models are such that the therapist has to refrain from providing anything approaching structure. Often, therapists in psychodynamic/psychoanalysis models do the whole 'blank screen' thing and are virtually silent, which can be a kind of intolerable limbo for a client. I see the whole concept of 'transference' to be a primary way that clients' direct feelings about the therapist get minimized and deflected, which is basically a kind of gaslighting so that the therapist doesn't have to be accountable. The justification for this is that the focus should be on the client, whilst also maintaining that 'the relationship is the therapy', meaning that how the client views the therapist isn't actually about the therapist at all, but some projection concerning other, probably historical, relationships from the client's life. The scope for abuse of this idea is obvious. Also, what kind of a relationship is it, really? One person becomes very vulnerable through personal disclosure, the other sits there almost impassively (psychodynamic), dons a sympathetic face and paraphrases what you just said (client-centred) or shows disinterest and changes the subject or perhaps even scolds and blames you (behavioural). These are not people worth trusting with my tender inner feelings, methinks!

The realisation of the illusion and deception involved in therapy has the potential to do incredible harm. So much of what they administer is dependent on clients being kept in the dark about what's actually being done to them. Personally, it's been shocking and dismaying to end up being manipulated by the very people I trusted to help me recover from the abuse and damage manipulators in my life had already inflicted.

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You've made a wealth of dead-on, salient points. Therapy seems to be, or perhaps in many cases is, explicitly predicated upon artifice. If your friends, family members, or those closest to you began charging you payment for each hour you spent talking to them, you'd immediately feel exploited, resentful, hurt, etc. I highly doubt a therapist would unconditionally accept you if you suddenly couldn't afford to see them any more. Watch how fast that total acceptance would evaporate when money (or lack thereof) is involved. Of course, people can spend their income however they choose, and even if they go into therapy knowing they're paying for a one-sided relationship with someone who will pretend to care, it's their right to do so. The problem is that this fact is never stated outright by any therapist; in fact I'd say it's actively concealed or skewed in the therapists favor, making them appear to be a holy demigod who has all the answers, will help reveal your inner workings, clear up your confusion, make you whole, grant you peace and happiness forever thereafter, as if they were an oracle of some sort. This is especially unscrupulous considering the fact that people who are suffering, struggling, at their weakest, are coming to these people in need of succor, and what they get in turn is the commodification and exploitation of their afflictions. Capitalizing on pain is the antithesis of a truly compassionate, empathetic person. Even if their intentions were sincerely benevolent, by virtue of their profession, they cannot avoid harming people, whether by deception, outright lies, betrayal, etc., because the entire construct of therapy is built around an unequal dynamic in the relationship between therapist and client. Whether, as you said, they employ the methods of unconditional acceptance, or actively antagonizing a client, either way, they can't help but always have an unfair advantage over the client. There will always be a power play as an undercurrent in the relationship.

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12 hours ago, PsychoLogical said:

Therapy seems to be, or perhaps in many cases is, explicitly predicated upon artifice. If your friends, family members, or those closest to you began charging you payment for each hour you spent talking to them, you'd immediately feel exploited, resentful, hurt, etc. I highly doubt a therapist would unconditionally accept you if you suddenly couldn't afford to see them any more. Watch how fast that total acceptance would evaporate when money (or lack thereof) is involved. Of course, people can spend their income however they choose, and even if they go into therapy knowing they're paying for a one-sided relationship with someone who will pretend to care, it's their right to do so. The problem is that this fact is never stated outright by any therapist; in fact I'd say it's actively concealed or skewed in the therapists favor, making them appear to be a holy demigod who has all the answers, will help reveal your inner workings, clear up your confusion, make you whole, grant you peace and happiness forever thereafter, as if they were an oracle of some sort. This is especially unscrupulous considering the fact that people who are suffering, struggling, at their weakest, are coming to these people in need of succor, and what they get in turn is the commodification and exploitation of their afflictions. Capitalizing on pain is the antithesis of a truly compassionate, empathetic person. Even if their intentions were sincerely benevolent, by virtue of their profession, they cannot avoid harming people, whether by deception, outright lies, betrayal, etc., because the entire construct of therapy is built around an unequal dynamic in the relationship between therapist and client. Whether, as you said, they employ the methods of unconditional acceptance, or actively antagonizing a client, either way, they can't help but always have an unfair advantage over the client. There will always be a power play as an undercurrent in the relationship.

