I’ve never really discussed this with anyone, and I’m trying to make sense of what happened. I’m posting here because I’d appreciate hearing from people who’ve experienced something similar.

I used to attend counselling to work through my relationship with my mum, particularly codependency and sexual abuse. Looking back, I’m increasingly uncomfortable with some of the things that happened with my counsellor.

During one session, he told me I was his favourite client. Rather than making me feel reassured, I remember feeling pressured by it, as though I had to maintain that position. He also told me that he sometimes got sick of patients, which stayed in the back of my mind. I became increasingly anxious about whether he still enjoyed working with me or thought I was making progress.

He told me he had borderline personality disorder and suggested that I might have it too, despite being a counsellor rather than a psychiatrist. On another occasion, he suggested that I could have a session at his house, even though we normally met at the counselling institution. I declined. I also remember occasionally noticing a smell of weed when attending sessions, although I couldn’t establish where it was coming from (live in the UK).

At the time, I was discussing my codependency with my mum, but I began to feel that a similar dynamic was developing between me and my counsellor. I felt increasingly preoccupied with his opinion of me, became more anxious and distant, and worried that he was becoming tired of me. I remember raising the possibility of countertransference in one session, but I don’t feel that it helped.

There were also things he said that have stayed with me.

About two weeks after confronting my mum about sexual abuse, he was encouraging me to speak to her again. I was still processing everything, and looking back, I don’t understand why there seemed to be an emphasis on reconnecting so soon.

He also shamed me about my fawn response, which was something I was trying to understand and work through.

One memory that particularly hurts is breaking down in a session while talking about my mum sexually abusing me and my dad calling me the runt of the litter. I was crying and asking what I was supposed to do when neither of my parents loved me. His response was that they loved me.
I understand that he might have been trying to reassure me, but it didn’t sit right with me. I felt that the harm I’d experienced was being overlooked in favour of telling me how my parents supposedly felt. Whatever they might have felt internally, it didn’t change how their behaviour had affected me.

Eventually, I had a session in which I was genuinely panicking and discussing intimate sexual experiences I’d had on dating apps. The sessions had become increasingly tense, and I was very conscious of whether he was becoming frustrated with me. He called me a freak and told me to go home. I never attended another session after that, and I sent him an abusive message afterwards. I’m not proud of that response, and I’m willing to acknowledge my own behaviour, but I also don’t think it automatically makes everything that happened beforehand acceptable.

I left the institution a one-star Google review about a year ago. Only recently did I notice that they’d responded, saying they had no record of me attending and inviting me to contact them for a resolution. Seeing that response brought back a lot of memories.

What makes this difficult is that I’ve been afraid to discuss the experience with my current counsellor, who trained at the same institution. I’m worried she might see me differently or think I’m crazy if I tell her the whole story.

I’ve experienced people using my emotional reactions to dismiss what I’m saying before, and I think I’m frightened that my anxiety, my behaviour during the sessions, or the abusive message afterwards will be used to discredit my experience altogether.

I’m not claiming that I handled everything perfectly, and I can’t know exactly what my former counsellor intended. But looking back, I feel there were some serious problems with the boundaries and the way my distress was handled.
I’m struggling to understand whether this was an unhealthy therapeutic relationship, whether I was caught in a familiar codependent dynamic, or whether I’m only now seeing things differently because of how the relationship ended.

Has anyone experienced something similar with a therapist or counsellor? How did you make sense of it afterwards? And how did you learn to discuss the experience with another therapist without being afraid that they would judge you or dismiss your account?

Just trying to go to therapy session now feels like self betrayal after experiencing continuous retraumatisation in therapy more than once - where original abusive relational dynamics were recreated and i been conditioned to accept neglect, invalidation and control as "support". Now i meet decent therapist and i just fall into fawning/dissociation - it can be provoked just from minimal things when therapist invalidates slightly (what i experience as invalidation) or for example i find therapeutic neutrality about event of abuse really triggering - in my system it feels like therapist is creating umbiguity in quite clearly abusive situation. Also i experience therapy as emotionally neglectful as a concept. I often feel that therapists ignore my pain, story, abuse i experienced, and mostly my feelings/disregulation that are direct response to current diverse life events. I just feel that i am always being ignored as a person in my present difficult reality and some "method" is being pushed on top witch is just draining me. It feels like giving more weight on my shoulders when i already struggle to carry the weight i am holding. And also i feel that any of this is not welcome in therapy. Like its not said directly, but in a way i feel that therapists dont want to hear anything about actual emotional suffering that i am going trough now. They just have some sort of agenda/method that they want to apply or are intruiged by, and i feel that actual support is off the table in therapy by default. And i just end up fawning all the time there and being submissive to their expectations somehow.

When I was a child, I didn't even know why I was in therapy, but looking back, I see it did absolutely nothing for me; the therapist was, at best, someone paid to play simple board games with me. In fact, it was worse than useless when I needed it most: when I told her about the harassment I’d suffered, she didn't even give my mother the details. I understand confidentiality, but because of that omission, my abuser went unpunished and faced no consequences.

Things got worse during my teenage years. When I was being bullied, that same therapist accused me of playing the victim for not wanting to go to school and offered insane solutions, like telling my bullies "I'm thinking of a comeback" when I didn't know what to say to them. Needless to say, that therapist had likely never suffered in her life and had no idea what it’s like to be oppressed.

