The purpose of this blog is to inform the public about:
- the negative, and sometimes dangerous, aspects of psychotherapy
- the lack of substantial research to support almost all types of psychotherapy and the basic premise of psychotherapy itself
- the reality behind the facade of psychotherapy regulation
It is based on my experiences, my research and my reflections on psychotherapy and regulation. I feel that I was conned, and that the system that purports to protect against abuses is dysfunctional. I hope this blog helps others to avoid similar experiences.
On this blog, psychotherapy (the Con) means all the various forms of talk therapy, regardless of the educational background or licensing status of the practitioner. The terms psychotherapist or therapist (Grifter) refer to any practitioners of talk therapy, regardless of whether they use the title psychotherapist, therapist, counseller, mental health counsellor, social worker or a similar title. Clients/patients are Marks.
This is my blog. I will call it like I see it. I will use snark and profanity.
I will make no effort to spare the feelings of grifters therapists or therapy apologists. If you’re one of those, you can hang out here and comment if you like. But keep this image in mind: A hawk using its claws to split open the breast of a pigeon. You’re the pigeon.
My role models are the law school scam bloggers from the USA. They are brutally honest, defiant and brave. Not to mention great writers. And funny!
You don’t have to take my word for a single thing. I encourage you to do your own research and your own thinking. Be skeptical and critical.
I have changed or removed the identifying details of certain persons, groups and organizations.
This blog is not intended to replace professional medical, legal or other advice. I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information contained on third-party websites that I link to.
Use of this web site constitutes your understanding and consent to these terms.
To get in touch: therapyisacon@ymail.com
I’d sure like to know the id of the law bloggers if you want to share!
Google “law school scam blogs” and you’ll find a bunch. One of my favourites is “Subprime JD”.
Thanks,
Can you please share a book about anti psychiatry with me??I dont have any money to buy such a book and i really need some leverage against these psychiatry con artists although i have found some leverage myself but i feel that this is not enough!If you would share a book with me i would be most grateful!My email is wiseguygabriel@live.com.Please help!!
Your public library may be able to access some of the books. If there is a university in your town, they may also be able to help.
Good idea to share experiences. I recently thought to train as a therapist, enrolled at a local university (!) found a therapist as mandatory for training. Since this activity started in October I have realised that the whole thing is based on shakey belief, myth, arrogance and exploitation. This belief is born from old, paternalistic ideas of Freud, Jung, Perls, etc. Jeffrey Masson (Against Therapy) did a good job in the late eighties of exposing the abuse and hypocrisy of these men. Their theories are still used however as a method in therapy. The bizarre way of working which involves two people in a room, one a virtually silent therapist the other the client having to adapt to a strange environment results in power inbalance (client gives information and money, therapist assuming they have knowledge greater than the client).
Also, Tana Dineen wrote in 1999 ‘Manufacturing Victims what the psychology industry is doing to people’, another expose. What worries and confuses me as of course I have dropped out of this training is how and why it is still such a huge industry. I think this is the socio-economic need for jobs. What do educated middle class (mostly women) do? They go out and ‘do good deeds’ as they have done for generations, eg, helping women change careers from prostitues to something more wholesome. This is the 21st century equivalent. The trade is practised on users of charities (addiction or bereavement for example), then when you’ve done your time as a student and been indocrinated during your own therapy i.e. when you’ve stopped ‘resisting’ and yielded to god knows what, you can start charging the punters. When there aren’t enough of those you can start teaching it or writing books on it espeically when it gets really boring listening to people who may be unhappy and lonely. Ater all there are plenty of people who want to train who also make up a large part of the clientele!
Thanks for your comment. It’s interesting that you dropped out of therapist training, because I imagine most students don’t. Its my understanding that many therapists enter the field in order to deal with their own issues. (In fact I just saw an example of this last night. On a TV show about drug addiction, one of the interviewees was a former drug addict, with “family issues” as he acknowledged himself, who got sober and then became…. a drug addiction counsellor.)
