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Old 09-18-2018, 12:32 PM
 
Location: Crook County, Hellinois
5,820 posts, read 3,835,860 times
Reputation: 8123

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Quote:
Originally Posted by CMMom View Post
Good grief, you guys. This may come as a shock to you, but "shrinks" are human too. We are not perfect, nor is anyone else. Yes, sometimes psychologists have overcome abusive childhoods or addiction, been divorced, or had children who get into trouble. Yes, there are actual "bad guys" out there. We mess up. Just like you. But we've been to a lot of school and had a lot of training with excellent supervisors watching and vetting us. Contrary to popular belief, therapy is not just lying on a couch and venting about your mother. The therapist must properly interview the client, make a proper diagnosis, develop a treatment plan, and effectively implement it. Some are better than others. If you come across one you don't like or who seems unfit for whatever reason, change doctors! But a few bad apples don't poison the whole crop. Don't overgeneralize. That's just not fair.
Maybe so. But if a doctor (including psychiatrists) messes up or can't heal the patient, he/she gets blamed fair and square. But if a therapist can't do the job, he/she just blames the client by labeling them "resistant". Or worse, he/she gaslights the client into producing diagnosable symptoms that match his/her personal beliefs or textbook training. In the end, the client is left worse off than they came in. While the therapist walks away without consequences and moves on to the next client. That's way more unfair than generalizing all psychs as charlatans.

The point is: our therapists today are comparable to barbers who practiced dentistry and surgery a few hundred years ago. That is, they weren't always unhelpful, but they often did more harm than good, and weren't held accountable for it. We have a long, long way to go in our therapy system before it reaches the level of our medical system.
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Old 09-18-2018, 12:41 PM
 
Location: colorado springs, CO
9,512 posts, read 6,036,869 times
Reputation: 28830
I guess I’m on both sides of the fence with this.

When I was in nursing school I was on a Pell Grant & I had to maintain full-time credits for every semester & I was on maternity leave for at least one full semester, so I spent two summer semesters doing catch-up.

I filled in credits with Psychology classes, graduated with my RN, just one credit shy of a SW degree, found out I’m awful at Yoga but surprisingly good at “Self-defense for Law Enforcement Officers”.

But I did notice that my Psych instructors were amusingly “off” a bit. The funniest one had a mouse phobia (her words) & would come to class in various stages of disarray after spending entire nights on her kitchen counters; “because there could be a mouse” & told us how she had kept her BF up all night chasing “scurry sounds”.

OTOH; for people who might specialize in addiction or PTSD, I think you almost have to be somewhat flawed yourself, in order to be relatable. I wouldn’t want to bring my demons to someone who hadn’t danced with the devil themselves, once or twice.
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Old 09-18-2018, 12:46 PM
 
Location: Dunwoody,GA
2,239 posts, read 5,825,135 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MillennialUrbanist View Post
Maybe so. But if a doctor (including psychiatrists) messes up or can't heal the patient, he/she gets blamed fair and square. But if a therapist can't do the job, he/she just blames the client by labeling them "resistant". Or worse, he/she gaslights the client into producing diagnosable symptoms that match his/her personal beliefs or textbook training. In the end, the client is left worse off than they came in. While the therapist walks away without consequences and moves on to the next client. That's way more unfair than generalizing all psychs as charlatans.

The point is: our therapists today are comparable to barbers who practiced dentistry and surgery a few hundred years ago. That is, they weren't always unhelpful, but they often did more harm than good, and weren't held accountable for it. We have a long, long way to go in our therapy system before it reaches the level of our medical system.
I'm sorry you've had such bad experiences. Therapy is meant to be challenging, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately helpful. If the therapist just had you keep coming with no significant process being apparent, that is their fault. But the therapist is not a magician either. The client has to do his/her part. Therapists who abandon patients are certainly unethical. If the therapist knows that the fit is not right or the therapist and the client are at loggerheads and the client is making no progress, it is the therapist's responsibility to broach the subject and refer the client elsewhere. And as far as not being held accountable, I hope you know there is a process for that. If you believe something unethical was happening, report that person to the State Board of Examiners for their profession (psychology, social work, etc...).
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Old 09-18-2018, 12:49 PM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,705 posts, read 79,461,953 times
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Graduate Psych students are usually required to get therapy, regardless of their area of study.