In the time between adolescence and adulthood, I encountered a therapist who harassed me and then turned aggressive when I didn't respond to her flirtatious advances. There was also a psychiatrist whom I BEGGED to help me make friends (I was going mad from loneliness and desperately needed human contact), and in response, she simply mocked me and treated me like a writhing worm unworthy of help.

In adulthood, the breaking point came when, halfway through a session, a therapist called me "shit face" because of my sad, bitter expression. She didn't understand that I only have a miserable look because I have a miserable life, but that thought probably never even crossed her mind. She just wanted to amuse herself by tormenting a defenseless person during the session.

In my humble opinion, the whole field is complete TRASH. I understand that it might have helped some people and that there are good professionals out there, but personally, those people are no better than bullies, harassing coomers and parasites.

Many of my current mental health issues, such as PTSD and learned helplessness, stem from that useless therapeutic system. I harbor deep resentment toward those professionals and simply wish the worst for them. I am certain that if they were in my shoes, those horrible people would have turned into criminals and murderers, given that they were destructive toward me even while living perfect, easy lives.

My Dad is is 76. My Mother passed away unexpectedly 5 years ago. He has since then remarried and sees his new wife's therapist. His new wife does not like us and has severely damaged our family. Now that my Dad sees her therapist he tells us that his therapist has accused us of abuse and, according to my Dad, has told him to become estranged with us. So we now have been estranged for a little over a year but still encourage him to have a relationship with our kids. He now says that his therapist thinks it'd be best for him to be estranged from his grandchildren as well. She has never met any of us. Her "title" is: MS, LPC. I am not positive if my Dad is telling the truth so I thought I could reach out to her and tell her that my Dad is saying these things about what her. If it's true, I certainly think she should be disbarred. Why would a therapist encourage someone of estrangement with their family when they've never met us and we have had a close and loving relationship for 50 years!? My sisters and I asked to meet with her a few years ago but then my Dad's new wife said that her therapist has canceled because her therapist thinks we "act like 12 year old spoiled brats."

I'm not going to detail the full extent of my personal experiences here, because the modus operandi of these forces includes picking apart survivors' stories with a dismissive-by-default stance, and using coordinated networks of bots and human provocateurs to discredit and isolate them.

I am instead going to encourage everyone here to read about "Experiment A", an extensive campaign of abuse committed by disgraced youtuber and rapist "exurb1a" against a target of his fascination, with the ultimate goal of isolating her, discrediting her, causing her to inhabit a state of psychosis, and encouraging her to commit suicide. He engineered an extensive series of "synchronicities" in her environment, and encouraged her to document each instance that she found, under the auspices of scientifically documenting the broader nature of "synchronicity" and its effect on the world. (I am probably paraphrasing incorrectly, but that is my understanding of the gist.)

(a note and a plea: please do NOT engage with that youtuber's content, i absolutely do not want this post to be responsible for any increase in his views and associated ad revenue.)

His victim was brushed off by local police when she attempted to report her experiences, and the abuse did not stop even after submitting to hospitalization for the suicidal ideation that the abuse instilled in her. Her experiences were eventually affirmed by higher authorities, but the perpetrator remains at large, and continues to enjoy a small but dedicated cult following.

I have been subjected to a similar campaign of abuse involving engineered "synchronicities" over the past year, which I have attempted to report to various counselors and mental health professionals, whom have all brushed me off and levied accusations of paranoia or delusional thinking without actually considering the evidence that I have presented them. I have noticed that some of them exhibited signs of panic whenever I made any real headway in persuasively articulating the content and nature of these events, going so far as to frequently interrupt my explanations with repetitive appeals to the unknowability of all things.

I strongly believe that some of them have been threatened into silence, which is part of why I have not reported their behavior up any kind of medical chain of authority; but I have nevertheless seen enough very strange and out-of-character behavior in these professionals over the past year, as mass surveillance has become more widely understood as a force in the world to be reckoned with.

Absolutely none of them have had a confident response to offer to the observation that surveillance is now ubiquitous enough, sufficiently long-range, and sufficiently integrated with automated pattern recognition systems that confidentiality in therapeutic conversations is now fundamentally impossible to assure. One attempted to argue that illegal wiretaps would not be admissible in a court of law, and had no response whatsoever to the counterpoint that there are more dangers inherent in a false assumption of therapeutic confidentiality than legal liability alone - for example, the danger that perpetrators with either personal, political, or corporate motivations might use the content of surveilled conversations to engineer such aforementioned "synchronicities", commit identity theft, assume narrative control of a target's life, engage in stalking and harassment, and visit violence upon their targets and their loved ones.

I'm already speaking more to my own experience than I said I would and than is probably wise, but I lay all of this out to support my deep suspicion, developed over this past year, that intelligence agencies, in concert with local authorities and mental health professionals and establishments whose cooperation they elicit or coerce, have broadly adapted "Experiment A" on a massive scale, and are using its techniques as a means of political suppression of dissidents and persecuted minorities - under both of which umbrellas I happen to fall. I suspect, too, that the original perpetrator of "Experiment A" likely enjoyed cooperation from police and mental health professionals in his victim's home country, and that similar "experiments" have been occurring for some time before that campaign of abuse.

I'm posting this, knowing that doing so may very well result in retribution by those perpetrating this similar campaign against me, in the hopes that I can shine a light on the reality of this practice, so that others may better protect themselves against captured institutions. I happen to believe that we need safe and reliable institutions that fulfill the role of mental health treatment if we are to live in a free and peaceful society, and I also happen to believe that intelligence agencies perform a vital role in the safekeeping of our society, so I am very hesitant to call such negative attention to either; however, the sabotage and weaponization of one by the other is antithetical to the goals of both.