Most clients would want a therapist who is emotionally healthy themselves, someone who could recognize emotional health when they see it. I suspect there are few such therapists, and there is no way to find out in advance. It’s a huge gamble.
I 100% agree with the statement that a large majority of people go into the field of therapy to figure out their own family of origin issues. They themselves have not done the work so they can’t begin to assist in the recovery process. The mental health system is so completely broken. What a huge waste a money.
I, too, would like to thank you for this blog. My own experiences with therapy haven`t been all too good, either, and I refuse to believe I simply have a knack for picking the black sheep. I think there is a lot wrong with the whole concept of psychotherapy. Reading books on psychotherapy and going to psychology lectures at uni has only confirmed my impression. Unfortunately psychotherapy is still widely accepted, and as an opponent (especially as an ex-patient) you are pretty much alone in the world. I feel so, so validated each time I find other “disgruntled” ex-patients, so I decided to share my own experiences with therapy on my blog.
Thanks weirdphilosopher! I’ve linked to your blog. There are lots of us out there.
Yes i agree. I left a training course this year as I became increasingly alarmed at the things being ‘believed’ there. I feel psychotherapy is taught by teaching establishments as a response to people’s need for jobs, it seems like a pyramid selling scheme. This sees the attempt at professionalisation of something that cannot be supported by the scientific method. Freud and Jung may have contributed in their day using their own brand of bourgoise pseudo scientific academic language but cannot truly be taken as ‘fit for purpose’ today. For example, sitting in a room (as a client) with a virtual stranger where the client learns nothing of that therapist’s values, biases, beliefs etc, where it is the client who has to adapt to all this. The so called anaytic position. Seems to me to be a hangover from a hunderd years ago, where status symbol ‘special conversation’ activity takes place which can actually be abusive. Where people with an interest in relationships, enough disposable income (a lot nowadays) to train, a desire to ‘do good’ and pay other people to listen to them (and be ‘analysed’). There are power inbalances, do therapists actually really think they know more about someone else than that person does?
I also think there is far too much emphasis on the individual. Sometimes people are unhappy or whatever because they are poor, in bad relationships, live in a difficult environment etc etc. We can’t all have a hardy locus of control whereby we can just get on with it and succeed. For the poor sod born into poverty it takes gigantum motivation, perhaps luck, perhaps some greater inate intelligence to attempt to mobilise up and out of the pit.
Psycotherapy should be re-named ‘a special conversation’ as that is what most therapists call it anyway and members of the public should really know what they are getting for their money.
I notice that you had negative experiences of Gestalt therapy. I think that this type of therapy, as originally conceived and practised by Fritz Perls, was always highly questionable. It emerged from the ‘human potential’ movement of the 60s so I suppose if you look at it in the context of the times it might have made more sense as people were experimenting with challenging rigid societal and cultural norms.
Therapy as carried out by Fritz Perls who could be very challenging and confontational was one of the inspirations for NLP. Richard Bandler, one of the founders of NLP, watched some of the old tapes of his counselling sessions and noted that when clients became sufficiently challenged and confused they entered into a sort of ‘void’ whereby they were susceptible to what the therapist is saying/doing etc. I think that IN THE RIGHT HANDS gestalt therapy and NLP can probably do some good. But IN THE WRONG HANDS they can lead to harm.
I had a very strange experience with a gestalt therapist and terminated the therapy after about half a dozen sessions. She was very keen indeed to get me back for a ‘final session’ but I did not trust her motives at all. Her approach seemed to be a merged of gestalt and NLP in terms of psychological manipulation and mind games. I started to feel like a guineau-pig in a laboratory. Very odd. If you look back on the old Fritz Perls ‘Gloria tapes’ you can see that his approach is very confrontational and challenging. He really was a very strange man – and, like Richard Bandler (one of the founders of NLP) had a colourful personal life (to say the least) and issues around addiction. I don’t think it is any coincidence that the two have a link.
My observations from being a counselling student is that the course leaders identify potential studentst who are vulnerable and do not challenge authority. This gives them a lot of power and control which, in my experience, is not always used responsibly or ethically.