Everyone has psychological issues. Not one person is perfectly balanced. How do you measure their severity to call it "nuts"?
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Old 09-18-2018, 12:59 PM
 
Location: Crook County, Hellinois
5,820 posts, read 3,835,860 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by coschristi View Post
OTOH; for people who might specialize in addiction or PTSD, I think you almost have to be somewhat flawed yourself, in order to be relatable. I wouldn’t want to bring my demons to someone who hadn’t danced with the devil themselves, once or twice.
This is a very interesting point. When I did therapy, my therapists came off as very... for the lack of a better term, "perfect" or "flawless". So when I told them about things that troubled me, I couldn't help feeling that they viewed me as a soap opera character or a laboratory monkey. Which made it impossible to relax with them.
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Old 09-18-2018, 03:29 PM
 
Location: Pittsburgh
29,653 posts, read 34,161,455 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MillennialUrbanist View Post
This is a very interesting point. When I did therapy, my therapists came off as very... for the lack of a better term, "perfect" or "flawless". So when I told them about things that troubled me, I couldn't help feeling that they viewed me as a soap opera character or a laboratory monkey. Which made it impossible to relax with them.
That sounds more like you bringing a lot of baggage and biases into your therapy rather than anything that the therapists were actually doing. You are so against the concept of therapy that nothing they did or said would have been correct in your eyes.
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Old 09-18-2018, 04:01 PM
 
Location: On the Beach
4,139 posts, read 4,504,900 times
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I worked at Shepherd Pratt (private psychiatric hospital) in Baltimore in the 1980s. I worked on a long term unit had had psychiatrist residents learning as well as seasoned shrinks and RNs. Most were pretty damned crazy but, the most entertaining people I’ve ever worked with. The parties we had were unforgettable. But yeah, we all had issues. Does not mean you aren’t skilled and empathetic enough to help others. I remember some of the patients on that unit 33 years later and won’t ever forget them. But, when you are working with people who have castrated themselves, took a carvng knife to their neck or were true psychopaths, the stress release with co-workers is essential. I gave up social work decades ago, too much pain and suffering after awhile but, I still fondly remember my old co-worker and patient family on A-4. I have known great therapists, really inept therapists and the occasional loser therapist, like all professions, you get a mix.
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Old 09-18-2018, 06:34 PM
 
Location: The New England part of Ohio
23,899 posts, read 32,210,946 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PilgrimsProgress View Post
There is an expression "Physician, heal thyself." I noticed in college that kids who became psych majors were trying to solve their own problems. Many TV and radio shrinks seem to be divorced multiple times. A teacher friend had a student who was the son of a psychiatrist who wrote parenting books and the kid was loony tunes as was the father.

Just a pattern I noticed
Define "nuts".

Do I think that they are "stark raving mad"? Few are, or they would not be in practice for very long.

Everyone on earth has their share of problems. I happen to know several people in the counseling and psychology field who are very happy, productive and well a djusted.

Perhaps you are holding them to a higher standard than you would someone in a different profession. Over 50% of marriages end in divorce. After the first, that number goes no where but up.
I really don't follow any "TV and radio shrinks" so I can not speak to their habits with regard to marriage and divorce, I can only guess that they might not be representative of average psychiatrists, psychologists or professional counselors.


I seem to recall that D.Phil was married once before when he was very young, and has been married to his current wife for over 30 years. That all seems pretty average to me.
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Old 09-18-2018, 06:40 PM
 
Location: Central IL
20,726 posts, read 16,234,163 times
Reputation: 50368
Quote:
Originally Posted by MillennialUrbanist View Post
I wouldn't say that most psychs are nuts. If anything, they're very shrewd and sneaky. And therein lies the rub. Many of them go into the profession with the mindset: "I love poking at my client's emotional buttons and seeing their reactions, and it's really fun to dangle answers to their problems just out of their reach and watch the frustrated look on their faces, and gaslighting them gives me a cheap thrill. Sometimes I love to play mind games with them, like ask them about their feelings, then accuse them of lying when they pour their soul out to me. Or ask them rhetorical questions, like how being misteated made them feel, just to annoy them. And if they call me out on my BS, I call them 'resistant', make them look bad, and regain the upper hand."

If I could run America like a dictator, I'd put talk therapists into the same category as aura analyzers and chakra readers. That is, fun to see when you got time and money to waste, but overpriced, unhelpful charlatans when it comes to actually solving your problems. They have no business being within 100 feet of a vulnerable person.
No. This is your twisted opinion and if anything you are projecting. I don't know where you come up with this otherwise. If you had a bad experience, fine - but don't spread misinformation. YOU ARE INCORRECT.
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Old 09-18-2018, 06:41 PM
 
2,762 posts, read 3,170,015 times
Reputation: 5402
Absolutely.

It is how they got interested in the field to begin with.

It helped me or I spent years in therapy, so I want to be a therapist etc......
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