Mariana

26/04/2014 at 09:42

Some very good point Courtenay. This experience is very painful and it moved me to tears on occasion. However I was struck by the lack of boundaries that apparently all the therapists displayed. How has this happened? The unconscious needs of client to be reunited with the good mother and to be with her all the time…The poem was certainly very powerful, full of hate and need to hate the object who rejected her. There is a question of competency to. Am I competent enough to work with someone with multiple and complex needs (I am not sure of many of them in this instance)? What I found touching however is the openness about vulnerabilities about all of us whether we are therapists or clients or both at the same time. Thank you for sharing.

continued from above Courtenay Young

Q3. Your training was – you state – an analytical counselling one. You were ‘forced’ into a “training analysis” and, on at least a couple of occasions, with an attachment therapist. A training analysis is not necessarily the same as therapy. In other therapeutic methods and modalities (you mentioned that ‘integrative’ was your first choice), attachment issues are looked at differently: therapists may have worked on their own attachment issues better (more deeply and more comprehensively). So, the question is, Are you – or have you been – in the wrong type of therapy? At last count, there were over 400 different types. If there is something wrong with you physically, the best person to advise you and see you right is the GP – as long as the basic diagnosis is correct. But seeing a lung specialist for a back problem is counter-productive. Just maybe, you have been told “This is your problem”, and it isn’t ‘This’ but it might be ‘That’ – so you (or someone) got it wrong and you have talking to the wrong people, who don’t seem to know much about what you DO need; more about what they DON’T need. So, I would consider changing tack and exploring pastures new.

Finally: whilst a therapist can – and sometimes does – abuse; they cannot heal. You are the person who heals – or has to heal – and, whether you do this in therapy, or via a loving relationship, or by having a baby and giving it what you never got, or by writing, or by any other means, is relatively immaterial. So – the last and also the “Perilous Question” (see the Grail legend)- What do you need to do in order to heal your issues?

I hope that some of this might help a little – we are not all “bad” or like ravenous crows.

PS: I should have also said that I really admire your courage in bringing this issue up for us all to look at. Thank You. It cannot have been easy. I hope that it will be worthwhile.

Submitted on 2014/04/20 at 13:30

by Courtenay Young

Your story is – unfortunately – only one of many similar stories: indeed, as another anonymous responder said, “It is the shadow side of psychotherapy” – or counselling: you don’t seem to differentiate very much.
Unfortunately there really are some bad therapists and there really are some therapists who abuse their position using projective identification as a weapon.
I can quite understand why you feel that therapy (the therapeutic relationship) has failed you; yet, actually, it was M, H, G, B, V, O, D, S & L (have I got them all right) who failed you: as well as the BACP (to a certain extent) and your training organisation (to a certain extent). I cannot count how many instances of “bad practice” you list.
However, there are also some questions that co-exist along with this story: and I would like to make it clear that these questions do not – in any way at all – undermine or negate your story. Indeed, you do not even have to answer them: they are just questions that arise for me – especially since the ‘page’ is clearly marked as “unfinished”.

Q1: Either, you are extremely unlucky in having chosen a series of really “bad” therapists, or you are not being totally clear here about your own contributions to the breakdown of these therapeutic relationships: it is extremely unlikely (improbable) that your interpersonal dynamics had absolutely nothing to do with their extreme reaction(s) to you.
Were you totally innocent? You imply that you may have contributed (or suspected that you might have contributed) in some way to the breakdown of the therapeutic relationships – you asked them this sort of question, but didn’t seem to get an answer that you could understand. You imply, or state, that you might have had some early trauma issues that may have complicated your own ‘attachment style’. How much (more) insight or information could you possibly get by following this line of thought – about your own contributions, however painful? You must be aware of some of these as possibilities from your training: you are obviously intelligent, but you don’t seem to demonstrate a high degree of emotional intelligence about this aspect of the breakdowns: innocent bewilderment – Yes; self-reflective learning – I am not sure.
The counter-transference is quite clear: your transferential aspects are not quite so clear. It is usually never just a one-way street. Without negating your experience in any way – as you described it above – how much, or what, can you contribute additionally to the circumstances of the breakdown(s) of the relationship(s)? Obviously, you don’t have to post any of this, but it might balance the picture. It does not justify the abusive “cut-offs” that you received, but it might explain them a little more. If, once the door had been opened (so to speak), you had sent (for instance) 50 e-mails for each of her one; then that would balance the picture a little bit.
Anyway: that is one question. I hope that I have expressed it reasonably fairly and clearly, and in a way that is acceptable. It is a “both … and …” issue; not an “either … or …” one: complex, not simple.
The evocative picture heading your account shows 19 black crows circling the orphan – and obviously innocent (new-born) – white lamb. Your story – whilst horrific – is not quite that black-and-white, as it involves quite complex adult relationships.

Q2: Were any of these therapists male? Have you tried working with a male therapist? If not, why not? I know the dynamics are very different, but after 9 (or so) bad experiences from female therapists, I would have thought that a male therapist might be worth a try.By asking this question, I am clearly not suggesting that male therapists are any less abusive than female therapists: the type of abuse may vary; they may abuse different types. As some of your ‘attachment traumas’ are possibly to do with your mother – you speak about an “annihilated mother” and the picture shows a dead mother sheep – then using female therapists is an obvious first choice; but therapy with a male therapist might give you a different, more (possibly) protective or supportive ‘ground’ from which to work out some of these issues.

Submitted on 2014/04/20 at 12:03
Anonymous said

I am so sorry to hear about the pain you have been through as a result of your therapies. Thank you for addressing this issue. It is the shadow of psychotherapy that has not been brought into the consciousness of so many therapist. I have suffered for ten years as a result of therapy. My wound from therapy is far worse than the original wound of my childhood.

Mari, I am genuinely gladf for you, therapists/analysts like this are like gold dust. Long may your relationship survive and flourish x