What Makes A Therapist Bad?

Full video:

Dr. K’s Guide to Mental Health explores Anxiety, Depression, ADHD, and Meditation

#shorts #drk #mentalhealth

[jaredjenkins]

I had a therapist fall asleep while I was talking once. I even stopped talking and she stayed sleeping… I feel like that was pretty bad…

[janetjongebloed]

As a therapist, I always like to remember that there are TWO experts in the room. I am the expert in psychological information, the client is the expert in knowing themselves. There is no one who will ever be in their heart, and their shoes, in their mind, 365 days of the year every single year and every single second of their life. I am only there to cheerlead and to point out some possibilities. I liken it to Al from Quantum Leap, while they are the leaper Sam if you get scifi terminology. I just tell them the odds of what Ziggy told me, but they are the ones who walk their journey.

[toricon]

once I went to a therapist when I was very depressed and struggling with anhedonia. I didn't know that word, so I just talked about how I didn't want things, and that scared me, because you need wanting to motivate you to do things like, say, eating.

she said that if there was nothing I wanted, she couldn't help me, and to come back next time having figured out what I wanted.

I did not go back.

[InitialDraal]

Listening and adapting is key indeed. As a patient I was downplaying my own troubles all the time. So when she realized that I had PTSD we switched what we were doing and started using objective scales to counter the downplaying.

[simonkemfors]

the description of the bad therapist is exactly what I have experienced. You go in there, they have a lecture about what they think causes mental illness, and then you spend the appointments trying to tell them that they're not helping. I was told that my issues were caused by not allowing myself to be angry, I said I don't have any issue feeling anger, and she just kept going. When I said she was making me uncomfortable, she would try to make me confess that what I was really feeling was anger, no matter how many times I said it wasn't

[aldrichunfaithful]

something i've noticed about therapy is that if you're someone who feels down because you have a genuinely unhappy life, rather than someone who's mentally ill, it doesn't really work. therapists help you to process issues better, and sometimes you can figure out solutions with their help, but you aren't gonna magically feel better if there's still all these things making you unhappy and nothing to make you happy. my last therapist was great and i worked with her for the full 20 weeks, but i immediately plateaued and most of our sessions were talking about the same things that i couldn't do anything about, so she could only do her best to help me feel better about them

[mascotwithadinosaur]

The most eye-opening part of therapy for me has been realizing the fact that a huge part of trauma was not feeling listened to.

After I got comfortable with my therapist I realized why I didn't feel comfortable talking about these things with my mom or brother.

They always tried to fix things or give encouragement/inspiration, and they never let me just vent with them simply comforting me.

I had to tell them "When I come to you with a problem and you immediately suggest a solution, I feel like you're shutting me up and telling me to go away. I know that's not your intention, but it is how I feel and I would like you to get better at listening" and they did.

[kathleengardiner]

I had a therapist who basically told me I needed to do something sexy for my husband (this was his solution for my depression). Then on my next visit to the therapist he asked for details about what I had done. 😳
The whole experience made me feel violated and icky. I haven’t trusted going for therapy since.

[bananewane]

True! A bad therapist decides they know what your problem is and what you need after one session and won’t consider any of the patient’s input in this.

[nozone]

I've had a therapist that I think was projecting very hard onto me. Whatever problem I came to her with, she ended up redirecting all of my problems to my relationship with my father. Like I would come to her with problems regarding my friends, that i dont like how they treat me, that i feel they don't respect me and I was literly asking her, what steps should I take to make my friends realise this, to which she would respond that I need to reconnect with my father

[alliu]

That’s so true. I’ve been to two separate therapists before. With one therapist, she’d ask me about my day and I’d talk about some stuff, then she’d just kinda move on. She basically let me keep my mask on in therapy, to the point where she eventually said “there’s nothing wrong with you, I’m gonna graduate you from therapy”. With the other therapist, he’d ask me about how my week has been if anything new happened, and I’d say some stuff, and he’d respond and sometimes we end up talking about that but other times we touch on a longer-lasting topic. He’d ask me about how I felt in these moments we discussed, and either affirm my belief or challenge how I thought.

I’ve been with the second therapist for closing in on a year and a half now, and it’s the best choice I’ve ever made in terms of helping my own mental health. He’s a great fit with me in terms of his approach, his personality, and the way we get along. He actually listens and has helped me climb over a lot of personal barriers I had when it comes to interpersonal relationships and emotional intimacy (which were part of why I started therapy at all). Worth every penny.