I do not think every counselor, psychiatrist, or therapist is aware that this is happening; i very much believe, from what I have seen, that many of them are unwitting participants. We are all here aware of the parallels between cults and the wider mental health industry; it is incredibly easy to imagine subtle manipulation in the guise of professionalism being used to enlist the aid of persons who would never knowingly attend to such evil. Please do not antagonize or harass mental health professionals on the basis of what I'm saying here. They are victims of this regime as well.

Instead, be aware. Spread the word. And work together to seize back the reins of narrative authority from these captured institutions; choose to second-guess brushes-off of paranoia or delusional thinking before second-guessing the brushed-off themselves. It is a matter of personal and national security, regardless of which country any of us happens to live in, that we elevate listening, understanding, and reasoning as pro-social principles, and that we cast suspicion on arguments from authority. If we do not, we will be tacitly participating in an ensemble of silent genocides, and the total capture of conceptual truth.

I started working with an intern about 5 years ago. She told me deeply personal things and eventually we got to the point where we emailed every single day and checked in with each other sharing equally about our lives. I thought I was lucky and won the therapist lottery. I expressed concern over what might happen if she had to end therapy for some reason whether I became well or whether she became unwell or had to stop working for whatever reason. She always reassured me and said we’d stay in touch. A few months ago she said she was burnt out and didn’t know when she’d return but continued to email me everyday and say she’d let me know when she’d be back. At an earlier point she said we’d become so close it was hard to figure out how to approach the relationship because there was a friendship side to her and therapist side and asked me if I wanted to maybe just be friends instead and I said I was a little scared the relationship would fade away that way and was scared to do that and thought she was helping me as my therapist. So, when she took the break and said she was burnt out I said maybe we should think about just holding onto our friendship and quit with the therapy. And she said yeah she was happy to do that, but we didn’t make a decision, and I thought we’d have at least one more appt to wrap things up. Three weeks later she cancels all sessions indefinitely and starts talking to me like a complete stranger. Told me to keep in touch and we’d figure out the boundaries that worked for us, and so I did, and she went from sharing every detail of her life with me and what she was doing that day to saying she hopes I get the support I need and hopes I’m well. Like we were distant acquaintances. It has messed with my sense of trust and reality so deeply and I am so traumatized. Looking back on our relationship I now see her as withholding and erratic. Saying whatever she felt like saying in the moment to keep me there (I had been wanting to leave because I feared we were too close and staying would make me more attached and she said don’t worry we’ll keep in touch, and so I’d stay.) and then the second she was done getting paid for sure I was discarded like trash. I think about this everyday and really need someone to share their thoughts, especially someone that has been through something so strange. I can’t believe you’d lie through your teeth knowing you had no intention of following through and then at our last appt she said nothing she does is ever good enough for me. When all I asked for was a definition to our relationship and stable boundaries that she didn’t move every week depending on her mood. I’d be upset so she’d reassure me and when things calmed down she’d subtly walk back what she said then I’d get upset and the cycle would start again. She blamed my deeply stigmatized disorder and my overt reactivity because her inconsistency was covert and subtle so I looked like the bad guy. I honestly don’t know how she sleeps at night with how she took advantage of me when she needed a friend because she was going through a hard time then dropped me like I was nothing.

They talk about therapy 58.30 min in, how the therapy field has most narcissistic people and other nasty characters than any other profession.

https://youtu.be/4dvUwVK21-c

According to peer reviewed research done in Liverpool, if psychiatry was held to the same standards as medicine, "98% of psychiatry would be unadulterated quackery".

The main findings of the research were:

• Psychiatric diagnoses all use different decision-making rules • There is a huge amount of overlap in symptoms between diagnoses • Almost all diagnoses mask the role of trauma and adverse events • Diagnoses tell us little about the individual patient and what treatment they need

The authors conclude that diagnostic labelling represents ‘a disingenuous categorical system’.

Lead researcher Dr Kate Allsopp, University of Liverpool, said: “Although diagnostic labels create the illusion of an explanation they are scientifically meaningless and can create stigma and prejudice. I hope these findings will encourage mental health professionals to think beyond diagnoses and consider other explanations of mental distress, such as trauma and other adverse life experiences.”

https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2019/07/08/study-finds-psychiatric-diagnosis-to-be-scientifically-meaningless/amp/

I don't know how to say this. It's very sensitive and I don't know if posting here is the right approach, but I desperately need an outside perspective on what is real.

I’ve been working with a therapist (through online sessions)for more than 6 months. We identified complex trauma in me, and I’ve had multiple sessions of EMDR. She also told me we need to work on my shame. I shared a lot of things with her and she usually listens. However, I have deeply struggled and feared sharing how I feel about her behavior during sessions. I feel constantly invalidated by her, but I kept telling myself it's just my past triggers. I am aware that I fawn heavily toward her and agree to everything she says out of fear.

The Incident: One day, there was a moment of perceived victim-blaming regarding a past sexual incident. She used the analogy that what happened was like "sharing an OTP (one-time password) to a scammer." In that session, I was deeply shocked and I dissociated. I think she saw me struggling, but she just continued to "teach" me anyway.

The Aftermath: • Next Session: I brought this up and told her that her words re-traumatized me, and that I lost my sense of trust and safety. Her only response was, "Thank you."

