Therapists I Could Live Without

[ISupportHer]

I talked a little bit about this in chat last night. I am trying therapy for a second time. First one was always late, once forgot his phone was still on and took a call from another Pt, although not a long one, during my session. Sometimes would repeat back things to me absolutely wrong, like he was not listening or at least was distracted.

One nugget I took away from his sessions was that all my trying to help my wife could, and was by the way, be interpreted as controlling. I do still try hard to be guided by that simple observation.

Actually, it is those little things that I hear or observe here that I feel gifted to receive.

Must be time for my next co-pay to be submitted in the box in the upper left corner of this web site! Sorry, can't afford to pay ALL of you!

 

[the racha]

I just had a pretty horrid encounter with a therapist. To make a horribly long story short, she would not stop pushing me about things that I did not want to talk about-- even though I said things like, "please, i don't want to talk about this," and "this makes me want to throw up," and "i just really don't want to talk about this." She trampled on my boundaries so much that I actually had a nightmare that she sexually violated me.

It was UNREAL, she would just not let me go. It took me about 1 full day to recover. She was a nice lady and meant well, but jeez "no means no!" BTW, that working relationship is definitely over.

 

[Cate]

I love this thread!

I went to a doctor who kept saying to me, "Oh, that's so sad, that's so sad." And then he would prescribe me with pills! I tried Paxil (yikes, talk about becoming homicidal) and Cyprolex.....did nothing for me.

Then, I went to another doctor who said, "Oh, that's so sad....I think you have a phobia and you can never work again." Okay, well great, but I have a small detail called a MORTGAGE!

But my personal favorite are the doctors who give you the blank look...you know you're in trouble when a doctor is giving you a blank look...and not saying anything....that's all bad.

Cate :wall:

 

[heather q]

Yes, it is good to be able to have some where to talk about this stuff, I've been in therapy several times so I have a load of situations that I wouldn't rate very highly.

One that really bugs me is the 'dr' who was very huggy and without boundaries, I got lead up the garden path, then he said he couldn't see me any more so I'd have to see someone else, who he would be able to oversee. I wasn't to contact him for a year, then we'd see what was going on. I'm furious about that because he gave the impression that he liked me, I got taken by the attention and was thrown off when it ended. I went to see him for medical and then he counseld me, however I'm pretty sure he wasn't a counsellor he was trying it out and I felt like a guinea pig. I hate it when they get turned on doing breast examinations.

My sister had just been killed and I was a bit off kilter and didn't handle things well, a bit needy and nearly ended up worse than I started out. This looks pretty bad now that I'm writing it out.

I had to have a medical procedure and that doctor commented about his over involvement, at that moment I realized something wasn't right. I never did go back for any more counselling or anything else.

His counseling theory was quite simple, well, why don't you just change the outcome, look at it differently. That would be nice, but I have to be able to get through this crap a little before I can look at it that differently, maybe one day. He said I wasn't grounded, as if I knew what that meant.

At about the same time I saw another doctor, just after my first appointment I got some mail asking something about inappropriate behavour, could I contribute to the investigation. That was enough I quit seeing doctors.

Heather

 

[hobarter]

The surgeon who performed the cranioplasty told me that "it's not a major operation". The operation involved general anaesthetic (of course), shaving most of my head, cutting it open, and drilling holes in my skull for wires for the plate.

My parents (father primarily) sent me to a psychologist when I was about 19. This psychologist totally missed my very obvious PTSD, never asked me about the MVA that nearly killed me, and worst of all, had little phone calls with my father in which he passed on things I had said IN THERAPY. These things came back at me through my mother scolding me about having said them (IN THERAPY).

Years later (and my PTSD went misdiagnosed for about 15 years) I was misdiagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, by a psychiatrist who spent about 12 minutes talking to me, and happened to be working for a private hospital which happened to run a very expensive course (which I was put into) for people (all women, it just so happens) diagnosed with BPD. (This private hospital had a PTSD course but it is only for male war veterans.) This psychiatrist, when asked how long he thought I had BPD for said "oh, I think other people have diagnosed it" - but didn't mention who these 'other people' are/were.

 

[BethRSA]

First therapist (psychologist) I went to started talking about how good of friends he was with my boss. Like I really want to share my problem with someone who is going to tell my boss.

When I only told him the part of my story that I was sticking to then (that 6 guys scared me when my car broke down, but they didn't get me off the road), he said, "Well, at least you weren't raped." Which I was, but I didn't get to that part (and probably wasn't going to since he knew my boss).

Another lady (member care/human resource director) asked me in a restaurant, "So are you over your rape yet?"

Where do they find these people?

 

[Keenbean]

I have little faith in psychiatrists. I have never seen a psychiatrist for psychotherapy, I see a separate psychotherapist for that thankfully. All psychiatrists have done is add to my trauma by locking me up (in a place where it is okay for nursing staff to hit their patients), running electricity through my brain, drugging me until I can no longer walk, talk and am having seizures, and doing their best to destroy any chance of a happy future for me. Their best interests and my own seem to differ somewhat. So now I limit what I tell them and humour them for long enough to get my prescription, then I leave. I know that there are good psychiatrists out there, I really do- for me it is just the case that the bad have outweighed the good and I have no trust left for these people.

I am so grateful that my therapist is so good- with her help I have managed to get my life back on track and fortunately am able to trust the rest of the human race enough to get by pretty well. I can't imagine how I would have got through this without such a good therapist, and urge everyone to keep looking until they find one!