Thanks for your comment. As it happens, I have read about the connections between Gestalt, NLP, est, etc. It’s quite the family tree of dysfunctional therapies! And it doesn’t stop there. Some of the techniques (and of course the authoritarian attitude) are common to cult mind control practices.
It’s a VERY dirty business, and it’s no wonder Gestaltists are so dismissive of informed consent. Few clients would consent to the Gestalt agenda if they knew about it in advance.
Yes – I do agree that there are cult type elements to traditional style gestalt therapy – Perls certainly played along with the cult theme and relished the role of a guru type group leader. His group workshops, which were perhaps appropriately described as circuses, appear to have taken his perverse pleasure in provocation, confrontation and other baiting behaviours to a new height, or perhaps I should write depth. He would pick someone from the audience and then demonstrate his techniques in front of the crowd – while ostensibly this was to ‘demonstrate’ his prowess, what he was effectively doing was tormenting his victim to provide entertainment for the crowd. A form of human bear-baiting. I think there are still residues from this in gestalt practice even today. Although I do think some of the theories and techniques can be helpful if applied responsibly and ethically.
I am interested in Patricia’s experiences as I too am on a counselling course but probably going to leave it. I couldn’t agree more with her assessment of the whole industry as a kind of ‘pyramid selling’ scheme. This is so true. You have to have had a huge number of counselling hours yourself – often students chose to do this at the training centre as it is convenient. Then you have to be in supervision (and, hey presto, the course tutors are available for that which I personally think is too close for comfort). Then, after the training, many students will use the centre for premises for their counselling sessions. It’s all very self-servicing which I suppose is okay if it is all done ethically. But sometimes I have seen a lack of ethical behaviour which I have found worrying.
And I also believe that the foundations of psychotherapy are shaky: Freud, Jung, Perls – all very strange people and there is no real science behind it. Does it work or does it just manufacture more victims? I do find it astonishing that some people are in weekly psychotherapy for years and years.
I also agree with Patricia’s theory that therapy is the equivalent of earlier days philanthropy. Having said all that, I do think it can be helpful in certain situations but probably more as a shorter term, results based ‘talking treatment’. I also think that sessions are too short – you are just getting to the nitty-gritty and it’s time to leave. For me, what would have worked better (if I had been able to find a therapist who I really trusted and respected which I wasn’t able to do) would have been a number of longer sessions – probably up to 2 hours. I find if I am hashing through things with a friend or my partner it takes that long to really get somewhere.
THe psychology industry does a poor job of policing its’ own. If a plumber does a bad, job ..it is simple, he just repairs it. If a psych. screws up the client pays the penalty. No one knows how many clients live in silence after bad expeiences with a psych. No one (I attend the American Counseling Association Convention) EVER talks about the sexualization of therapy……or sex with a client……..100’s of sessions to attend and NOTHING about the bad stuff therapists do…..blinders on. I am an undergraduate at age 65 in social work, because I wrote about my life of overcoming and won a scholarship.
I sought out a therapist (specialist in spiritual abuse), because my church voted me out of membership after getting a divorce, because of 31 years of abuse….He was great, however, when the debacle was over, I stayed with him, because I had feelings for him. I have kept a record of his sexualization of our meetings for 8 years…..he would have a stroke if he knew that.
At one point it was foreplay (3 yrs ago) and very close to having sex……he has made 100’s of sexual comments…”Did you know you touched my penis?” HUH? No, I didn’t…You are in my heart and in my head. If I were not married, I would probably go for it (he HAS gone for it)….wrestling with me, throwing me on the couch…….If I were to kiss you, would it take away the pain?
If I were to stick my tongue down your throat, would you reject me? This is a man who is ALSO (ready?)……..a pastor…….professor at a college, etc., etc……He said that he was “deeply in love with his wife.”
I don’t get it…HOW can you be in love with your spouse and do and say those things to another woman. I have written (4 years ago) a HOw Could you do this to me letter. Haven’t found the courage yet to give it to him.
