I’ve been thinking a lot about the way psychiatric language has moved outside of therapy and into relationships, breakups, social media, and online support spaces.
There is something I want to make very clear upfront: I believe people should be able to talk openly about harmful relationships. Someone does not need to prove another person’s diagnosis in order to say, “This person hurt me,” “This behavior was abusive,” or “This relationship affected me deeply.”
Those experiences deserve to be heard.
What concerns me is what sometimes happens next.
“I experienced these behaviors” becomes “This person has BPD.”
“My therapist helped me recognize unhealthy patterns” becomes “My therapist basically confirmed my ex has BPD.”
Clinical concepts become explanations for someone who has never been evaluated by the professional whose authority is indirectly being invoked.
I have experienced being discussed and understood through a psychiatric label that is not a diagnosis I have received. It has been incredibly unsettling to watch ordinary relationship conflicts, emotional reactions, and painful moments get reorganized around a diagnosis someone else believes explains me.
Once that framework takes hold, it can become almost impossible to escape.
If you’re emotional, that’s evidence.
If you’re angry, that’s evidence.
If you disagree with the characterization, your disagreement can become evidence.
If you establish a boundary, that can be interpreted through the diagnosis too.
Eventually, the label can become unfalsifiable: virtually anything the absent person does can be interpreted as another symptom.
That’s what frightens me about armchair psychiatry.
I also think we need to separate two ideas that frequently get treated as though they’re the same:
Validating someone’s experience does not require validating their diagnosis of another person.
Someone can tell me, “My partner screamed at me, manipulated me, frightened me, or treated me terribly,” and I can take that experience seriously without concluding that I know which personality disorder their partner has.
In fact, harmful behavior doesn’t need a psychiatric diagnosis attached to it to be harmful.
There is also another human being behind these stories.
That doesn’t mean their perspective automatically disproves the person describing harm. It means relationships involve multiple subjective experiences, while an online audience usually receives only one of them.
The absent person may have an entirely different history, perspective, or clinical picture that none of us has access to.
More than one person’s experience can be real at the same time.
And I think that’s particularly important when therapy itself enters the story.
A therapist can appropriately help a client identify patterns, establish boundaries, process trauma, and make sense of what they experienced. But I become uncomfortable when that gets translated outside the therapy room into something like, “I described my partner to my therapist and my therapist agrees they have BPD/NPD.”
The therapist hasn’t evaluated that person.
And the absent person has no opportunity to provide context, history, symptoms, or their own account.
I’ve also become increasingly uncomfortable with how easily social media and online support communities can reinforce these conclusions. Once enough strangers repeat the same psychiatric terminology, speculation can begin to feel like clinical fact.
None of this means people shouldn’t speak about abuse.
None of it means victims shouldn’t be believed.
And it certainly doesn’t mean we should automatically believe the absent partner instead.
I’m asking for something much simpler: humility about what we actually know.
We can say:
“I believe that happened to you.”
“That behavior wasn’t okay.”
“You deserved better.”
“That relationship sounds incredibly painful.”
Without adding:
“And therefore I know what psychiatric disorder that person has.”
I think we’ve blurred that distinction considerably as therapy language has entered everyday culture.
And having personally experienced what it feels like to become the subject of someone else’s psychiatric explanation has made me much more careful about diagnosing people I’ve never met.
Sometimes we simply don’t know.
And acknowledging that uncertainty shouldn’t be mistaken for invalidating anyone’s pain.

Other medical fields don't blame you for not doing the work when treatment isn't working, at least in my experience. If the treatment doesn't work it's mostly just concluded that the treatment was the wrong one and a new one is chosen or new tests are done (which is another thing that makes me really critical of therapy since no objective tests are ever done and it solely relies on symptoms and self assessments). If a doctor blames you for the treatment not working we would most likely think that the doctor is a terrible one.