Wonderfully phrased and I agree completely. Behaviour typical of any industry is self-promotion and image management. Without being a global corporation (just a collection of professional bodies scattered around the world) therapy as an industry is remarkably good at providing its own PR, but I suppose that shouldn't be a surprise when much of what they do clinically is perception management. There is an aura in the public consciousness in a widespread fashion that therapy is the path to answers, solutions, and fulfilment, but the reality is that you're taking your problems to a stranger that has the same propensity for prejudice and flaws that we all do. This isn't someone with special insight, in fact, they don't know their clients in any other context, and despite the only access to the client's inner life being what the client directly discloses, they routinely ignore or carve off much of this by dispensing method, theory, empirical claims, or the need to demonstrate skill over the top of it. If a client disagrees with any conclusions about them that the therapist actually shares, then they are 'resistant', which is rather like saying that the therapist can never be wrong, and the client can never be right (unless they dutifully concur, which is only really affirming faith in the oracle's vision).

I've often felt that there can be something of a God complex when it comes to therapists. One common theist definition in the philosophy of religion is that God is omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent, and when therapists act like all their intentions and applications are benign, that they know the client's mind better than the client does, what the client needs better than the client does, and routinely go about advancing such designs, typically by stealth, then they act as if they are all-benevolent and all-knowing. Meanwhile, when they skew the power dynamic as much as they can in their favour, monopolising it if they can, doing their utmost to bend the client to their will and manifest authority, then they act like they should be all-powerful, too.

I actually think power is at the very heart of the systemic problems of therapy. I know of no model where this is even remotely close to being addressed, and some models exacerbate it further. This is one reason why I am, personally, an abolitionist. I honestly don't see therapy as viable when the process is so utterly skewed.

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10 hours ago, Eve B said:

Let me try to play devil's advocate by asking how do we explain the people who say therapy has helped them? Are they just deceiving themselves too? Or, maybe, they've fallen under the influence of subconscious conditioning similar to Stockholm syndrome?

I think there are various answers, one being that, at the time, they genuinely believe it. I tend to think in many cases there is a temporal bubble that's been inflated around them, which could be a matter of being led to believe that the world is more benign than it really is or that they can have more control over their feelings and lives than is realistically the case. Even if this belief and confidence is taken with them at therapy's conclusion, maintaining it over time becomes less and less viable. It was never going to last. Effectiveness rates of therapy decline notably over even relatively short periods of time, like six months to a year, and will drop off a cliff given a long enough time-line, and that's with the clients that report being helped at all. Plus, there is some evidence from controls that the simple passage of time can rival therapy effectiveness, which might mean that what a client attributed to therapy might have been incidental entirely. Time could also explain the decline, sure, but if the point of therapy is to enable a client to develop what the clinical psychologists call 'resilience', the tools and know-how to maintain good psychological health and cope with life's sling-shots to the guts, then it's reasonable to expect that, once sufficiently augmented, that it should be lasting. Of course, therapists like to explain it more along the lines of 'I gave them the tools, but they needed to continue to use them' or 'without continued practice, skills decline and neural pathways atrophy'.

I also think that when a therapist rewards compliance and punishes deviations it is a recipe for conditioning clients into saying what the therapist wants to hear, and above all else it is: you've helped. I mean, you can genuinely believe it at the time. I've been there, wanting to please therapists but not knowing precisely why, only to realise, as soon as that pressure is taken away, that I was in no better position, and only much later that the dynamic itself conditioned me to act in that unwittingly ingratiating fashion.

So, in a way, there can be some self-deception, but a lot more deceit coming from the therapist in how they manipulate you into compliance. Also, there is a kind of situational deception, if you can call it that, insofar as you'll never know if you would have been in the same position, or better, had you not entered into therapy and spent your time, energy and money differently. But if you think therapy has helped you, you're likely to believe that you would have been worse off without it. If the gain was on the basis of something interpersonal (but most likely the therapist going through the motions, as with rehearsed acceptance signifiers and textbook rapport) and you trusted it to be authentic, who is to say you couldn't have had equal or better gains of an interpersonal nature by making a friend that you achieved an understanding with? And, as stated above, the fact that one relationship is predicated on (hopefully) reciprocity and the other is contingent upon remuneration by the hour, raises questions about whether it's something you should have to pay for and if it's likely to be sincere when you do.

Again, the alternate situation is you feeling worse off and attributing it to therapy rather than other factors in your life, to which I would say, aren't you, supposedly, in the perfect place then? Because if therapy helps people deal with all the crap they have to contend with, and they have difficult challenges emerge whilst they're in treatment, then they have the opportunity to make use of the theoretical boons that therapy offers. I suppose some may simply lack the insight to know that they feel worse not because of therapy but due to unrelated elements. Also, if the client chose to engage, attended with commitment, completed any 'homework' and was an active part of the process, but felt worse at the end, it certainly wouldn't be fair of a therapist to claim that the client 'didn't work hard enough', which is a typical accountability hurdle (and I also think it's reasonable to leave before a set point if no gains are apparent or visible, and feeling worse cannot be explained by a 'feel worse before you feel better' rationale).

Also, people need hope, they want to believe, and often therapy can feel like the only or last throw of the dice. So, even when therapy hasn't helped, many clients still go back looking for different forms or new practitioners in the hope that next time will be the charm because all other alternatives have been exhausted or feel untenable. Like I said above, there's always another self-help book on the shelf. It's also a disturbing thought that the person you've been trusting with all your innermost hopes, fears and vulnerabilities was never more than a hired ear, with no special insight, and who might not have even particularly cared for or liked you, or worse, was actively manipulating you all along. That's an especially coarse pill to swallow. Many will choose the comforting lie over the unsettling truth.

Or it could be that I'm a terrible cynic, heh heh.

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13 hours ago, Eve B said:

Let me try to play devil's advocate by asking how do we explain the people who say therapy has helped them? Are they just deceiving themselves too? Or, maybe, they've fallen under the influence of subconscious conditioning similar to Stockholm syndrome?

It's attributable to the placebo effect (expectation that doing something (going to therapy) is better than doing nothing at all, and believing that therapy is the premier method or pathway to improvement, along with the fact that just having a person to speak with seems to provide benefit to many people, no matter that talking to a friend, relative, bartender, or stranger produces the same effect), and regression to the mean (as zygomaticus said, the passage of time will often see someone's ills resolved on their own. Most people will enter therapy at a time when their symptoms or stressors are at or near their peak, and would have diminished or changed with the passage of time and not doing anything at all, returning them to their regular state of being).

I think that deception, whether self-deception and/or deception on the therapists part, could absolutely play into it as well. There are many cognitive biases that our brains and senses deceive us into believing are accurate perceptions of the world. Therapists have an incentive inherent in their profession that puts them in a bind. One one hand, they claim to be able to treat and resolve your afflictions. On the other hand, this is their job and they need a steady income to survive, and where does their income come from? Suffering clients. They need to be able to juggle the promise of resolution and healing with securing a client as a steady source of income. If someone comes in and feels better after seeing them once or twice, or their purported "methods" of treatment were to heal the client in one or two sessions, how would they be able to stay in business for long? Which is probably part of the reason they want to pathologize everyone and everything, so that no one is safe from their grasp, and everyone is a potential client. Once people start believing everything is worthy of being labelled a psychological "disorder" or worthy of running to the nearest therapist, they've succeeded in duping the public into believing that going to a therapist is better than a. doing nothing at all, b. seeking out someone you trust and speaking with them, c. using your own inner resilience, d. figuring out a way to handle issues on your own. It has a way of infantilizing us, of making us believe we're not capable of handling life's vicissitudes on our own grounds. That somehow the therapist knows our history, our values, our inner struggles, our desires better than we ever could, and therefore will be able to dispense the right treatments for us. That's why so many therapists dangle a carrot in front of their clients. The client has an object to focus on (healing, the reward of promised peace/happiness) while the therapist is always in control of it. Therefore, the therapist can lure clients in with the promise of healing/resolution of their afflictions, but the "process" will take a long time, because they have so much work to do and so many hidden or repressed thoughts/memories/desires to uncover and understand, that therapy becomes an indefinite undertaking, akin to a lifelong maintenance ritual, like exercising daily. That's the propaganda they use, "take care of your mental health". It makes it sound benign, like going for a spa retreat, a vacation, getting a massage or what have you. You exercise your body, eat healthily, but don't neglect your mental health! It's a thinly veiled injunction, essentially saying that if you neglect your mental well-being that terrible things will befall you. Ironically, therapy turns out to be useless at best, and exacerbating or adding to your problems at worst. They also never seem to mention that as with exercising, you can take a walk in the park or around your block for free, instead of going out and spending hundreds on exercise equipment.

Edited by PsychoLogical
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Also, as Zygomaticus mentioned, we're indoctrinated to believe that the therapy industry is benevolent, and near-infallible. If your therapist harmed you, if the self-help book you read didn't work, if a specific treatment method didn't have the effects claimed for it, then the fault is never with those people or methods. It's always blame-the-victim. You didn't put in the necessary work. You didn't try hard enough. You didn't commit to the process for long enough. You resisted. You don't truly want to change. It's never that these therapists or methods of healing are faulty, defective, useless, harmful, or wishful thinking. Ironically, it seems a good portion of the profession is unable to be self-reflective and look at their faults and shortcomings. They're all about turning the magnifying glass onto others, the clients, society, but never themselves or their profession.

So, when we're suffering, and having been inculcated to believe that therapy, self-help books, pills, (insert treatment modality here) work, we set off on a wild goose chase. Once something fails or harms you, you disregard it and go off seeking the next cure. That therapist didn't help me, but the next one will. CBT was useless, but ABCDEFG is touted as the ultimate panacea, so it will work for me! This turns into a cyclical self-fulfilling prophecy, whereby you're on a never-ending hamster wheel chasing after something to heal/cure you. And that's how the industry creates a guaranteed customer for life. Once we remove any skepticism or doubt towards the authorities and their methods, no one will question their validity or efficacy, and instead question themselves. It's almost like a reverse gaslighting effect.

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On 2/18/2020 at 8:51 PM, Eve B said:

Let me try to play devil's advocate by asking how do we explain the people who say therapy has helped them? Are they just deceiving themselves too? Or, maybe, they've fallen under the influence of subconscious conditioning similar to Stockholm syndrome?

People vary tremendously. It makes sense, just by luck of the draw, that some people are helped by some therapists. Part of why I tried therapy to begin with was that two friends of mine had found therapy very helpful. I think there needs to be some serious study of what type of people are and are not helped by therapy. One possibility that comes to my mind is that extroverts are more likely than introverts to find therapy helpful. This is just speculation, but is partly based on the following two observations:

1. The two friends of mine who found therapy helpful were extroverts, but I  am an introverts.

2. It seems that a lot of the participants in this forum have described themselves as introverts.

Of course, there might be something more complex going on: For example, it might be the case that introverts are more likely to be helped by an introverted therapist -- but since introverts are in the minority in the general population, I would guess that they are also under-represented in the therapy profession, which would imply that the chances of an introverted client having an introverted therapist are lower than the chances of an extroverted client having an extroverted therapist.

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13 hours ago, PsychoLogical said:

That's the propaganda they use, "take care of your mental health". It makes it sound benign, like going for a spa retreat, a vacation, getting a massage or what have you. You exercise your body, eat healthily, but don't neglect your mental health! It's a thinly veiled injunction, essentially saying that if you neglect your mental well-being that terrible things will befall you. Ironically, therapy turns out to be useless at best, and exacerbating or adding to your problems at worst. They also never seem to mention that as with exercising, you can take a walk in the park or around your block for free, instead of going out and spending hundreds on exercise equipment.

What does it really mean to take care of one's mental health? There are people with emotional issues who harm others or themselves, so who's helping them with their mental health? What if you don't know how to apply the self-help books, don't feel comfortable with social groups, can't motivate yourself to exercise, or don't have friends/family who you can talk to with your problems? Therapists fill a void, and maybe for some, having even an illusion of hope is better than nothing?