• Asking for Qualifications: When I asked her about her qualifications around this time, she told me she "is not gonna prove herself to me" and gave me an ultimatum to "repair or leave." Because of my fawning response and fear of abandonment, I chose to repair.

• Two Months Later: I brought up the OTP analogy again because I couldn't let it go. She claimed she didn't mean it that way, that it was just a general statement about my people-pleasing behavior, and that I had misunderstood her. She used it as an opportunity to lecture me about my triggers.

Recent Events: She identified my main trigger as "Invalidation," which it is. I feel invalidated by her in almost all sessions, but I used to just shut up and listen, thinking she knew best. Yesterday, I brought it up again. I told her I fear that if I voice negative experiences about her, she will abandon me. She outright responded that she "is not my mother" and kept repeating it. When I asked if she could be a little more sensitive about my main trauma (the sexual incident), she again said she isn't my mother and that I expect too much. When I asked what a client can expect from a therapist, she told me to be mature and "google it myself." She aggressively tried to force me to see her perspective, telling me I wasn't accepting reality. She said that 99% of the time I have a good experience, and for this 1% incident (the OTP comment), I am trying to blame her and make her a "bad therapist." She said no matter what she says, I stick to my narrative that she hurt me. After 45 minutes of this, she put up a boundary, said she wouldn't explain herself, and advised me to take a break. She said, "You can just think I'm the worst therapist in the world." At that moment, I saw a look on her face that reminded me of a little child, and it made me feel deeply, seriously scared.

My Reaction: As the session ended, I intensely regressed into the past. My body was shivering, and I was crying deeply from my stomach. She just told me to take my time and lectured me again about my "choices." After logging off, the regression got worse. I felt completely disconnected, almost psychotic with fear, and felt my situation was getting out of hand before I finally came back to my senses. I am also experiencing intense nightmares about this, which is why I brought it up again after trying to move on for 2 months. She keeps telling me to just deal with it myself and sit with my feelings.

My Questions: Is my therapist right? Did she handle this professionally? Am I the one who is just "sticking to a narrative" instead of moving on? What is the reality here? Am I doing anything wrong by wanting to leave or feeling this way?

Edit: * The Qualification Issue: Yesterday, she claimed that she already told me about her qualifications in our very first session, but I genuinely do not remember this happening at all and I highly doubt she ever did. Regardless, when I asked her to state them, she flatly refused. She told me she "is not gonna prove herself to me" and accused me of only asking because I thought she hurt me and wanted her to prove her worth.

A few years ago, I was working with a therapist for four years. I came out of an abusive relationship of 4 years to spend another 4 years with an abusive therapist.

When I look back at what had happened during therapy, I learned a lot of useful lessons about boundaries, but they were tainted by the unresolved lack of professionality in my therapist. This woman used me to fill in the void from her infertility and used me as her surrogate son and convinced me that it was "for me".

The relationship became toxic when during COVID, I was unemployed and she offered probono lessons, which she later regretted. It was at this time that she completely abandoned the importance of boundaries, and started focusing on making sure that I do not report other providers when doctors screw up (like that one time that doctor delayed my cancer treatment at the time).

I think this woman was more concerned about saving the skin on her back, than actually encouraging me preserving myself. The words she said to me will always stick with me "just because you found your voice, doesn't mean you should use it".

I eventually fired her after I called her out for snapping me while I was homeless.

Since then, I feel like I kind of lost my voice, and I am trying to find it again.

I was fired from my corporate job after falling out with my therapist, because I needed iodine radiation therapy for a week, and then got fired for being a cancer survivor.

Then I worked for a corporation ran by narcissistic leadership, was stalked, and ostracized all in an effort to humiliate me and coverup a layoff.

And now I work for a much smaller company, but still had to deal with a manager with poor leadership and people skills, and a bunch of bosses or managers with no communication skills, just intolerance and punity. All at the cost of my self-esteem and life balance.

I am trying to find ways to regain my voice. I am taking medication for anxiety, and hopefully some for ADHD. I hope my provider sees what's been happening with me and gives me the medication, but they're so determined to treat the anxiety before the ADHD, for seemingly reasonable reasons.

And I am trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I am trying to study and upskill in areas that I care about, and trying to unlearn all the trauma and pain inflicted upon me by my family, employers and therapist.

My experience in therapy was mostly about learning how to silence myself more, forget my dreams, supress my feelings, loose my autheticity, becoming more compliant, less myself, and less brave. It even conditioned me to accept more abuse, pressured to accept manipulations and emotional control as norms and pathologised my reaction (such as despair, anger or distrust) to exploitation/injustice. It attacked/pathologised my nesd to fight for my dignity and social injustice. And never ever created safe space to process my trauma, grief or pain. It never felt also like a safe enviroment to be vulnerable or simply myself as it always was based on strong pressure to change who i am, but they "gave" conditional acceptance and caused neglect/invalidation in the room and normalised it when i was experiencing this from other people. Almost all effect on me from abuses i experienced (narcisistic mother, severely punitive father and other men in family, institutional control, constant devaluation from others for authenticity and vulnerability) i figured out myself from books, spirituality and other people. Therapy never ever was a space where actual damage was explored.

What feels most betraying is that it sells as and is presented as doing exactly these things they are not doing in there. Therefore i feel like i was scammed, scammed at the spiritual, intimate level. Where i was pressured to share the depths of myself on the premise that it will liberate me and help to regain my sense of self, just to get reatrumatised and hurt the same way i was hurt right from when i was a child while paying for it.

I've heard good things about IFS (Internal Family Systems) and was wondering if anyone here has managed to learn and practice it on their own, to a pretty deep level, and actually benefited a lot from it.

I've also heard that there are certain stages or parts of the process where it's not recommended to go deeper alone, due to risks like blind spots or getting overwhelmed/uncertain. Not sure how true that is, or whether I'd even want to go that far (at this time).

But I'm curious if anyone here, especially after experiencing therapy abuse, has taken this route or something similar. How far did you get on your own, and what was your experience like?

Hello. I'd like to share my experience from a family constellation therapy, that I feel it might have been abusing. So... I have been dealing with C-PTSD, panic disorder, agoraphobia, and depression for 20 years, and I am currently in EMDR and somatic trauma therapy.

Lately I occasionally participate in a family constellation workshop(not by my Emdr therapist), because I thought it was fascinating and helped me to see through people's behaviour. So, one day I was asked to represent the husband of the woman who made the request( I don't know him in person).

From the very beginning, things felt "toxic" . The wife's representative was incredibly aggressive, she was yelling and started invading my personal space. When I calmly tried to set a boundary by saying, "I am here too," she immediately turned on me, started screaming at me, interrupting me, and launching a verbal assault. Another representative accused me because " I should have said it differently". Instead of protecting me, the facilitator didn't stop them, or help me explain my point of view.

Because of this intense hostility and my own past history of school bullying, my nervous system went into a severe freeze response. I collapsed by the side of a couch, crying uncontrollably, shaking, and experiencing muscle spasms. The facilitator completely neglected me and left me in this traumatic state for thirty minutes- at least- and noone tried to help me.

In the aftermath, the wife, her sister and the daughter blamed the husband and the facilitator called him incompetent, because of his trauma and constant " freeze state". I realized that the field actually showed the exact toxic dynamic of that family: an abusive, attacking wife and a completely frozen, silenced husband. But I didn't dare to express it because it seemed that the facilitator had already decided to scorn him.

I feel so so angry for the injustice towards this person I represented and for the fact that no-one tried to help me while I was literally collapsing on the floor. So people in freeze/survival mode like myself deserve to be left alone and be abused and neglected because "they are incompetent".

Has anyone else experienced this kind of emotional abuse/ trigger/ retraumatization in Family Constellations therapy? I know I should have known better, and never gone there in the first place, but I never thought something like that would ever happen.

I am a 40-year-old disabled man. I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease 5 years ago. I didn't want to live after the diagnosis and I was recommended to start therapy after 3 years of really intense therapy and really building an amazing relationship. I told her that I had feelings for her. I realized that this is a normal thing in therapy and we initially worked through it and a little while later she started going through a divorce and shortly after the divorce I pressed the issue again and that was the first time that she showed me herself naked. I should know that all of our appointments were via video call. After showing me a picture of herself naked she sent me an Amazon wishlist and I bought everything on the Amazon wish list and then she put more things on the Amazon wish list and I bought everything else. Probably somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 worth of merchandise,gift cards etc. your relationship went on in a way that I was obviously pleased with for about 2 months and then she told me that I needed to see another therapist so that the relationship could continue. In the interest of making sure that she didn't get in any trouble, I was sent to her college, best friend and her college best friend made me feel as though things were my fault and that I needed to give her time to heal. There are a lot of interpersonal Dynamics that I'm not going to get into here, but ultimately I realized that I had been taken advantage of and I've spent the last 2 years trying to recover from that. It's really difficult to establish a new therapeutic relationship because every therapist I talk to is so taken aback by what happened that they become really uncomfortable and really distant and it's been impossible to find a therapist. I've tried to reach back out to the therapist that took advantage of me just to give what amounts to a victim statement and she has acted as though you know I'm the problem so I don't know what to do with myself. I'm really sick and honestly probably don't have a whole lot of time left so you know I understand that the thing that I'm supposed to do is just forgive or report or whatever. Let me just frame where I am today. I live alone I can't leave my house. Fully disabled and I don't have a lot of time left. I just don't know what to do and going through the process of fully reporting her has been daunting already and I really just want her to know how much she hurt me because she was supposed to protect me. I don't know. I apologize for the way that this has been written. Am using voice to text so it might be funny

I was repeatedly sexually abused by my therapist when I was a minor. When I told someone I thought was my friend about it, the first thing she said was
“It was probably a counselor who lied about being a therapist, MY THERAPIST WOULD NEVER.”

When I told my psychiatrist who recommended me the therapists, he forced me not to report it because it would “make him look bad”

When I told a different therapist I was forced to go to, she changed the subject immediately and started talking about her dog.

If you were abused by a therapist, all of the “pro mental health victim advocates” wouldn't pour water on you if you were on fire on the slight chance a therapists in a 100 foot radius was a bit thirsty.

I have mild autism and ADHD. I'm from a country with lots of corruption that has little regulations so therapists can be unprofessional. I have had bad experiences. I have abusive ableist parents and one of them had called them behind my back to tell them that I want to move out. He had the home landline number through my social security number. Other times I've been mocked by 3 of them for being autistic.

The one I'm seeing now, I had a health issue and needed hospital asap and I wanted support regarding going to the ER. She didn't comfort me, instead she emphasized the waiting times and that I will not be treated with commiseration. Then suggested we book another session the same week. Didn't help me either with taking the courage to go. I told her to have a short call one day anytime she could do that I can call a private ambulance right after it and she refused. She said she only talks with clients about therapy related stuff inside the sessions. She told me to have double sessions again if I'm anxious about something. She is expensive as well.