But in therapy this is just so common. When treatment fails it's your fault for not "doing the work", whatever that means. They're often not even specific what "the work" is. For other medical problems you often get clear instructions, like how often you should take antibiotics or the exercise you should do to lessen back pain. But with therapy I have never really gotten a clear example of what the works is, because "therapists aren't supposed to give advice". So it really seems it's an escape hatch to blame the patient when their pseudo-science inevitably fails.

That maybe we think therapy will get better, or if we just “do the work” we will be helped or see results, maybe giving the therapist a chance to prove themselves. You know deep down the answer, to quit therapy and stop seeing the therapist. But you stay and tell yourself just give it one more session and that turns into months of sessions which is caused by manipulation of the therapist.

My therapist knows they suck. So I don’t need to tell them. Their other clients do. I stuck it out with them. But they aren’t magically one day not going to suck. So I gave someone who sucks my time and attention. They aren’t going to compare to someone I saw years ago.

I think some therapists practice witchery or sorcery to get their clients to stay. Ha. It seems that way.

I don’t want a love/ hate relationship with a therapist. A relationship with a therapist is unhealthy. I don’t want a relationship at all. Sometimes, a relationship is like a drug. And sometimes it’s hard to come off on. But it can be done and it will be.

They talked about their patients at home. Not normally with names attached, but with details.

They blamed their patients for why they were tired and mean to their own kids.

They were just so...judgmental. And I know that not every single person is exactly like my family, but I sure don't trust therapists now, having heard what they can say.

Sorry for not explaining this with professional language but I'm exhausted:
I have been gaslit, neglected, abused and manipulated by many health care professionals my whole adult life (l am 36 years old) and that includes many psychotherapists, psychiatrists, etc. This subreddit and this conversation was not something I knew existed and did not exist when I first noticed what was happening and started trying to advocate for myself (in a mid-size town, alone, in person).
I eventually met other patients and clients of all genders, races and creeds who were having similar experiences with the same practitioners and/or health care centers (hospitals, detox program, etc.) IN REAL LIFE
Keep it up. Don't shut up. They are starting to sweat; I say this because I just got another "bad experience" with a psychologist and some social workers (yes I went back again ugh) but they seem a lot more nervous and less cocky than back in 2010ish

Hi y'all. I 22F, have been in therapy since I was ten. I am Schizoaffective, Bipolar type, a cluster b disorder, and have a very heavy trauma background. In person therapy is not accessible to me, so I go through doctors on demand, which my insurance covers. Not that I have much to be greatful for. Since I was 16, it has been a constant cycle of being referred to a specific therapist, meeting with them and opening up about my diagnosis, meds, background, etc, only to be told that I am "out of their scopes" and sent off to another therapist that's "more equipped," only to go through the same process. I have been longterm inpatient before, a group outpatient program, following every visit throughout the years, and I am fucking done. Never going back, to group dbt therapy at least. It feels downright stupid, dumbing down concepts that I have already figured out for myself. And it feels like a damn humiliation ritual, opening myself up to the supposed professionals, only to be kicked around like a god damn hacky sack.

How many times do I have to be told I'm "too complex" before it starts to feel absolutely hopeless? Why is it so "unethical" to at least try and help someone that's begging for it???

Anyways.

I see a new provider on Sept 23rd. Not looking forward to it.

This is reason number 100 why I hate therapy with a passion. I have faced REAL financial problems and real-life physical issues that caused me immense suffering. Everyone suggested therapy, so for years, I tried several different therapists. They were all useless at best, and actively harmful at worst.

Instead of acknowledging the actual source of my problems, they said things like, "No wonder you're depressed," simply because I like to watch true crime shows and read about cold cases. Investigative content actually makes me feel better; t's a hobby for me, but therapists insisted I stop watching cold case shows because that was causing my depression and anxiety. Not poverty, not physical limitations, but true crime. Can you imagine?

And it gets worse. One day, I noticed two people constantly casing my neighborhood, knocking on doors and taking photos. My therapist told me I was being paranoid, engaging in "mind reading," and suggested I use CBT to reframe my thinking, claiming maybe they were just admiring the building's architecture (I live in a very crappy building). We alerted the police, and I was proven right: they were actual burglars scouting homes.

