Bad Therapists
10 signs of a bad therapist -
Bad vibes in the waiting room
Clock watching
Talking about themselves too much
Inappropriate reactions or responses
Not sticking to with the treatment plan
Therapy is not specific to your actual problems
Shaming you
Misdiagnosing you
Timing issues - lateness, cutting you short
Treating you like a cash cow
First & foremost I see people as people & not solely by their job title. This level of compassion often trips me up. When paying for professional services it’s best to pay full attention to what’s truly being offered. Not just the persons qualifications & level of experience, also by what he/she conveys on an energetic level. Questions to ask youself; how does this persons presence make you feel? Are they providing a safe space for you to open up about your problems? Does something feel off in their tone? Do they have appropriate reactions to your input? Therapy should be about making you feel empowered not dis-empowered.
If you go in & they immediately ask you for your kids names for example, how does this make you feel? Are you triggered into feeling like it’s a subliminal social cue, that you are a bad parent for having depression? I personally don’t find this starting point helpful at all. Asking loads of questions about your kids & family straight off is invasive. It doesn’t inspire trust. It gives a feeling of deflection as to the process being centred to you. Therapy is based on discretion, so the first rule is breached. I immediately think that they are a busy body type, who likes to sit in an Ivory tower. Especially if they are not a family systems therapist, they are going beyond their station. These people have your full name, so they can make a police or social services report if they think children are endangered. They do not need any names other than yours & maybe your next of kin if you need medical assistance. Say if you have epilepsy or some other condition where you may collapse & need medical assistance.
Have a phone call with the therapist before you decide to book him or her to get a feel of them. This also allows for a quick Q&A to see if their method is going to useful to you. When we are traumatised we don’t always know what’s the right way is to proceed. Brief background research is always helpful on the type of treatment modality.
If you can’t ask fiends & family, ask professionals. I’ve had a few massage therapist give me referrals Massage therapist are naturally empathetic people in my expereince. Massage is a great supplement to the healing process, it has so many benefits. Very good to use in conjunction with talking therapies when you start tensing & locking up. Massage in itself can release pent up emotions too. We have lots of trigger points on our bodies, embedded within connective tissues called fascia, which hold an emotional charge.
Word of mouth isn’t always favourable unfortunately. I’ve learned this lesson the hard way on a few occasions. Unless that person has had ongoing treatment with the therapist, I’d advise double or triple checking references. Trust pilot is a great resource for checking people out. More often than not they will display a small number of testimonials on their website, if any at all. Another option is to see if these referencer’s are on facebook, to check if they are real. You could even approach the individuals with a private message, although this would be contingent on your own privacy needs.
With over 15 years on & off with various modalities of therapy under my belt, I’ve been shown the good & bad side of it all. Mostly the bad. Here’s a few anecdotal tit bits so people can learn from my mistakes & hopefully you wont feel like a complete tit when you seek out help.
NLP
This cropped up for me around 10 years ago. NLP is an acronym for Neuro-linguistic Programming. Originally devised by Richard Bandler & John Grinder. I was recommended by a beauty therapist one of these not liking people practitioners. OK, so here I’m just directing this not liking people element at this particular lady. I saw two NLP practitioners at the time. The other one was very professional & also a Police officer. The lady in question was a kick boxing & karaoke aficionado. I’m calling out her BS because she actually said at the end of the session she preferred Cats to people. Alhtough It got much worse with the other things that she divulged.
She came over to my house within a few days of calling, after her kick-boxing work out class that she runs as a sideline down at the local gym. According to her, I didn’t need massage therapy, I could cure myself with a foam roller. Wow, I thought, how two-faced, considering the lady who recommended her, was a massage therapist. The whole situation became bizarre. It was after she told me that she’d left her husband because of his depression & was now “shagging a 23 year old”.
I realised she was riddled with issues herself. She said she was 46 at the time, so I found this a little creepy, fitness instructor shags her student. Not only the highly inappropriate over sharing, the comments about disliking people & preferring cats was extremely odd. I recall an automated email asking for donations for the cats protection league, a few weeks later. I didn’t take her up on that or a second session needless to say.
Psychologist
One chap who sticks out like a sore thumb, I’m going to call the Shaming psychologist.
I was sent to this guy on the NHS for an assessment, after badgering my GP. I knew intuitively that I had more going on, than the ubiquitously diagnosed “depression & anxiety” label. I spoke to him about the charity mind, where I’d had a few session with a therapist. The style of therapy was psycho-dynamic. I’d never heard of it before & thought it sounded impressive with the dynamic part. Wow, was I wrong about that. In response to him asking me, why I didn’t feel it was working, I pointed out that the therapist seemed off. His immediate response was to instantly shut me down. He shamed me for not getting the reaction I wanted out of people. Totally blowing what I’d said out of proportion. I tried to laugh it off, thinking this may be a reverse psychology tactic or something but his demeanour didn’t change. