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The above post clinches my belief that our mental healthcare is at the same level our physical healthcare was in late 1700's, when barbers still performed dentistry and minor surgery. Which means that while some specialists do wonders (much like a barber may have saved someone's life by pulling out an abscessed tooth), the system as a whole is quite crude. Namely, it gives too much leeway to individual practitioners, as opposed to laying down same SOP's (standard operating procedures) for everyone. Which leaves patients with a lot of uncertainty about whether or not their next session will be helpful, useless, or damaging. And reviews can only go so far.
Just consider the above post, where the therapist wanted to hug a patient against their will, and possibly used "you're being resistant" as an argument for pushing the hug. An M.D. would probably not be permitted to engage in such familiarity with a patient (although it'd be overlooked if he/she just saved a life), but for a therapist, it's supposedly OK. Heck, I myself would not be cool with hugging my therapist, a person I know strictly in a professional capacity.
No, I don't think therapists should be hugging their patients. You have a good point. The profession is not as well-regulated as it should be. I've heard some bad stories.
It just makes me sick to see the dunderheads in this forum stating that psychotherapy doesn't work. If it doesn't work, why even have a forum section for it?
If you truly believe psychotherapy does not work, drink yourself into a stupor or take drugs until you can't tell reality from phantasm.
You have nothing positive to contribute here if you do not support modern mental health science. You're just deflecting people who might benefit to support your own negative experiences. (And if you tried it and it didn't work, that says a lot about YOUR mental health.)
I'm sick of defending the mental healthcare system. If you don't think it works, then shut up, your negativity is contributing nothing. If you believe mental healthcare is valid then maybe you can help direct people to the best resources to solve their problems.
But to say "it doesn't work" simply implies "you have no hope, the system is fantasy, either live with your problems or fix them yourself."
It just makes me sick to see the dunderheads in this forum stating that psychotherapy doesn't work. If it doesn't work, why even have a forum section for it?
If you truly believe psychotherapy does not work, drink yourself into a stupor or take drugs until you can't tell reality from phantasm.
You have nothing positive to contribute here if you do not support modern mental health science. You're just deflecting people who might benefit to support your own negative experiences. (And if you tried it and it didn't work, that says a lot about YOUR mental health.)
I'm sick of defending the mental healthcare system. If you don't think it works, then shut up, your negativity is contributing nothing. If you believe mental healthcare is valid then maybe you can help direct people to the best resources to solve their problems.
But to say "it doesn't work" simply implies "you have no hope, the system is fantasy, either live with your problems or fix them yourself."
I totally reject that.
I just had an appt with a psychiatrist and I really like her. She's brilliant. I'm looking forward to therapy... so , just from my experience ( just like anything else) a person wants to, have to want it. I'll be working with a therapist and ( I guess) following up with her. I see her first next time. ( then the therapist)..
I bet half the people on this thread haven't experienced real trauma. I mean, the kind of trauma that can be permanent and then, multiply that by a hundred.
It's okay.. therapy is not for everyone, but we have a great healthcare system.
Just remember it's not a system, it's a science, a methodology. If what you are doing or what you try isn't working, do something different.
Just taking a stab in the dark, I bet at least 1 in 3 patients start out with the wrong practitioner, the wrong level (counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist), the wrong treatment regime, or simply the wrong practitioner who is not a match for you.,
Clue: if you don't like your shrink they are the wrong shrink.
As I said, I'm sick of all the negativity. Those posts are from losers. Follow their advice to become a loser too.
I care enough about psychology to have minored in Psych in college. I studied it, okay I've been in the system, I follow psychology and have followed it for decades, and anybody who it doesn't work for hasn't found the right provider, hasn't found the right level of treatment, their healthcare professional is using the wrong protocols, if your problem requires drug treatment you haven't found the right prescription. Whatever.
But to just deny the whole system is wrong! If you feel that way just quit posting in this forum section! My motivation is to help people and to encourage them to take positive steps to address their mental health problems. That's it.
To encourage you that the science doesn't work is merely encouraging you to give up all hope, or go fix your problems yourself. (Actually it is sometimes productive to fix yourself. Perhaps self brain surgery works for a few too.) But seriously I have had success in fixing a few minor problems. But when you have major problems I suggest you seek a clinical psychologist with a Psy.D degree, start there, try a few until you find one that clicks. Then consider whether you want to step down a level or step up a level.
But please, people, don't just listen to naysayers who say your problem can't be fixed.
Since my posting is being used to unfairly slam mental health as a whole I figured I ought to clarify a few things.
Firstly nearly all those encounters took place, as I said, decades ago. Everything but the guy who thought I was psychotic on no evidence whatsoever, and the woman running the group therapy who insisted on hugging me goodbye, took place in the 70s to early 80s. The profession was a LOT different back then. For one thing - there were still a lot of Freudians in practice. If there is any particular discipline that is filled with true fruitcakes, it's the Freudian camp. Regardless of whether or not he was the "father of psychiatry", it is not 1890 any more. Hopefully we know better by now.
Also there were a lot of really flaky therapies that were en vogue back then that have since been discredited. Primal scream comes to mind.
Second - The point I intended to make and obviously did a crappy job of it was that if at first you don't succeed, try try again. Don't hang out with someone who treats you with disrespect, or tries to manipulate you, or talks about their lives and concerns (other than the occasional short anecdote meant to point something out in YOUR life). If they sound crazy to you (and you are not yourself psychotic or paranoid-delusional) then they probably are. Move along and find someone else.
I know a great many really really good therapists. Unfortunately since they are personal friends, I cannot avail myself of their services, LOL! But they do exist. Its just that at this point in my life, there's not a lot left to therapize over. Past therapy has been helpful in reducing the pain that sent me on a therapist hunt to begin with.
As for "medical" doctors being somehow "superior" to counselors/therapists/psychiatrists - NOT. MDs are some of the most ignorant, compassionless people I have ever had the misfortune to know. That is - SOME medical doctors. I had one recently try to convince me that milk is bad for me because it allegedly acidifies your blood. Which is pure bull. Your blood pH is maintained within a very very narrow range by your liver, and if it is going off-point, it has NOTHING to do with anything you ate - unless you ate something that damaged your liver. That is pure medical mythology that she probably got off the Intertubes, like every other medical ignoramus, including the ones with MDs.
I had another try to compare my dad to a car with over 100k miles on it that you just need to stop putting money into. There was a shadow on my dad's lung and since he'd had lung cancer, I was naturally interested to know whether that spot was an infection or a recurrence of his cancer. Kind of makes a big difference. This guy was telling me I was putting my dad thru unnecessary pain of having a needle biopsy done - which is a pretty simple procedure and if you know spit about local anesthesia shouldn't be anything more than maybe a tiny bit uncomfortable. Plus he was trying to use all sorts of scare tactics about how a needle biopsy could KILL my dad (yeah, only if you do it on purpose, creepazoid).
You better believe I flipped my lid and threw his frat-boy a** out of there in nothing flat and made sure he was no longer to have anything to do with my father's care. Oh yeah, and it was a simple infection that cleared up in nothing flat with the proper antibiotics. My dad lived another 18 months after that.
I've got a ton of incidents like this. The MD who understands and keeps up with the research is a rare bird - but when I've come across someone like that, they are ALWAYS the best docs I've ever had. Keeping in mind the research capability is coupled with volunteerism. However lest some people start to think the whole medical profession is just so much hoodoo, plus the fact that lots of people on here doubtless have their own medical horror stories to share, I'll spare us all the waste of time, LOL!
SO. Psychology does have some hurdles yet to overcome, but it is effective and we KNOW it is effective even when we don't always know WHY it is effective. And different things work for different people. All that huggy-fluffy-stuffed-animal crap actually works for some people. Even Freudian therapy works for a few people. So if you don't get on with a therapist, its not necessarily because he/she is an abusive quack or a flake - the two of you just don't connect. So cut your losses and go find one you CAN connect with!
Just remember it's not a system, it's a science, a methodology. If what you are doing or what you try isn't working, do something different.
Just taking a stab in the dark, I bet at least 1 in 3 patients start out with the wrong practitioner, the wrong level (counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist), the wrong treatment regime, or simply the wrong practitioner who is not a match for you.,
Clue: if you don't like your shrink they are the wrong shrink.
As I said, I'm sick of all the negativity. Those posts are from losers. Follow their advice to become a loser too.
I care enough about psychology to have minored in Psych in college. I studied it, okay I've been in the system, I follow psychology and have followed it for decades, and anybody who it doesn't work for hasn't found the right provider, hasn't found the right level of treatment, their healthcare professional is using the wrong protocols, if your problem requires drug treatment you haven't found the right prescription. Whatever.
But to just deny the whole system is wrong! If you feel that way just quit posting in this forum section! My motivation is to help people and to encourage them to take positive steps to address their mental health problems. That's it.
To encourage you that the science doesn't work is merely encouraging you to give up all hope, or go fix your problems yourself. (Actually it is sometimes productive to fix yourself. Perhaps self brain surgery works for a few too.) But seriously I have had success in fixing a few minor problems. But when you have major problems I suggest you seek a clinical psychologist with a Psy.D degree, start there, try a few until you find one that clicks. Then consider whether you want to step down a level or step up a level.
How does that make you feel?
But seriously, even though our mental health system is not bad, it's crude. By that, I mean it's on par with barbers who performed dentistry and bloodletting. Were those barbers bad? Absolutely not! If someone had an infected tooth, a barber could easily save their life. Or they could pull out an adjacent healthy tooth by mistake, making it hard for the patient to chew and/or talk. Even if they did everything correctly, it was an excruciatingly painful process; a shot of whiskey was as close to Novocaine as it got. Regardless of the result, was it a crude method? Oh yeah! But it was the only alternative people had, so they went along with it, and even appreciated it.
Furthermore, each barber had a lot of leeway in how to do his work; regulation was quite sparse. Similarly, today's therapists don't have much oversight, either. So, there are therapists who insist on hugging and accuse patients of being "resistant" when they refuse to let the therapist hug them. Much like a barber could say a patient is being "resistant" when their tooth refuses to come out, even though the pliers he's using are old and need replacing.
I realize things are getting better, and that's good. Heck, the days of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" are gone. But our mental health industry is still pretty crude, and we have a long way to go. And we will get there, just not in my lifetime. I suppose that in 300 years, historians will view today's therapy tactics the same way we view barber-surgeons.
Last edited by MillennialUrbanist; 03-11-2017 at 12:00 AM..
If the patient has to fix themselves on their own, and the therapist "isn't supposed to do it", despite the session costs of $100+ her hour, then what's the point of therapy?
Yes, someone skilled will help you change your behavioral strategies.
And you should experience some progress in a month or less. - If not. find someone who can.
Considering all the negativity in this thread and assertions that psychotherapy does not work, I see no point in continuing countering the diatribes and the assertions that psychotherapy does not work.
If it doesn't work then there are huge numbers of recovered patients that must have miraculously been cured in some other way while they were undergoing psychotherapy.
If it does work, then I'm fighting with forum members who are doing their best to dissuade you from seeking treatment, preventing you from seeing for yourself if treatment will benefit you.
Just one disclaimer: not all types of treatment work for all patients or all disorders, that there are various levels of treatment options (counseling, psychologists, psychiatrists), that even if you got these two right you may have chosen an incompatible practitioner who you don't connect with and you may need to change to a different provider who better suits you.
So if I am right then you should explore your options and see if you can find the right combination of treatment category, best level of professional, and a professional who you mesh with personality wise. Many benefit from this and have successfully solved their mental health problems.
If the naysayers are right then psychotherapy is modern day "bloodletting" and you might as well drink yourself into insensibility, drug yourself into a stupor, or fix your own damned self because you bought in to the concept that psychotherapy is a fallacy.
I intend this to be my final comment in this discussion. If you have a problem I think you should give psychotherapy a try. In any case I'm done arguing with the naysayers, who have contributed nothing to this discussion except negativity, disinformation and distorted opinions. The only thing these negative people have accomplished is to drive people away from possible solutions to their problems.
Good luck!
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will help you change your behavioral strategies. 