It’s just one small example of how clueless and dismissive therapists can be. They would rather diagnose me with paranoia and cognitive distortions than admit there were actual criminals reconnoitering the area or that poverty and physical problems can cause depression.

E.g. if you tell a story about an awkward social interaction, and say “I’m sure something about what I was doing made them uncomfortable, but I don’t understand what, and I want to work on understanding that” they’ll argue that you’re hypersensitive and projecting and some people are just a little rude everything isn’t about you… but if you describe the same interaction and say “why am I so sensitive? I know this didn’t have anything to do with me” they’ll automatically argue that you can’t read social cues, lack awareness, and need to figure out what you did to make this person uncomfortable. That type of thing.

The mental health industry is sold to the public like it's completely scientific and like other medical fields. But often the advice therapists give is just the same stuff religions have been saying for millennia.

What hammered this home for me was attending a Moroccan wedding where an imam read a part of the Quran about how Allah doesn't give you more than you can handle and how you need to trust in him. This sounds just like my therapist telling me I can handle more than I think and I should have trust in myself.

Other things are stuff like gratitude, positive thinking and acceptance. My therapist telling me to be grateful for stuff in life is just like being grateful for everything God provides. Being told to think positive despite the hardships is just like trusting in God because he has a plan. And being told to just accept everything for how it is sounds like having to let go of desire, as desire is what causes suffering according to Buddhists.

But these religions things have never convinced me, so why should it convince me now that it comes from a secular party? One that should be paid for on top of that. For all their claims about their treatments being scientifically proven and evidence based, it really seems like they're just rehashing religious practices.

But religion doesn't help make this awful reality more bearable, so why would therapy?

I have done lots of healing. You name it, I have done it: CBT, DBT, inner child healing, self-help books. None of that mattered, and the only single thing that truly made a difference to my CPTSD healing journey was having money. That is it. With money now, I could afford things to better myself. You want a good sleep? Money. You want to go to a better environment, like a house? Money. You want to not work and treat yourself to a good day? Money. The list goes on. For myself and many others, the sad reality is money is the one thing that really makes a difference, and I say this with 100% belief and none of therapy has helped me with financial issues all they did was to convince me that money dosent buy happiness while they sit in a porsche and ferrari.

I know psychologists/therapists can't really fix anybody, but can they at least diagnose trauma or similar problems? I feel like multiple aspects of my psyche have been damaged and I need to have my mind assessed. Or do you guys think they can screw this up too?

I've read so many stories I can relate to on this and other subs that talk about therapy abuse. My abuse started with the hallmarks of grooming, including love bombing, extra attention, talk of a "special connection" and compliments. My therapist eventually tried to cross physical boundaries by doing things like asking if she could hold me or sit next to me on the couch. On one occasion she asked to have a session at a location that was not her office.

Eventually I began to become suspicious of her motives. I would block every attempt to touch me or get too close to me physically. I told her something she had written in an email to me about wanting to hold me like I was her child seemed inappropriate and made me uncomfortable.

At every turn, she would turn the tables and try to convince me that I was the one with the problem. I was just afraid of intimacy. I "misunderstood". She was offended by me calling her out. I was told nothing she was doing was abnormal or inappropriate. Eventually it was shouted at me in session that I was "borderline" - a diagnosis no previous or subsequent therapist had ever given me. I was not allowed to question this though. Questioning meant I was "not making progress".

The therapy devolved into straight up abuse within the first six months and after I deflected her inappropriate advances. She began to speak to me with such contempt and disgust that I began to struggle with suicidal feelings. Of course this was called just another symptom of my "disorder". I began to feel rage towards her for drawing me in with kindness and then abusing me, all while gaslighting me the entire time to believe it was not abuse. My anger was also written off as a symptom of my "disorder".

There were times it was hard not to notice that she seemed to take pleasure in causing me pain. I do not say that lightly. This woman seemed to get off on knowing she had harmed me. She constantly held the threat of termination above my head and made me believe she was the only person who could help me, although my mentally health only worsened under her "care".

Of course she chose to terminate the moment I finally woke up and called what was happening "abuse". My mom had just recently died very suddenly and she could not have cared less about the fact that I was actively grieving. All of this to say, did anyone else NOT submit to their therapist's advances and get treated with outright contempt and verbal, emotional, or psychological abuse as result?

Ive spent years at this point switching therapists and service providers over and over, desperately trying to find someone to help me with my deep seeded issues, but no luck. The common theme Ive gotten from this whole ordeal is that the vast majority of therapists, especially the cheaper or more accessible ones, quite literally could not be paid to give a shit or show an ounce of curiosity.

Like I just recently dropped an online therapist who in our final session (live text session) was straight up watching tv with her mic unmuted so everytime after I texted shed pause, say the first bullshit that came to her head, and then unpause and continue watching…Like no attempt to understand my issues or take notes or just spend a couple fucking seconds to think of a more thoughtful response than prattling on about whatever first pops up in her head just so she could get back to her show

and so many fuckin therapists I had are similar. they think being quippy and trying to talk like some wise old mentor or motivational speaker can hide the fact that they have no more understanding of mental health issues than the average influencer and can offer no meaningful insight on your issues whatsoever. They hear one buzzword in your sentence that sets off a stiff, vaguely motivational lecture, but then you say something else and they just lecture in the opposite direction. It’s baffling that they make no attempt to understand your issues as a whole in order to diagnose the problem and come up with a solution for it. And then of course, forgetting everything and having no notes so by the next session you basically have to start from scratch

I did have one therapist though who was genuinely helpful and just after one session provided so much more healing and understanding than like 5 sessions with my last therapist. But of course she was really expensive and I had to drop her after finding out my insurance didnt cover her practice.

But that just makes it feel all the more hopeless, that even having a chance at healing requires finding the most expensive and experienced therapists with the widest insurance coverage, and if you cant find that then youre left with a bunch of cynical, unserious, or even downright abusive people, majority of which are only in it for the money, the power dynamics, or so they can bury their own misery and feel good about themselves.

With doctors and nurses, sure you still have assholes only in it for the money, but at the very least the medical industry generally has higher standards, more concrete rules and procedures, and better regulations. What can you say about therapy by comparison? No accountability, standard procedure or nothing. These services know how much demand there is for therapists so they grab any old wacko whos even barely qualified and just let them do their thing

Its so depressing and im tired of wading through all this shit. just about ready to give up and accept that ill never truly be able to heal

Troi represents the formal, institutionalized framework. She sits in the office, wears the uniform, utilizes clinical theories, and analyzes people just stating the obvious and offering no advice or connection (detached professional distance). But when the crew members are genuinely struggling, stuck in a deep existential crisis, or processing a harsh reality, where do they actually go? To the bar.

A bartender doesn’t sit back, cross their legs, and hit you with a rehearsed hand gesture. They exist in the same physical and social plane as you. Guinan doesn't have the authority to ground a crew member, declare them "unfit for duty," or file a psychological report behind their back. Because she has zero hard power, she has to rely entirely on genuine soft power, honesty, perspective, and actual humanity. An institutional therapist has an unspoken mandate to get you back to being a productive, compliant worker for the system and something to prove/an identity as a helper. A bartender doesn't care if you fall in line with Starfleet protocols or your corporate boss; they just care about how you are doing right now in front of them.