[nullbyte]

This is the main issue I had with previous therapists, I kept having to explain things to them over and over again because they were applying their textbook template to me even when it didn't fit with things I'd already told them, and they had a lot of cookie cutter feedback that didn't apply to me.

My current therapist listens and asks more questions, and every once in a while says something that completely shifts my perspective or teaches me something new about my behaviour, she's great.

[rfb]

I switched therapists 5 times before staying with my current one. I feel like I got exposed to way many situations in which I was emotionally violated and just overall really embarrassed. I was 18 at the time and really vulnerable and of course really depressed. One specific situation that I will never forget is that I was discussing my eating disorder which is a really sensitive topic to me and she just laughed. She laughed out loud and I was just sitting there waiting for her to stop. She actually didn’t stop and I just stood up and left. A couple of weeks later I tried to commit suicide, and I gave up on therapy for about a year before seeking help again.

I’m in a much better place now. My current therapist is amazing and we’ve been together for about two years. What makes her different and “good” is pure respect. She respects my as a human being before a patient being at both my lowest and best.

[swimmerfish]

I think another difference is that a good therapist will gently ask challenging questions over time that push the person to be their best self. A bad therapist will just empathize and make you feel heard, but never help you get out of the place you are in.

[jacobbissey]

Growing up with anger issues it quickly became abundantly clear that all the therapists in my area who dealt with kids with anger issues were *bad* therapists. I'd go in for a session, whether because they were recommended to my parents or appointed by my school or whatever, and I'd explain my struggles with anger, what I had tried before that didn't work, what sort of things I thought might help, and then they'd just tell me to do the same things I had just said didn't work for me, when I'd point that out to them, they'd say something along the lines of "well how about you just try it for me, maybe it'll work now that you're my patient", and then when I'd come back for another session and explain that I did, in fact, try the same crap that never worked before again, they'd insist that I "wasn't *really* trying" or it didn't work because I "didn't *really* want it to work". Because they are experts and their methodology is infallible and ALL these OTHER kids were helped tremendously because they gave it an "honest" try.

The thing is, I *did* want to get my rage under control, I *did* want to stop lashing out and hurting people, and eventually, I stopped going to therapists for my anger issues, because I had exhausted all of the ones in a 50-mile radius by the time I was 10, and I figured out things that actually DID work for me, because I was no longer bashing my head against the wall of trying crap that simply did not work over and over and over again on the word of so-called "experts" and instead focused on using trial and error to find what actually DOES work for me based on my own observations and intuitions. Some things I tried didn't help, other things did, and eventually I worked out a system that DID help me. And I did it in spite of therapy.

I am ALL for therapy as a tool to help people deal with their issues, regardless of what those issues are, because everybody has issues. Heck, I went to school for psychology myself so I know for a fact that therapy is a useful tool, if done right. But you REALLY need to find a good therapist who's willing to listen and actually work WITH you to find solutions that genuinely help YOU instead of insisting everybody fits in the same box and use the same cookie cutter techniques and if they don't happen to work then it's because YOU don't really "want" it or whatever BS they push to cover for their own inadequacies. If a literal child can tell you're full of crap after being in a room with you for a few minutes, you are in the wrong profession.

It's honestly really weird, I grew up in a college town for a university that has what's considered one of the best psych programs in the world, on par with a few ivy league schools, and yet somehow none of the licensed therapists in the city are worth a damn and we have a notorious problem with mental health facilities being horrendously mismanaged and treating patients poorly. It's almost like none of the competent psychologists that the university produces ever stick around and instead take their skills and expertise elsewhere.

[rbear]

Today I discovered I'm a bad therapist. Only been fully practicing for a year, though. So I hope I'll stop holding onto theory for dear life with time and actual listening.

[physicianskitchen]

While I don't think the validate everything approach is beneficial I had a therapist who would pretty severe things that were done to me, some straight up illegal. Only now years later do I see how effed that was. Therapists have a lot of power over their patients and their deepest vulnerabilities and that comes with responsibility, or at least one would hope so.

[OUSTET]

I think it goes beyond this too, sometimes therapists can give “coping techniques” that can actually lead to you ruminating over your problems which can in turn actually make them worse.

[jtiv]

Yes! Listening is the most important part. I once dealt with a really bad therapist who would always invalidate everything I felt. It was like I had to argue with her about why I get this way. It’s like she was always defending everyone else but me.

I only learned this after she made an excuse to stop seeing me. I always got his feeling that she didn’t like me. And I was right.

[panPompa]

My last therapist told me I'm wasting money by not doing what she says. Well, she was right so I've stopped comming...