I am alone and it is excruciating..HE…married with his great little life.Well, I will stop my rant now. If anyone wants to talk: carleton@oakland.edu
Am not so techie and may forget how to get back in here, LOL, LOL
PS He also said: “I trust you with my life.” I know that he sees himself as totally ethical by what he has said to me. Compartmentalization? More than once he has said: “Have I ever led you on? Hmmmm, not something a therapist shou,d be saying to a client??!!
Thank you for being here, sharing your stories, and helping to inform the public about the rampant fraud and exploitation in therapy. There’s another interesting discussion in the comments of a recent NY Times article that may be of interest: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/looking-for-evidence-that-therapy-works/#postComment
These are the comments made by my therapist:
Do you want to get kissed, do you want to get naked, get laid?
Who wouldn’t fall in love with you?!
My colleagues would tell me to run fast and far but I will never abandon you.
How is it every week you take me on a journey where I should not go?
This is beginning to look like a personal relationship.
It is hard for US to end the session and hard for US to say goodbye.
If I gave you the green light, would you go for it?
I’ve failed you and I need to work on that.
Something between us could happen if I was feeling sad or lonely.
You fit right under my arm.
Every man in your life has failed you.
I like curves (he said, “God’s curves”)
I am afraid I am going to fall and it would ruin my life.
I know that you would make a wonderful love partner.
Do you think that if I kissed you it would take away the pain?
I am human and can be tempted.
I am curious, torn scared and conflicted.
I need to check myself and make sure I am not exploiting you physically, emotionally or financially.
If I were to stick my tongue down your throat, you would reject me.
(Pouring water in my glass): Let me fill you up, in a manner of speaking.
You are in my heart and in my head.
Are you wearing a bra? Having an orgasm?
Motioning me with his hands: Bring it on
If I were not married, I would probably go for it.
Held hands, fingers interlocking.
Where do you like to be kissed?
Would you want to have sex with a married man?
Men see purity and innocence in you.
You are so much fun to play with.
Who WOULDN’T fall in love with you?!
I had marshmallows in my mouth and e said: ‘You have quite a capacity…has your mouth slipped off anything else?
Asked why he was (stroking he leg) self-pleasuring. He said, “I do that when I am around you.”
We haven’t discussed OUR orgasm.
Your cup runneth over
I am killing you.
Let me find that sweet sot
A hand could get lost down there
You are a fire
You have hair like a movie star
It is not a me thing, but an US thing
Do you want me to see your nipples?
Do you like undressing for men?
Did he (boyfriend) slip you the tongue?
Ever had your picture taken in the nude?
You have an agile tongue.
Hooked his elbow around my knee and tried to flip me
I touched his nipples and he said, ‘Are they hard?” He said his nipples ae hard ALL of the time .
3 things that turn him on: oral sex, hands all over his body and undressing him.
Invited me to unbutton his shirt and said, ‘It wouldn’t be that much of a boundary violation..”
Told him I thought he was “lonely and hungry”—He said, ‘your evidence/’
Smelled my wrist and slid his face up to my elbow.
Doesn’t like to fight his feelings and if he were ever to touch me he would be “toast.”
If feeling sad or lonely he could take me in his arms and it would be “all over.
You are “passionate, enchantress, angel, elegant, lovely, naïve, wild, crazy, photogenic, spitfire, flirt, seductive and alluring.
You are emotionally sensitive.
My poetry is a “masterpiece” to the world.
I missed you.
I allow for the possibility of surprises.
You are not out of my head once we leave (you are in my heart and in my head) ,
You have been blessed; you can show me more, I wont be offended…in regards to my cleavage.
Can’t believe you don’t know about your power over men.
Admitted my perceptions were correct about him being hungry and lonely.
He is aware of how “hard, soft and what is touching when we hug.”
Drove me home and we sat listening to Yanni (blasting on the radio!) eating chocolate with the moon roof down: he said, ‘If I were your date, I would walk you to the door and shake your hand. “
Put a lei on me and said, ‘It doesn’t mean much without the kiss.”
Said, “move your breasts” twice.
Erections make him feel “alive..”