Bartenders are also usually working class contrast to middle/upper class types the system filters (cost of higher education, unpaid internships, opening your own practice/business means only the worst types become therapists) and are fellow strugglers in the same boat going through the same stuff or at least know someone who does contrast to privileged circles most mental health workers run in.

working as your therapists personal assistant/reception on and off for years while still receiving therapy and sometimes working to pay for therapy. Met therapist at 18 and it went on until I was 27. I am still trying to wrap my head around my experience. I can see it for how it was basically just grooming but it felt like a real therapeutic relationship for me and this person was an important pseudo parental figure in my life and I was 18 so I don’t think I thought I was being groomed and a lot of my past identity formed while I saw this person for therapy. To be told by other professionals now that this man was inappropriately in my life was nothing but confusing and devestating, this person also held a GP license and prescribed me medications and my parents both believed he was just doing well by me. I am only starting now to really see that yeah, that’s basically grooming, but it was my first genuine therapy experience because I was 18… it’s so unfair, and those boundaries should have existed for me. This went on for so long, I didn’t deserve it. He prescribed me benzos when I was telling him I had anxiety still, a bit of time into our treatment. The benzos cascaded into a bad dependence. I was 19 when I started benzos.

It wouldn't be in my best interest to contact any of these people.

They all think they were special people in my life because they cared sooo much and they are the most caring special person ever.

Sometimes I was diplomatic about telling them we were "not a good fit" (and not that they sucked), and sometimes I was too frozen/fawning to even know myself how much they harmed me. Only once did I politely tell the dude why I couldn't see him anymore (what I said was that he had interpreted X and Y incorrectly and that I felt unsafe with him because Z. In other words, he sucked). Every single time they made sure to let me know that actually I was wrong, they did help me, and they felt great about the fact that they helped me.

One in particular, I'm sure, still thinks we had a special bond and that I just love her so much.

I'm frozen with blocked up rage. There's no point in telling them anything. They don't care, and it just exposes me to risk. What do I do with the rage?

Why is it that so many therapists can’t just allow their clients to express themselves without trying to push their own beliefs? Their savior complex is so strong it compels them to force people onto paths they themselves deem worthy, regardless of whether it’s right for the client or not.

tl;dr for rest of post. Just ranting about experiences where therapists clearly showed their biases and pushed their personal feelings. Instead of holding a judgement free space, they made it clear I was being judged and tried to direct me in a way they thought I should go. The space effectively stops being about you at all when things hit that point. It becomes about them, their experiences and what outcomes they wanna see. You exist as a vessel to express that despite being the client. I don’t understand why when you tell them about your thoughts or things that bother you, they have the instinct to push their feelings, tell you “don’t worry/it’s not a big deal” or meet you with derision like you’re unreasonable for coming to therapy to talk. We’re all human, right we? Sometimes we judge, we think not nice things, we’re confused or conflicted, our values aren’t aligning with our emotions, etc. Mental health and trauma makes this all the more confusing. All you hear ad nauseam is “go to therapy! Go to therapy!” But when you do, they tell you the same shit someone on the street could say. They judge you the same way. They say to explore and open up to emotions but when it’s something they personally disagree with or don’t like, they stomp it out like you had a “bad thought” and have to be corrected. Like many posts I’ve read on here, it’s especially bad when a client comes to session with experiences of being abused just for the therapist to start identifying with and sympathizing with the abuser. Who are they supposed to hold space for again?!?!

I had a lot of experiences with my last therapist being very transparent about where her biases lay. It was so fucking infuriating. I’m in the middle of sharing something traumatic when she would brazenly interject with a “fact“. It didn’t matter if I got upset, she would always find some way to talk around it and avoid accountability. A lot of the time it was her pushing her idea of gender roles and trying to be “scientific“ about it. I was telling her about some intimacy issues; saying despite what a lot of people say about men (I hadn’t told her about my gender issues but was still clear about not feeling in line with traditional ideas), I tend to get very attached and emotional and how some women are the opposite of that. People are different, life isn’t a one size fits all. I was trying to express that some people you reach out to cling so hard to what they believe is true for everyone that when you present experiences contrary to popular belief they don’t wanna hear it or argue with you. It had to do with personal stuff I was going through and I was feeling isolated about it. Instead of listening, she does the very thing I said bothers me and interjects about how men and women are different and insists on contradicting me with “scientific facts”. Next session I told her I felt upset and unheard. She launches into a long spiel where she went between backpedaling and telling me “oh you don’t think I actually believe all that do you? oh no! I was just trying to say blah blah blah” instead of just apologizing and admitting she overstepped. Even after this she continued to shove in her “facts.“ It was a pattern that kept repeating itself over the years we worked together.