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1 hour ago, Mary S said:

Of course, there might be something more complex going on: For example, it might be the case that introverts are more likely to be helped by an introverted therapist -- but since introverts are in the minority in the general population, I would guess that they are also under-represented in the therapy profession, which would imply that the chances of an introverted client having an introverted therapist are lower than the chances of an extroverted client having an extroverted therapist.

Extroverted therapists would also be more likely to have arrogant personalities and violate client boundaries!

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7 minutes ago, Eve B said:

Extroverted therapists would also be more likely to have arrogant personalities and violate client boundaries!

It sounds prejudiced, but I am inclined to agree with you. Also, this reminds me of a phrase, "push back" that I have noticed in some of the Very Bad Therapy podcasts -- as when the therapist "pushes" and Ben or Carrie asks if the client "pushed back". Maybe "pushing back" doesn't come naturally to introverts, and perhaps extroverts just assume that if they push, the pushee will push back.

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16 hours ago, zygomaticus said:

There is an aura in the public consciousness in a widespread fashion that therapy is the path to answers, solutions, and fulfilment, but the reality is that you're taking your problems to a stranger that has the same propensity for prejudice and flaws that we all do.

Could it be the PhD education (not the therapy itself) that convince people therapists should be sufficiently knowledgeable to offer solutions? I think the public generally sees therapy as just talking to somebody who will listen to their problems and provide advice.

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21 hours ago, Eve B said:

Could it be the PhD education (not the therapy itself) that convince people therapists should be sufficiently knowledgeable to offer solutions? I think the public generally sees therapy as just talking to somebody who will listen to their problems and provide advice.

I don't think it's the Ph. D. education. A lot of therapists don't have Ph.D.'s. Here's a website discussing considerations as to which type of degree someone wanting to be a therapist might consider: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/careers-in-psych/201606/masters-vs-doctorate-in-clinical-psychology

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2 hours ago, Eve B said:

But wouldn't the general public assume that a PhD means the therapist should be more knowledgeable and effective simply because of the higher degree and fees of service? 

That may be. Working under the assumption that more education was better, I first tried two therapists with Ph.D.'s, then one with an M.D.. They were all pretty bad. At some point I tried one with just a master's degree, and she was really, really bad. Of all the therapists I tried over the years, the two best had Ph.D.s. Possibly if one of them had been the first therapist I tried, they might have been helpful. But after a few really bad therapists, I was in so much worse shape than I was initially, that although I appreciated (and still appreciate) some of what they did, it still didn't undo the craziness/damage from the earlier therapists.

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On 2/21/2020 at 11:57 PM, Mary S said:

That may be. Working under the assumption that more education was better, I first tried two therapists with Ph.D.'s, then one with an M.D.. They were all pretty bad. At some point I tried one with just a master's degree, and she was really, really bad. Of all the therapists I tried over the years, the two best had Ph.D.s. Possibly if one of them had been the first therapist I tried, they might have been helpful. But after a few really bad therapists, I was in so much worse shape than I was initially, that although I appreciated (and still appreciate) some of what they did, it still didn't undo the craziness/damage from the earlier therapists.

 It was my assumption also that someone with a more extensive education, i.e. degrees/titles, would therefore be more qualified and knowledgeable in treating clients. Clearly it doesn't matter what their title is, or the extent of education/degrees. They all have the capability of harming equally, and if the studies show that people achieve similar results irrespective of title/degree of the therapist, that doesn't bode well for therapy, because it's essentially showing that there's no degree of effectiveness over chance/placebo effect when receiving therapy.

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On 2/21/2020 at 9:57 PM, Mary S said:

 Possibly if one of them had been the first therapist I tried, they might have been helpful. But after a few really bad therapists, I was in so much worse shape than I was initially, that although I appreciated (and still appreciate) some of what they did, it still didn't undo the craziness/damage from the earlier therapists.

Yes, the cumulative effects of a string of bad therapists can indeed be too overwhelming for any one "good enough" therapist to fully correct.  I suppose the best we can hope for is not to get worse after those experiences. What causes therapy harm isn't the therapist's credentials, it's who they are as a person/personality and how they apply their treatments on unsuspecting clients.

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