I’d push you against the wall and you’d be naked before you hit the wall.
You’d like to be nailed to the wall.
I might kiss you.
I trust you with my life.
That is what will happen….we will get married?
Said it would be “pleasureable to make love to me.”
He felt scared and pleasure at whaat happened between us.
I almost touched your softness.
You touched my penis.
If you kiss me…then you kiss me.
Holding my wrists and pulling me on top of him.
You just want me to chase you down and go after you.
He did role reversal and became “me.” I was SO in shock:
You are in love with me but just won’t say it. Would you like to F….me? Can’t we be F…buddies? Aren’t my breasts beautiful? Wouldn’t you like to touch them? Can I give you a blow job; sit on my lap; can we take off our clothes?
There is much more (years and years), but you get the drift!
With a list of red flags like that, what made you stay in therapy? Did you report the therapist?
As an ex-therapist, I have to agree that the ‘therapy’ world is heaving with con-men. There are also plenty of well-meaning but deluded souls there. Some of them take it up because they’re lonely, which is not necessarily a bad thing since you at least understand the loneliness of most of your clients. Almost all of them think they are going to earn a good living from it, and the worst of them do indeed make a good living. Most of them confuse the theory they learnt with fact. They say little, they tell the clients nothing about themselves, they believe in the ’50 minutes’ thing and they are clock-watchers. Here’s the biggest myth: the more you charge, the better people think you are.
The ‘special conversation’ can be good and very helpful, but only if the therapist is rather wise, celibate with clients in thought, word and deed, interested in the person rather than the clock, and willing to do the job with impoverished clients for free. Such therapists are few and far between, and after a few years they are completely burnt out and have to stop!
If you would e-mail me, I would like to share how my “therapy” was “sexualized.” e-mail: carleton@oakland.edu
Thank you! Sincerely, Kate
I agree with all you have said. It is a shame that a whole industry has developed from psychiatry to counselling which has thrived on our attempts to make people happier. The relationship between mental health (whatever that is) and the social, political and economic realities are so complex that theories sit ready to be adapted to ANY personal situation. Freud and Rogers had interesting ideas, as do many well meaning people trying to help people who think the problem lies within themselves but there they should have stopped. I despair to see some of my friends searching and searching for the next therapist or orientation that this time will help.
Ah yes, the searching. Don’t they always say “it may take a while to find a therapist you click with”? That’s a good way to burn through a lot of money and time, and quite possibly end up worse than you started. And every therapist you try to ditch will probably try to pressure you on the grounds that it’s really all about your “resistance”. It’s disgusting, really.
I had a terrible therapy experience with a primal scream therapist called Marsha Nodelman. I made a formal complaint to the british psychoanalytical council and my complaint was just dismissed. Therapists can get away with anything.
This is worrying that your complaint was just dismissed. Have you continued to try? There has been a debate I think in the House of Commons (sorry are you messaging from the UK?) about trying to make regulation legal and psychotherapy a legal title. I’m not reassured by this because I think this will just rubber stamp an area of activity that is strange and very open to exploitation where regulation will not be able to improve.
I think your MP may be a better place to try. Let’s bring problems into the open. Mental health is such a huge issue and we all need to be aware I think.
I’ve just looked at Marsha Nodelman’s website. On the face of it I can see how ‘connected’ this person may be….
Primal scream therapists are nothing more than snake oil merchants of the mind and psychoanalysis is nothing but a sacrosanct lie based on the theories of a disturbed and perverse individual who labelled the rape of little girls as a mere fantasy.
What is worrying me is that there seems to be a lot of stories of abuse, people don’t seem to get anywhere with their complaints and still therapists get clients!
How to ‘get the facts out there’ seems to be the point. I think we do need facts, truth is all.
I felt that ‘belief’ in therapy was needed when I started training a few years ago. I did not continue and turned away from the whole idea of ‘therapy’.
