If I have to be honest I dont believe so many people are happy with the “help” they received in therapy. Its good thing that therapy is not a stigma anymore but on the other hand no one talks about bad psychology help, no one talks about bad therapists and psychologists. I wonder if people analyze their psychologist and actually deeply think “was this a good help? was this a good advice? can I see this person understands my problem or is there psychology textbook in their head and they just repeat the same pattern over and over again?”
So far I visited 4 psychologists and 1 esoteric therapist. I think I can say I got quite the experience. And it wasn’t good.
The first psychologist was paid by insurance and oh boy it showed so much. She was a talking textbook, literally internet webpage with the most basic repetative lines I could easily google in 10 seconds. No deeper level of understanding. Her phone was constantly ringing so she was like “oh let me take it” and I had to wait for her to finish the call. That makes you feel shitty. She could see I had low self-esteem so she would praise me on all sort of things, I dont like when psychologists compliment me because in my eyes its very fake attempt that is so obvious to see through and I simply cant believe that praise. The only kind of praise I accepted in my mind was when other psychologist told me that Im brave to opose my parents and the ways they attempt to mold my life.
Im used to analyze people interacting with me so I was always very intensively analyzing the way they talk to me, what kind of methods they use when I talk about trauma, the way they respond and give advice, what was disturbing to me was when I noticed 3 of them were trying in very subtle and gentle almost unnoticable way to convince me that Im not attracted to girls because I got trauma that made me think I like girls. Im stubborn I always stood my ground and disagreed. It made me so angry, I felt being manipulated in “but Im psychologist, I know whats going on in your head the best, I understand you more than you understand yourself so Im right, sweetie :)”
Whenever I was leaving sessions I felt bad. It was rare when I felt good and relieved. It was always such a bad feeling. I was always wondering “so what sort of help was this? Was this useful? Can the things she said help with my problems? I only feel confused, angry and I feel like I wasted my money.... is it worth it?” I dont think you should have these thoughts when receiving any kind of psychological help.
The esoteric therapist was extremely disturbing, also ridiculous case. But mostly I feel bad that she has clients who think theyre being helped, but are manipulated instead. The most disturbing thing she told me was that its my fault that I was bullied at elementary school and sexual abuse was my fault too because I had very bad energy around me at that time and it provoked the people involved in the cases. That’s some deeply crazy shit. If I had different personality it surely would fuck me up so badly, I would get manipulated so much into her crazy talk. But all I could think was “oh gosh lady you sure are crazy and manipulative person, what kind of bullshit is this.” I tried to analyze her a lot but Im still not sure if she genuinely believed the stuff she said and was convinced that she helps people, or she was just a pure manipulator taking advantage of easily influenceable people and milking the cash from them.
Of course these bad experiences made me very sceptical of psychological help. Of course I did receive some good advices as well, but the bad outweights the good. I still want to find a *good* psychologist, but its hard finding one that got free schedule and has good reliable reviews. In any way, Im sure there is more of us. it’s important that people seek out psychological help but they need to receive GOOD psychological help most importantly. Please consider the help value of your therapists and psychologists. Consider if you feel safe, if you feel a good progress. As you can see on my examples, not all psychological help is good and worth it and you should be critical of it.