Sometimes it wouldn’t be just gender roles, it would be her trying to tell me why I feel the way I do and rewriting what I experienced. She would also add that she’s a “scientist” so she knows “the science“ and is just explaining “the science.” When I told her about questioning my gender, she doubled down on it even more, the outcome of which I wrote a post about a while back. Caused a huge rupture with her yelling about “BIOLOGICAL FACTS!“, gaslighting me, then immediately trying to “reassess the diagnosis“ and stick me with a personality disorder when I told her I felt unsafe.

She would also clearly show her biases in other ways and act sympathetic towards people I was having issues with. I remember when I was going out with someone who was very manipulative and abusive. Amongst all their other problems, they had a history of hard drug use and promiscuity. I had just started seeing this person and they’re already laying out all these things that made me uncomfortable. I told my therapist about it, thinking it was the correct avenue to figure out my feelings. While I was bringing up the numerous behaviors and issues that were getting to me, I mentioned that even though I tried to ignore it my partner’s past was starting to bother me a little. She immediately jumps in like clockwork to interrupt with “oh well she’s slept with that many people? Oh that’s not a big deal. For a female? That’s not a big deal. So don’t worry about that.“ What kind of response is that? I’m in fucking therapy for god sakes. I didn’t bring this up with the person I was seeing and shame or judge them. I went to my therapist to talk over and sort out my personal feelings. Isn’t that their fucking job? So why the fuck am I being told to just “not worry about it”? Oh yeah, so because you said to stop worrying. that I’m just gonna stop worrying about it.

Later on I asked her why she reacted like that and I got the usual politician answer: “well you see when you brought that up I saw that was something you were focusing on and I was trying to bring you back from that as a therapist. I was trying to bring you back to focus. I saw you were focusing on that and I was trying to bring you back”. Funnily enough, it was the first and only time I brought it up. She’s the one who zeroed in and made it a whole thing as it clearly stirred up some reaction in her. All the other times it was about allowing negative feelings to sit or opening up about them and how pushing things away doesn’t work. Now she’s telling me “don’t worry about that”? She then continued to go on about how she has lots of friends who sleep around and still find great fulfilling relationships but what the hell do your friends have to do with my private feelings that I’m discussing with you?? This is for me to figure out how and why I feel the way I do, not about your personal friends or your interpretations. The conclusion I come to is mine alone, not yours to push me towards. Of course it’s another long winded diatribe trying to justify herself instead of her admitting she brought her personal feelings into the session and overstepped once again. Just like a politician.

Right after I broke things off with that ex, I told my therapist I was worried about my safety and this person potentially becoming dangerous and deciding to come by my house (the whole situation was nuts and I had legitimate reasons to worry). Her response was a callous “uhh but you’re not in that situation anymore? 🤨” When I brought it up later, she pulled the plausible deniability card. “I was just asking why you were bothered because you weren’t in that situation anymore”. When I told her I felt pressured into things during that relationship I wasn’t okay with and was worried about the possibility of them getting pregnant, she either blankly looked at me or shrugged. When she cried and complained about her ex-husband during her divorce, I kept asking if she was okay and told her she’ll get through it and I’m the client! I shouldn’t ever have that put on me.

Funnily enough, on the flipside, when I brought up how I was uncomfortable that the doctor she referred me to for a medication assessment (who she first claimed was a proper psychiatrist but I found out, without her disclosure I might add, officially doesn’t have that certification) had disciplinary action taken towards him in the past due to getting into a sexual relationship with a client and a ton of bad reviews, her response was “well one if my girlfriends recommended him and said he was amazing. And it was a long time ago and he served his punishment. And people also write lots of things online blah blah blah”. That’s great. I don’t wanna trust my health with someone who takes advantage of their clients. I’ve also been a victim of SA and she had known this but it’s whatever I guess! Gotta defend her colleagues!

