Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
Does anyone have experience with/knowledge about emotionally abusive therapists? I only got out a few months ago of an intense 5-year relationship with a therapist who I now realize was pretty severely emotionally abusive, in some ways. It is very overwhelming to realize that. I have been working with a new therapist who is amazing and has been more helpful in a few months than that therapist ever was. I have talked much with her about the previous therapist, it's just becoming clear to me on my own. I left a cult and an abusive family while under this therapist. In retrospect, it's like my life was hijacked by her, in a way. You're totally alone and isolated in that situation (and utterly vulnerable). She became the single piece of glue holding my life together, and though I trusted her fully and loved her deeply, it is evident now how severely she exploited that abusively. I don't hardly know how to begin to emotionally process that. My mother is the unbelievably cruel/abusive one, and it felt like she had taken her place (like the mother I never had)..but now I realize, she was not all that different from her. One of the things that is staggering to me right now is how much she affected my perspective of practical things. In emergency situations, practical stuff is the probably the singlemost important thing (resources, planning). I asked her for advice about things, because I didn't know much about taking care of things (or didn't have much confidence). Therapists aren't supposed to give advice, I know now, so she should have said she was the wrong person to ask. Instead, she gave me a lot of horrible advice: mainly always with the attitude that things weren't that big a deal. (Things that in fact ARE a VERY big deal). She tended to blame my anxiety for worrying about it (instead of helping empower me to deal with them). So it's like I "learned" to write off VERY crucial survival things as not a big deal, as a way to reduce my anxiety. Which is obviously stupid because it ruins your life (and has had serious life-threatening consequences for me). That's the part haunting me right now the most as I try to pick up the pieces and re-learn life.
I think anyone who thinks that your pain is not a big deal is a really bad therapist. To blame you for worrying is bad for your emotional, spiritual and mental growth. How is anyone supposed to deal with pain if we are told to bury it. She sounds incompetent at the least. I am glad you got a better therapist.
I had a therapist once who was very patronizing in her responses to me while I talked about abuse issues. Her reply was
"oh you poor thing, you poor poor thing" very condescending tone. I called her out on it and she said she felt hurt about my comment. OMG I think SHE needed more help than I ever did. I left her for another REAL therapist.
I did attend weekly support group meetings and they pulled a stunt on me bigtime. We were talking about our experiences one evening in group and I mentioned how I was locked in a cellar by my psycho mother. They seemed to be empathetic to my story. At least that's how they appeared. Boy was I wrong!
We used to meet for three hours on a Monday night and we always took a 15 minute break. After the break was over, I sat down on the same chair I had earlier. I couldn't figure out where everyone was. There was an old closet in the building that no one used, connecting the meeting room where we had our group meetings . I could hear voices but thought the group was somewhere else in the building and didn't think anymore of it.
But when I got up from my chair, the other women came crashing out of that old closet and grabbed me and through me in there. They locked the door and wouldn't let me out despite my screaming. I thought I would faint.
I was shaking from the that experience and the triggers from my past. Oh boy! They did let me out when I said I was planning to report them to the board who offered the space for us to meet in the first place.
I called the facilitator of the meeting, and asked what the hell is going on. She didn't even answer me. She just sat there and acted like nothing happened. I was floored. I ran out of the building and never went back. No one and I mean no one even called me or contacted me to see if I was ok. NO ONE! What a group. I left that group too.
I think some people enjoy hearing about our pain and exploiting it. Some people are sick, sick and psycho. I trusted that group too and they knew it. It's reprehensible to take advantage of anyone's vulnerability, regardless if they are a therapist or a group. Both of us are so much better off for leaving the assholes behind.
good luck to you for getting a new therapist and I am doing ok too. I have better support than ever and I grow leaps and bounds.
We will be ok Hopeinjoy. We will make it!
Thanks for this post.
Linda
Therapist abuse is very hard to prove in court or to file a complaint about.
Words are hurtful and how do you prove them??
Mind games they play..how does one prove them??
I had a very abusive mental health Doc who violated several of the ethics...When i got the forms to file a complaint...it said the list of things you could file a complaint about and a list that you could not...
I did have complaints that would be investigated BUT.....The forms also read "bad bedside manners" will not be investigated...
A mental health practitioner can then verbally abuse you and that's ok????
Horrible....Words are a therapist tools...
That is like saying a sourgeon misusing a scalpel will not be investigated.