Also she mainly just frames what I say and repeats it back at me. She has encouraged me to reconnect with an abusive guy I was dating a while ago. She belittles me sometimes too. I think she's taking advantage of me. I have disclosed my autism and ADHD.

So I think of just going for AI instead and other forms of support like occupational therapy.

"When it comes to power, eclipsing the boss is a particularly dangerous mistake. People in power need to feel secure in their position, superior to others in intelligence and charisma, and deserving of their perks. When they feel insecure, they lash out.

Whenever you demonstrate your talents you provoke resentment and envy (manifestations of insecurity) in others, whether they’re bosses, subordinates or peers. Of course, you can’t spend your life worrying about everyone’s petty jealousies, but you need to pay special attention to your approach with superiors because of their greater ability to harm you. They can make heads roll, although not as literally as did kings of the past. This is why it’s important to never outshine the master, your superior."

Everyone is faking it to get out of a psych ward.

I sat down and made a list of all the personal, private things I know about my ex-therapist. They often made my sessions about their problems (or about venting to me about other clients).

None of these things benefited me. They actually made it harder for me to do the work. It did not take a PHD in Marriage & Family Therapy to see that they were visibly triggered by things I shared in therapy. I started to feel "bad" approaching certain topics ... and then they would blame me for not opening up.

But every time I opened up, it turned into their session. And I would have to tend to them. It drained me every time.

Anyway, I am listing all the private things I know about them, and it is shocking. I should not know these things!

They used my therapy time to make it about themselves.

I even know all about how they changed their name on their birth certificate, their bitterness about their teachers as a child, their hatred for their father, where their spouse works and how they feel about it, where they shop for feminine presenting clothing and the struggle of finding any they can wear (they spent half my session on that, and they KNEW I had brought voicemails of my dead father to play that day ... to show what he was like ... now I realize they were subconsciously or consciously preventing me playing those tapes to avoid their own triggers re: fathers), how they feel about their body size (after verbally abusing me about my eating disorder, as if my ED were about them somehow???), that they look just like their father and they hate it, how they felt about patients they used to watch in an epilepsy monitoring unit (they enjoyed "catching fakers" ... which is not what PNES is ... but also they knew I have epilepsy so it felt like they were trying to subtly telegraph that they doubt me, too), what kinds of breasts they notice or do not notice ... on & on.

I could see A FEW of those things being therapeutic if disclosed in the right context, and with care (and brevity) ... that is not what happened, though.

OH! And of course that they think their other clients are liars and fakers ...

Who else had a therapist who over disclosed or stole sessions like this?

I feel like i am in this difficult situation where i want to process, heal, go deep and share my sometimes strong feelings from past trauma. But in therapy system i am always being met with rationalisations, calls to get over it and blame/pressure to take responsibility for god knows what. Like i feel it operates like fixing machiene that states that you are broken, and presents it like a great insight and then just pressures to fix yourself and get back to being normal again. For me even from spiritual perspective this is such a bulshit and neglect of my humanity and reality, and just because of this i feel unable to go to those rooms. I dont need to be fixed or pressured even more, life already is hard enough, i need safe space to process my pain, my sorrow and other feelings from life that has been a battle and shaped by chronic trauma. I jusr wonder if therapy as a concept is about this healing, safety and change trough healing and self discovery? Or is it just about another person, speaking to you in "therapeutic" voice, sitting there in power position telling you to get over your shit and to not bother him or others about it and literaly just repeating the same pain that life gave you, just in a way subtly presenting to you reality that no one cares and i am imagining my trauma, past abuse and present life issues and that i am causing evrrything on myself ? Ignoring feelings and etc ? Because so far it was mostly second one to me.

Ok, this is long, so I'll add some primers.

Background: I was intimately involved with a therapist for about 4-5 years and will likely never recover from the systematic abuse and the unethical behavior I witnessed. I have put enough of the emotion behind me but the trauma still exists. I hope to warn others to not be like me. See the signs sooner. And act before its too late.

• Many of your assumptions on therapists are spot on but some aren't and really are defense mechanisms, at least from what I observed.

• Breaches of Confidentiality: Client stories and personal details were frequently used as casual gossip or social leverage.

• If you need an EMDR therapist in Cary NC, hoping to encourage "A Blooming Life" through "Counseling", stay FAR away from one specific private therapist. I wish I could warn the world, and I feel so bad for anyone who places their trust in her.

• I've observed (detailed below) ethical boundaries and misuse of tools: Therapeutic concepts and techniques were routinely weaponized for personal gain, manipulation, and control over friends and family members. Additionally, I observed improper practice dynamics among colleagues, including overlapping individual and couples counseling that compromised professional standards. This profession may attract some really damaged people. My hope is all therapists aren't this way, but many in her professional circle certainly are.

• Fun fact: Did you know there is FB group for Therapist Singles where they post people's information and criticize their profiles, texts, and date experiences? Breaching privacy in online groups is fun!

• Sad Fact: Because of my time with her I can likely never again see a therapist for issues. I tried twice and ended both halfway through the sessions. Too many activating phrases and methodologies that just take me right back there after being around it for years. It's insane.

• Because this is so personal, this may come across at times as sour grapes, but it is not. I have years of texts and other messages which back all of this up.

My goal is to let others know here, as they informed me, that their experiences might be valid (granted, some may be misreading the methods) and to encourage everyone to always be objective and very choosy with WHOM they share their most intimate details with.