The high school psychologist I used to see did the same shit. I was talking to her about someone I had perviously had a bit of a thing with that I stopped talking to due to mental health issues and suicidal thoughts. We had just started a new semester around this time and I heard they were in co-op and doing a placement. It They were someone really quiet didn’t talk much. It’s such a small thing but in all my insecure teenage feelings, I took this as them growing and moving on. I felt like “you don’t need me, life will move on for you” while I felt isolated from everyone sitting still in the same place with nowhere else to go. I was bitter but really young and had so many feelings I didn’t understand. Of course, my HS therapist‘s response to this was to mockingly question me with that stupid smug look that all these therapists seem to have. “Well, why not? What’s wrong with her being in co-op?? She’s allowed to do whatever she wants!” That’s not the point! I’m not going up to her and trying to impede her in anyway. I’m bringing up my private feelings in order to understand them but I guess that’s too much for therapists!

When I’d bring up something like feeling like a misanthrope, she would grill me with “well why do you feel that way?? What do think people who consider themselves misanthropes miss out on” pushing until I gave her an answer she wanted to hear. She would be weird and pushy about me going to college and said shit like “college will be home to many pleasures we can’t talk about in a catholic school”, was also pushy about gender roles (repeating over and over again that ”oh you’re a heterosexual male your libido needs somewhere to go!” Whenever I talked about my feelings for someone) and even a few times would tell me how attractive she thought my mom was. When she heard other teachers say I was doing well and seemed happier I’d tell her I was just keeping up appearances and she’d push back with “well you see people can tell you’re actually smile when your eyes crinkle” and all that tired bullshit people often say as if you can learn to fake that. I grew up in an environment where any sense of discontent was zeroed in on and punished like I was insubordinate. You learn to be quiet, fake things to please other people and not rock the boat. You’d think they’d get this but all that schooling does is fill their heads with hot air. It’s like when I was a kid, I used to get beat up a lot. I remember telling teachers about bullying incidents when they had to do reports and during times I actually fought back, I’d have them pressure me to change my story to pin all the blame on me. Like police interrogations where they manipulate the suspects into giving false confessions or different answer. Therapists used the exact same tactics. Whether it was during a rupture or during something they couldn’t just explain away.

It still frustrates me to look back and realize all these little interactions were not about me at all. They were about them. It could’ve been anyone sitting across from them, they just wanted to mold someone or use them as an avenue to express whatever whims they had that day. It’s even worse when you notice how they reinforced your trauma defences because they kept you in line and shut you up. None of that is holding space for the client and what they feel.

She had terrible boundaries. Told me I was her favorite client, she didn’t want to lose me, she’d tell me things she wouldn’t tell anyone else, let me buy her and her kids gifts, would talk to me about her life problems, would text me outside of session about her life and family.

But she was inconsistent af. She’d tell me we were friends and could hang out and then the next week say we couldn’t be. Then by the next week she’d tell me we could be friends but I couldn’t tell anyone.

She guilted me when I’d remotely bring up reporting. Saying it could be bad for her career. Telling me that hearing I spoke about our relationship with others made her not want to open up to me anymore.

Ended therapy to enter this friendship she was supposedly so excited to have with me. Then of course suddenly she tells me she doesn’t have time to be my friend. I’m suddenly a burden and a nuisance. She told me if anything went wrong we’d communicate. And of course this wasn’t true. I’d ask to talk and would be ignored. She’d tell me we woild talk and then she’d reschedule on me every single day for a week straight.