Wow this is the first logical blog I have come across in my vast internet experience. Finally someone who is willing to stand up against a fragile practice and blow the whistle of blunt reality. Therapy has far too many flaws, lack of regulation, and allows too much room for psychological danger to individuals who participate. I know from first hand experience and it has taken many, many years of thinking and dealing with hard emotions to not only reverse the damage done by not just one therapist, but many, but deal with the reasons I was forced into therapy. The Best way I can describe them is fake-friends, and like any fake friend, they can and probably will put their ideas and wills ahead of yours. They are humans too and have their own thoughts, not non-judgmental robots as they may make themselves out to be.
They manipulate the weak and hopeless. Then they play onto their fragile emotions and feed them delusions “all to make them happy and able to move on!” Your better off talking to yourself.
I commented on this blog before about issues I had with my last therapist, and I thought I’d also share something I found disturbing that I was told by a therapist recently at a small party. This person teaches psychology in university as well as practising as a therapist. She told me that sometimes she shares her client’s stories and experiences as examples while teaching in class. This person defended themselves by saying that she takes out names and any identifying details so that it’s not violating confidentiality, but nonetheless the example she gave to us when she was explaining an experience in class that involved a patient’s story was very intimate. I still cannot believe she thinks it is okay to use a person’s lived experience that was shared in confidence in a class full of people. There should be books she can refer to instead. It’s a small world, and if someone knows someone she’s talking about it might not be hard for them to put 2 and 2 together.
Despite her telling you this at a party, I’ll bet she NEVER tells her clients about this. She wouldn’t have any! No one would agree to that for exactly the reason you say. How can we take therapists seriously as health care professionals when they pull these kinds of manipulations?
You’re right, she did not mention letting her clients know this at all. I go to a support group that has a group facilitator who is not a therapist, rather a trained volunteer who also discusses her issues with the group so there is basically is no power imbalance and everyone feels comfortable, it’s also free and always optional. A lot of people in the group talk about their difficulties in therapy, as well as their difficulties with trusting therapists and what therapists will do with the very personal information they are given. It’s so sad that people who already have issues with trust are being further violated by people who are being paid to help.
the British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC) is just a protection racket for predatory narcissists (such as M. Nodelman) who prey on the vulnerabilities of traumatised people. In the USA psychoanalysts and primal scream therapists cannot get a state licence to practise as psychotherapists – these types of therapy are not recognised. But here in the UK any god damn charlatan can set them selves up as a therapist! These so called regulatory bodies in the UK
are a sham – I made a complaint to the BPC and I am a published Neuroscientist (Ph.D.) working at a prestigious UK University on the neurobiology of psychological trauma and in their infinite wisdom the BPC took Nodelman’s opinion more seriously than mine – and this idiot is a complete quack.
Dear Paul, I did PT with Janov in LA in the 70s and was a very close friend of MN. That ended many years ago, but I am very curious about your experience. I wish there were some way we could discuss this.
Paul, I must correct you a little bit about the American system. I don’t know about primal scream therapy (it does seem to be out of fashion, and listening to Tears for Fears is certainly a good substitute 😉 ), but it is shockingly easy to become a licensed professional counselor. As a matter of fact, up until about the mid-2000s, there were a few states where becoming a counselor required *no license at all.* When laws were passed in those states to require licensing, many unlicensed counselors were automatically “grandfathered in” so they wouldn’t have to actually train. So there really is a fair amount of uncharted territory in American therapy, and the American counselor may be on a par with the British psychoanalyst. To top things off, many clients don’t really understand the difference between a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and a counselor, except for the fact that a psychiatrist is also an MD who can prescribe drugs; or if they do recognize a difference, counselors may be perceived as less intimidating due to their lack of formality.
In sum: Crappy situation on both sides of the pond.
I have had poor therapy for years and when I was at an all time low 6 years ago I decided to try therapy again. From the end of 2012 until the beginning of this year, I saw a “student” therapist who abused me by scapegoating and gas-lighting me. I was so convinced it was me that I stayed the entire time. I started waking up at some point and conducted my own “tests” back on him. Once it was confirmed that it was him and not me I left.