Best wishes all, KB

 

[DrWood]

I work as a clinical psychologist and try to help people with PTSD - this thread has given me food for thought :)

 

[WorkingThruIt]

Then there was the psychiatrist who asked my religion, (which is none of his business) and then simply demanded that I go to church and get Jesus and my life would be perfect. I am Atheist.

This would make me so angry. I'm an atheist, too. Being told my belief system is no good is a pet peeve of mine. It is just so overwhelmingly offensive. When people do this to me, I refer to their god as their imaginary friend and that usually stops them in their tracks. That is incredibly unprofessional of a doctor to do something like that.

 

[Marlene]

Where do they find these people?

I don't know. But it's too bad that there's not a return policy. Or at least store credit!

I work as a clinical psychologist and try to help people with PTSD - this thread has given me food for thought :)

Not to sound bitchy, but...good. Maybe a group email with a link to this thread to colleagues as a reminder of what not to do. I know there are some really great therapists out there working their asses off to help. Unfortunately there are some out there that are therapists because they had enough money to pay for the letters past their names and they should never have set up shop.

 

[Keenbean]

Haha, my psychiatrist did the 'find the faith' thing too, and told me that the people who belonged to a religious group, did voluntary work, and practiced meditation or mindfulness were the most mentally healthy. He advised me to work on these things.

I have no problem with the voluntary work thing, and have done a lot in the past although I don't have much time to commit to that now I am doing a full-time PhD. I tried a course on Mindfulness, which went well until week 6, where I experienced a most horrific return of my flashbacks during a meditation practise and subsequently suffered quite a serious dissociative episode then a depressive episode from which I am only just recovering (with increased medication and therapy). Incidentally, I don't blame that on the psychiatrist- he really couldn't have known that was going to happen. And finally, whilst I am not anti-religion, I don't practice it and am not planning to any time soon.

If these things work for him or other people then great, but I am not keen on the idea of forcing religion onto others. I couldn't help but also find it slightly patronizing that he thought my problems could be solved by such activities alone (not to say that they might not help some people in some way...)

Ah well, each to their own.
Best wishes, KB

 

[Seychelle]

This will probably end up being a long essay, but that said I did eventually find two good therapists last year (finally!), one of whom I still see weekly. My GP is also great.

1) Psychiatrist, age 15 - I had some weird physical symptoms (in hindsight, psychosomatic related to the death of a relative who'd raped me when I was 5, plus other sexual assaults around that age) and my GP at the time eventually sent me to see a psychiatrist. His conclusion was that 'I was a bit sensitive'. In hindsight, he completely missed that there was anything wrong with my family (admittedly, at the time, I was conciously trying to make everything seem fine, I couldn't cope with the idea of anyone seeing that I wasn't coping). And like other posts in this thread, he saw the fact that I was an atheist as a symptom of something being wrong with me. Kinda ironic given he completely missed everything that was genuinely messed up in my life.

2) Counsellor - late 20s/early 30s - I saw a counsellor once a fortnight for hmm, my memory of this time is really hazy, maybe 2 or 3 years? I really don't remember. She wasn't too bad, and I did start the healing process with her. However, she was really passive and just sat there, barely saying anything. So frustrating and it seemed utterly pointless to me, like why was that better than just writing in a journal? She also was unable to help me cope with flashbacks, anxiety etc. Her only tool seemed to be was asking the question 'so how did you cope in the past?' and no matter how many times I said, I've never coped in all my life, that is really unhelpful, she kept asking it. So I decided to try someone new...

3) ... who was the WORST ever. A female psychologist who did EMDR. She had many many rules. One of them was that I had to decide within 4 appointments whether to commit to seeing her long term or not, and if I changed my mind at any point, I'd still have to pay for weekly appointments for a year. And if I had to cancel an appointment, eg if I was sick, or knew in advance (like a month or two in advance) that I had to travel for work, I would still have to pay for my weekly appointment. When I questioned this, she said something like 'this is how all psychologists operate, and most people I see prioritise their therapy over their work', basically implying that I should switch jobs to one which didn't require any travel. So I was under intense pressure to work out whether to continue with her or not (not realising that NO, most psychologists do NOT have those rules).

But the worst was, halfway through the fourth appointment, she said something like 'you're dissociated, I can't work with you like this, I'll call you when I've got space in my appointments to see you twice a week, don't call me'. She just ended the session like that, wouldn't let me talk about it, ushered me out the door. I was devastated, went to pieces for several weeks. And I waited for her to ring me back. And waited. Six months later (or longer?) I eventually decided to risk calling her (because if I rang I knew that would be breaching her rules) because I finally figured I had nothing to lose. She said 'oh, I don't think I'm going to have space in my diary to see you for a long time'. Again, I went to pieces and fell into self-loathing, lost a lot of confidence, didn't want to try again because I thought they'd all be like that - because she said so.

Took me 2.5 years before I could face trying again, and that was only because I was at risk of losing everything, relationship, job, sanity etc after being severely triggered for months on end.

4) Another female psychologist. She seemed promising at first, kind of. I wrote this about her after a few months "The other HUGE frustration with her is that I don't feel seen or understood by her. She makes assumptions about what I'm thinking and feeling and doesn't ask me to check that she's understood." Then there was an appointment where she was forcing me to see things from her POV, that I should accept that there was some positives from what my mother did to me in childhood, and she wouldn't stop, even when I asked her to. I went to pieces badly, had to have an emergency session with the couples counsellor I was seeing with my (now) ex, took me weeks before I was semi-functional again.

Despite that, I asked my couples counsellor to recommend someone (because the sessions with him were good) and try again, even thought how f-ing stupid am I to even want to try again, given that each time caused more emotional trauma for me.

But, the guy who was recommended has been good so far. 5th time lucky, heh.