This is specifically why therapists are trained to never really give advice. They just listen and try to help you see your way through.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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And how do you feel about that?
Tell me more about this impulse you have to ask about people's feelings
I’m sensing a bit of role confusion in the room. Has this therapist career delusion been negatively affecting your sleep?
Sir, you can take this olanzapine willingly or we can strap you to the chair and forcibly inject you. Which is it going to be? No, you cannot leave.
A therapist once said that the only thing we could actually work on was our own relationship which we formed through the course of therapy. I didn’t really understand what that meant but it worried me since we only talked one hour a week and I was struggling through serious life relationships like family and romantic partners and I never saw how the in-therapy relationship could possibly catch up to those, especially since we didn’t actually do anything together except talk about other people.
A few months into seeing this therapist, she had barely said a word to me the entire time. I asked “so, I’ve been spending these past weeks and months sort of downloading everything that’s going on. At what point will you start giving me feedback or reacting to what I’m saying?”
She clicked out her pen and said “oh interesting… do you enter every relationship saying ‘when do I get something?’”
I’ll never patronize a full blown psychologist again - unless I’m experiencing a legit pathology, not just for processing life. I found them totally useless and way too expensive for just processing life.
That statement is incredibly laden with judgement and antithetical to the training of any competent therapist. sorry you had that experience
Thanks. Yeah, fuck her.
You're right, still don't you think by the questions they ask or the subjects they bring up, some therapists are better or worse? The main thing I'm getting at is like wise Donald Rumsfeld said, there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns - without implementing a team of therapists (who don't know the other ones exist and with each you bring up the same subjects and anecdotes) you won't be able to compare them and determine whether you're getting amazing treatment or criminally negligent advice
People usually go to therapy for a reason. If you're 3-4 sessions in and there is no treatment plan with explicit goals to address the reason you're there, that's a bad sign. If you're in therapy for a while and don't feel like progress is being made, also a sign to address it directly with your therapist or move on to someone else.
Therapy is not going to be a measurable experience like you want it to be. The literature consistently shows the most common predictor of success in therapy is how well you get along with the therapist. Other evidence-based treatments (eg CBT, DBT, CPT) are geared toward specific symptoms, and not as useful for the "worried well"
It would also be against most therapists' ethical codes to treat you without directly communicating and coordinating with your other providers. If they find out you're in treatment with other therapists at the same time and hiding it, they would probably terminate services.
I appreciate the actual information. I had hoped among other things calling Donald Rumsfeld wise would give away that I'm not being entirely serious.
Oh, I quote Rumsfeld all the time and just thought we were jibing. Like Donald Rumsfeld always said, "I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think and I assume it's what I said."
Ah, got it! You go to war with the army you have.
Just remember that RAID therapists aren't a backup solution. You should use the 3-2-1 therapy solution for that. You should see at least three different therapists from at least two different specialties and at least one should be located at least one town over to provide off-site therapy. Maybe consider telehealth for cloud therapy?
Now this is the kind of humour I'm here for
If a therapist gives you any advice at all, they’re doing it wrong.
The point of therapy is to help you think clearly.
Everything they advise you to do should be “consider this” or “ask yourself that”. They should never be advising concrete actions. All of their advice should be about what to look at.
I think that's a bit too absolute though. For instance, my therapist gave me advice on grounding when dealing with derealization. She also gave me advice on treatment programs for my addiction issues.
I guess it's how you define advice in this particular instance.
That sounds like a useful bit of procedural knowledge, not advice.
I bet she presented is some way like “Well, if you’re interested there are some methods that are known to work …” and then waited for you to decide that it would be good to learn those.
At least that’s how my therapists have presented such things. I’ve learned methods from them, but I haven’t heard them say “I think you should do X”.
If a person comes and asks for advice, you say things like “I mean you gotta take care of X, so that means you’re gonna have to Y. If I were you I’d start with Z and then …”
That’s what I mean by advice. Making decisions for them. Educating on a procedure is just making sure information is available.
Which level of raid though? 0,1,5,6 or a combo of any of them.
Imagine a raid 61 of therapists.
Bounce ideas off of friends with good judgement?
That's not as funny
(also could argue one benefit of a therapist is an uninterested party vs someone who also knows your social circle)
There are any number of such situations where you are in the hands of an expert and don’t have the knowledge or qualifications to evaluate whether their advice is good or bad: all doctors, lawyers, professors, mechanics, plumbers, etc etc virtually any specialist.
You're right. So what you're saying is we need a RAID system for every professional service
Dr Phil hired a client to work for him and then later developed a relationship with her. Gotta wonder about the advice he was giving her….
She should have seen three doctor Phils.