I still feel wounded I admit and he made sure to give me one final kick in the butt before completely cutting contact. I have tried a few other therapist since then, but am starting to come to the conclusion that I may not need psychotherapy. There are things I have discovered on my own and have coped with. Stumbling across your blog made me see that there are others who feel similar to me. I honestly believe I may just quit completely and work on myself. I know what my “triggers” and “symptoms” are and have a good idea of what I can do to lesson the impact they have on me and/or others.
Thanks for writing this blog!
Psychotherapy is an utter fraud. Psychology is not a serious science. Get real. You can count on one hand the number of controlled trials where findings can be conclusively demonstrated. And where they exist they usually prove something hopelessly self-evident. You are dealing with the human mind, the most complex thing to have ever existed. There are just way too many factors and variables. Maybe in 1,000 years time they will know enough to make a real contribution to peoples lives. But right now what they practice is pure charlatanism. And they get away with it, because the mentally ill are too weak and powerless and vulnerable to have any recourse. If the patient gets better the psychologist will take the credit, if they don’t they will blame the patient. And anyone who has had the unfortunate experience of poor mental health will know what it is like to have some complete fraud take your money, when you are already down and out, and then blame you when you don’t miraculously recover. Remember psychoanalysis? Hardly any doctors recommend it now. Why? Because they know it doesn’t work. The latest thing is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. In twenty years time it will be something else. Save your money. Avoid psychotherapy.
I’m pretty much the only person in Brazil trying to do something about the ridiculous scam that is psychotherapy… But it seems pointless. Seems like a huge portion of the population, here at least, already knows that it is a scam. Sadly, people who came from broken homes, with mental illnesses or other fragile situations are the ones more likely to believe the therapist’s lies.
Therapy is bad even when it’s well done by well meaning individuals (a lot of professionals actually buy into the crap they learn in college)… But I think the number of therapists who know they sell a scam is even higher we can believe. They’re a lot like church preachers, they know they’re fooling people by playing with their fragilities and desperation.
Psychotherapy is a lot like religion. DBT and CBT even incorporate A LOT of buddhist practices into them.
Psychotherapy is just the religion for the upper classes of our individualistic modern societies.
However, psychotherapists sell themselves to everyone out there, including mentally ill people. Psychology NEVER treated mental illness, NEVER treated trauma, NEVER treated actual broken homes/years of neglect and abuse.
But for every person that gets fooled by therapists by believing that is actual scientific based functional treatments for REAL emotional problems and llnesses, there is another person who is simply looking for someone to talk to.
That is why therapists still exist. It’s the client that just wants a paid friend and will keep a therapist employed for a loooong time.
Just investigate any succesful psychotherapist. He has at least ONE of these clients, aside from the horde of poor saps that pay to get goaded and manipulated until they wise up or are made so much worse they just want to break apart with the therapist.
All in all, the therapist is a manipulator or a prostitute of the mind, depends on how well funded and how exploitable the client is.
Don’t believe therapy heals mental illness or real personality and trauma related issues. Therapy does not help real problems, nor it is an exclusive service only they can provide. They’re just cheap replacements for relatives or friends AT BEST, conniving manipulators who exploit your weaknesses and project their own sickness onto you for money or a sadistic need to AT WORST.
“Psychotherapy is a lot like religion. DBT and CBT even incorporate A LOT of buddhist practices into them.” Funny you should mention religion. Marsha Linehan, the mother of DBT, is a former nun. (I’ve never done DBT, but my research on the dark side of therapy has yielded some interesting info.)
My personal rule is to be exceedingly wary of people who left or got kicked out of a religious order or seminary school, including but not limited to Marsha Linehan, John Bradshaw, Tom Cruise, and Joseph Stalin. 😛
Thank you very much for this blog. Someone needs to get the word out there that therapy is a fraud and can often do more harm than good.
Why do you have a picture of Nobby’s Point as your banner image? Are you from Newcastle, NSW, Australia?
Ha, I chose that picture for the image of a ship run aground (symbolism), but I love that someone finally spotted where it was! I lived in Newcastle for a bit, years ago.
Interesting article:
What Brand Is Your Therapist?