Here's the long form:

I don't even know where else I can (or should) post this, but found this subreddit and read through hundreds of posts before deciding it should be here. It has been very helpful to me, so thank you all who have shared. I don't know if I agree with 100% of what some have posted about therapy in general, but the abuse from a therapist rings true for me in VERY specific and personal ways, and I found myself relating to many of the people expressing their story.

I know I have been personally damaged and can never see another therapist because of what I witnessed first hand. The therapy process and techniques are triggering to me now, and ill likely never get over it.

I experienced this from the other side. I was in a ~5 year relationship with a therapist (ended about 9 months ago) who did SO many things the people here talk about. It took me time away to really unpack it all. But in retrospect, to me, the biggest sin was the unethical recklessness with which she treated confidentiality rules, like often using some of her clients' stories as gossip or bragging rights.

It goes deeper. She's a sole proprietor and shares office space with 3 other therapists who also run their own practices. At least one broke some major ethical boundaries treating a single individual while also treating BOTH them and their spouse as a couples counselor. The third is in a perpetually miserable marriage and manipulative at best but Ill digress for space.

I kinda feel bad for the fourth. She was younger and they all talked shit about her behind her back and then chastised her for not being more part of a "team".

Now that a lot of time has passed, I really see what drove all of this, and it speaks to what others here have touched on. This therapist has many personal demons. She chases power over individuals, and thrives off subtle manipulation. Very likely from her many unresolved father abandonment issues and constant competition with her two sisters.

It's honestly appalling that people like this are allowed to have influence over others.

Luckily(?), she just seemed to enjoy the steady cash flow from her long term clients (she literally does bare minimum, preferring virtual only going into an office Thursday mornings) and enjoys the prestige that comes from the "EMDR Therapist" title.

So maybe damage is limited, but she SO MANY new requests daily, it's only a matter of time.

Character should mean something in this profession, IMO. She spoke VERY negatively and generalized most middle aged men who would reach out to her, deeply critical of their application process, generalized negative traits, and generally preferred treating women.

She was in a 20 year marriage and had two girls (now in college). But somewhere in her early 40s, she decided to get her therapy degree while her husband held the fort at home, got a breast augmentation (while being a body positive proponent, ha) did her residency, and then promptly divorced him once his usefulness was up.

Should have really listened to my instincts after hearing that decision process.

On the surface, she plays a wonderful, likeable, person at first. Love bombs. Projects empathy and kindness; no lie... even wears a "Kindness" sweatshirt on the regular to virtue signal. Has a nose stud, arm tattoo, all projecting "cool and calm". But beneath its complete turmoil and (at least in her personal life) she abandons inconvenient people.

Takes slight jabs at her sisters who she's massively jealous of, and demonizes anyone who gets close to knowing the truth.

I will be as objective as possible with this next part, but it will be hard at times. My personal experience with her introduced new traumas I'll not likely return from.

Because she knew my buttons, and made sure to engage my personal abandonment issues and my predilection to "people please", she gaslit me constantly. Would chastise me for helping with anything, as it was a direct affront to her ability or independence, only to chastise again for not helping her.

She would keep me at arms length around her family for fear I would have the same negative influence on her kids that her step-father had on her (Like her mom forcing them all to call him 'dad' etc.) but would then get after me for 'acting closed off or performative' during family interactions.

After we split, not happy to just be a better person, she made a specific effort to drive the knife into my dying soul multiple times. After all, she had the tools sharpened and has no qualms using them for a complete (in her mind I assume) victory.

e.g. One example (but there are so many more) when we broke up in Jan, and after exchanging stuff, I reached out to her completely devastated. Here I was, literally bleeding from allergic reactions to surgeries, facing financial ruin from insurance issues, and (now) a complete emotional wreck, so her therapist mindset immediately kicked in, and she gleefully told me how "everyone thought she was so much happier now", but "wanted me in her life still somehow".

What the actual eff?

I regrouped, and a couple weeks later I asked her to some concerts which I had already bought us tickets for but she refused me in order to "protect her feelings". So the 'still in my life' was obviously on her own terms, as I would later discover, for further manipulation.

In August, I was finally starting another relationship when she decided to drop old love letters and notes of devotion (she had previously written) on my doorstep; letters and devotions which I had given back to her in her box of her stuff back in January with explicit instructions that she get rid of them if she didn't want them. Who does that?? BONKERS. I asked her what she was trying to communicate and she replied "nothing". I can only assume absolute cruelty at this point. Maybe after hearing I was seeing someone.

She would also frequent a "single therapist dating" FB site where therapists would share online profiles/texts/date stories from people they dated specifically to tear them apart, demonstrate superiority, and reinforce a "all men are bad" narrative. A narrative IMO as wrong as "all women are bad". It was brutal, but she seemed to like it. I now recognize what that came from. More processing of father issues and reinforcement of her own worldview.

A positive takeaway: I now have a litmus test on relationships. My question is this: "If a zombie apocalypse happened tomorrow, what would be the first thing you'd do?"

If their answer is "End their own life" chances are they will NOT be your ride or die and will abandon you when things get real.

The story; She went through a cancer scare and I dropped everything to be with her through the whole ordeal for months, also mindful not to encroach on her sense of independence.

FFWD to me having the toughest year of my life.

Medical issues, on top of a house move, my mother dying, and the financial impact from surgeries, it was all too real and she basically left me to rot (about 9 months ago) for the inconvenience.

I never even got closure to say goodbye to the dog or extended family I was friendly with.