She’d continue blaming me. Saying she didn’t like how I made her feel guilty(as if her feelings of guilt were my fault and not the result of her own shitty actions). I spent SO MUCH energy comforting her and forgiving her. Telling her not to feel guilty, apologizing to her endlessness for being “too much”(literally me asking if we can try to see each other once a month LIKE SHE SAID SOUNDED PERFECT as my therapist). I’d tell her she was hurting me and she’d say she doesn’t take what I say to heart because no one else criticizes her like I do.

I was SO overwhelmed and had to get something out that a few months ago I anonymously emailed the director of the group private practice she works at. But I fucked up and it wasn’t anonymous. Lead to a whole summer of pain and mostly silence. And finally ended with my ex therapist emailing me and using it to thank me for apologizing to her for telling her boss. And NONE of it to personally apologize for ANYTHING.

I’m so disgusted and broken right now. I came to this woman for CSA trauma and we also worked on attachment trauma. Shes retraumatized me in so many ways. I’ve never felt so sad. I’ve never felt this amount of ANGER towards anyone.

I don’t even know what to do. I feel so broken by this woman.

I've been through it. No one really responds to my posts. Divination is real btw. That's what helped me. I wish I had friends.

Hope you like this song

I live in Brazil, and there is practically no material here regarding therapeutic abuse—or even anything that criticizes psychologists.

I believe they are even more arrogant here than in more developed countries; in a country with low levels of education, people lack the background knowledge to question professionals—who themselves often lack adequate knowledge. Ignorant people validate ignorant therapists here, and being caught in the middle of that is awful.

Only "mainstream" disorders are recognized here. Terms like PTSD, AvPD, and learned helplessness are completely foreign to therapists. It’s as if they only know about disorders that get a lot of online exposure (like depression or anxiety).

I know it’s bad elsewhere too, but at least therapists there aren't so blatantly useless. At least there are support groups for lesser-known disorders, whereas here, simply finding someone who is even familiar with those conditions is a rarity.

How to deal with siblings who are therapists and use therapist language against you. For example constantly gaslighting you, giving you unprompted therapy worksheets when a disagreement happens without asking for it, and diagnosing people in the family when an issue arrives.

Coming to Voice as a Survivor: a Workbook on Therapy Abuse and Exploitation is being released one chapter at a time on Substack. CHAPTER 4: EXPLOITATION was just uploaded.

What happens in therapy abuse and exploitation after grooming?

In Chapter 3, in the workbook Coming To Voice as a Survivor, we showed you how abusive therapists position clients into compliance. Chapter 4 shows you what they do with that grooming.

Exploitation has four facets: emotional, financial, physical, and sexual. And they almost never come alone.

You might think you initiated it. You might feel you wanted it. You might believe you consented. But coercion nullifies consent. The power imbalance between therapist and client makes genuine agreement impossible no matter how willing you felt.

This chapter walks you through:

• How role reversal can make you feel responsible for your therapist's emotional needs

• How pro bono services can turn into indentured servitude

• How gifts and "bartering" can lock you into financial obligation

• How the honeymoon phase (that period when you felt more alive than ever) can make it impossible to see what was actually happening.

And it includes a quote from me, a survivor, about living inside active exploitation believing it was love. It is the unflinching truth about how these relationships are crazy-making. If you've wondered whether what happened to you counts as abuse, this chapter will answer that question. If you recognize patterns you couldn't name before, this chapter will give you those names.

Subscribe to read the full chapter. On substack under Bernadine Fox.

If financial barriers are keeping you from accessing this work, gift subscriptions are available—just ask.

Long story short, I had a family member assault me and then tell me I needed therapy to 'get over my ridiculous reactions to him.'

Except I actually have a therapist (I need to see one through my school to access psychiatric care, which has actually been helpful for me). And said family member is aware of it. He helped pay for it at one point.

Clearly some of the people saying "You should get therapy" aren't really listening to ANYTHING you're saying.

I recently found the courage to make a TikTok video explaining my experience as a patient with a LifeStance therapist. Sharing here looking for support and solidarity. Relevant to people living in the Philly and surrounding areas, NJ, and DE. my story