How Does Therapy Harm?

[Mary S]

Today I came across a (fairly recent-- 2019) article called "How Does Therapy Harm?"

It starts out with a lot of gobbledygook about theory and methodology, but the part following Figure 3 seems worth reading, since it includes a lot of quotes from clients or otherwise describing clients’ negative experiences.

[PsychoLogical]

This looks interesting. I started reading the beginning. A good part of the technical jargon and therapy lingo is confusing, so I need to look up terms to try and be able to understand what's being talked about.

 

[Mary S]

8 hours ago, PsychoLogical said:

This looks interesting. I started reading the beginning. A good part of the technical jargon and therapy lingo is confusing, so I need to look up terms to try and be able to understand what's being talked about.

 

Yes, the jargon/lingo can be a real problem. Adding to the problem, in my experience, therapists often are not very good at defining their terms. I remember one occasion when I asked a therapist what she meant by a  particular word, and she gave a response something like, "To me, it has connotations of X." Not very informative.

[PsychoLogical]

On 8/24/2020 at 12:15 AM, Mary S said:

Yes, the jargon/lingo can be a real problem. Adding to the problem, in my experience, therapists often are not very good at defining their terms. I remember one occasion when I asked a therapist what she meant by a  particular word, and she gave a response something like, "To me, it has connotations of X." Not very informative.

And, not very precise or specific. Which lends itself to being open to interpretation, so that any therapist can change it to fit what they want it to, or don't.

[Eve B]

I thought the suggestions of "What To Do" were too simplistic and should've tried to further explore why clients may not be able to easily stop the harmful therapy, tell someone, complain, or choose the right therapist. 

[Mary S]

23 hours ago, Eve B said:

I thought the suggestions of "What To Do" were too simplistic and should've tried to further explore why clients may not be able to easily stop the harmful therapy, tell someone, complain, or choose the right therapist. 

Yes. Some quotes from that section that show this (with my comments in square brackets):

"One suggestion is to Choose wisely:

I would say ask for recommendations if you can, and if the person's not right for you, say so, and ask if there's someone else you can see (Service User Testimony 9)."

[This needs more detail to be helpful. For example: "Ask for recommendations if you can" is not helpful if the person has no idea where, whom, or how to ask for recommendations. So to be helpful, this suggestion needs information on whom to ask, how to find out who to ask, and how to decide if the  person is right or not.]

"Stop Therapy, or Tell someone"

[The client quote for this starts, "I am lucky to have had a good support network. My husband has been a safe haven of love and support." Not everyone has a good support network, nor a loving spouse. So for the "suggestion" to be helpful for such a person, it needs to go into some detail about how to find someone suitable to tell or otherwise be supportive]

[This suggestion also says, "This theme also includes the client telling the therapist about their experiences of therapy." Unless the therapist is very open-minded, this may be counterproductive. When I've tried telling therapist that I thought I was getting worse in response to therapy, I've gotten replies such as, "You expect too much; that's Your Problem", or "You'll never get better if you keep seeking the perfect therapist. ] 

I could give more examples, but am too tired now.

[Big_girl_now]

On 8/31/2020 at 4:42 PM, Eve B said:

I thought the suggestions of "What To Do" were too simplistic and should've tried to further explore why clients may not be able to easily stop the harmful therapy, tell someone, complain, or choose the right therapist. 

Totally agree. For some clients, they may be torn.

You may know it's not helpful or even harmful but you can be addicted. Emotional dependancy can be very strong and also it's easy to justify. Is it really wrong... 

 

I think we can be desensitised too. So we can tolerate more unethical therapy before we would really admit it's truly wrong.

 

[Mary S]

12 hours ago, Big_girl_now said:

I think we can be desensitised too. So we can tolerate more unethical therapy before we would really admit it's truly wrong.

Yes! (Which brings to mind once when a therapist said I needed to be more tolerant -- when I was trying very hard to be tolerant of her.)