That triggered a lot of my internal issues, obviously, but it really made me begin a process of clearly and objectively isolating where I may have gone wrong, failed her, and where she may have failed me. Her subsequent negative reinforcements post-break confirmed a lot.

How does this tie in? We saw a couple of zombie shows like "Last of Us" and she'd constantly comment on how she'd just end it. Even when I challenged that premise with her role as a mom and caregiver, she doubled down. I was too ignorant to see the implication and chose to believe what I wanted. "She's a therapist after all, certainly it must just be me".

Either way, she quickly moved on to a guy that better improved her perceived status (comparatively to her sister's partners and socially), and continues to roll through life never really facing any real consequence for her actions. I (like others who have had the misfortune of seeing who she really is) will forever be broken from it all.

Maybe the therapy profession is like law enforcement in a way. It attracts both the wrong and right people. The idealists may change once they realize their influence over others or how 'real' things can get, and the manipulators thrive in the environment of control and power.

Trust NO ONE capable of this and so ethically flippant with their clients details.

Sorry for the novel. If you made it this far, thank you. I really did leave a lot of details out but I hope this helps someone out there. I thank you all for sharing your stories. It certainly has helped me. Much love to you all. You deserve it.

I think there is a lot of pressure to not mention standing up to a therapist (or any health care professional, managerial type etc.) because you didn't totally use the most elegant, country-club-passive-aggressive "language". And let's face it: we reach "breaking points" where we act outside our normal healthy behavior (but we still obey the law, and our civil rights can protect us from meddling, predatory therapists).

Well you know what?

I sent a lengthy ("wall of text") to my former psychologist that detailed all of the manipulative (and therefore harmful/nervous system activating) communication they did over the course of just 4 sessions and many messages (on a client app 🙄).

And not just one long message, I sent several. The last one, I called them a dismissive avoidant a-hole and it feels SO GOOD.

I, of course, having been threatened with committment by mental health professionals in the past for simply shedding a tear in front of them was naturally terrified, but you know what?

They can't seem to do that any more. If you spell out every unethical thing they did to their face and just say their an a-hole for doing that, well, the worst they can do is just say you are inappropiate, diagnose you or pathologize you, but if the "proof" they have also includes statements that would suggest they have violated their "code"...then yeah, you can call them an a-hole and still live your life. And heck, no one diagnosis me with anything other than "anxiety" and "depression" which is health care speak for "we have another person recognizing the horrific reality of how corrupt everything/all of us are and we legally can't do anything to silence them".

Just some info for those who aren't "polite" all the time when dealing with trauma caused by therapists.

Therapy is not a magic fix, and it does not work for everyone. The wrong therapist or type of therapy can make things worse. Psychology also has a history of bad research, weak theories, and gender and cultural bias.
Therapy is not always available either. It can be expensive, have long waiting lists, or simply not exist where someone lives.
It can also turn social problems into personal problems. Someone is burned out because of a terrible job, depressed because of poverty, or suffering because of discrimination, and they’re told to “work on themselves” instead of asking what is wrong with the world around them.
Sometimes “just get therapy” really means “ I don’t care enough about you empathize so it’s not my problem, go away.
Not every problem is in your head, and not everyone who is suffering needs to be fixed.

Comment all of their platitudes ✨

They're not mind readers

They don't have a magic wand

It gets worse before it gets better

Finding the right fit

They're only human

You are resistant

If meditation doesn't work you're doing it wrong

Therapists are not perfect

Clients ghosting (when their treatment isn't working)

how does that make you feel (repeat it 100 times until session is over)

if they don't know what to say they'll just repeat what you said but as a question (had a bizarre experience of this lol with the strangest dumbest therapist ever. She had absolutely no clue just repeated what I said x 100 times until I clicked then she got mad)

Feel the feeling

Everything happens for a reason

Holding space

Clients give up when things get hard (when they've just been bad at assessing negative side effects and pace)

That’s just your transference (no I think you suck it has nothing to do with my mother)

Trust the process (instead of reflecting on approach)

You have to follow my treatment (don't do your own research or question me)

What do you want to talk about today (please just vent so I don't have to actually do any work)

What do you need from me right now

You have to trust me or you have trust issues (yea or maybe you have to earn my trust?)

I'm not your friend (to avoid accountability)

Your parents did the best they could (No Susan some parents enjoy being cruel)

Your mom had it tough (actually no she was spoiled)

How can I help you today (by having a treatment plan and being the professional?)

Most people are good people (most won't beat you down but most people are enablers and will throw you in front of the buss instead of rocking the boat)

On their website: I'm trauma informed (I took a weekend course)

On their website: I treat trauma, ADHD, EDs, anxiety, attachment issues, OCD, addiction, grief etc etc (I actually don't know all of these stuff just give me the money okay).

*silence* (.......?)

So I come from an area with high crime. It may be economically progressive but is socially conservative and very conformist. I have wanted to leave it for a clean slate for ages but therapists would rather integrate you with them with the community or have you close to abusive family then allow you to move.

They always assume and tell me not to assume things. I literally have to explain to them as someone that's never been in a relationship in my life that I don't expect a partner to "solve" my problems or "fix" me but just having someone on your side, on your team that you can look to for strength and support when life has you down is hugely important. That its normal and healthy and for a lot of human history we looked to family, spouses and community for support and we didn't pay someone weekly that pretended to care. But they immediately want to assume that I want a magical person to fix me and im wrong and all this other stuff.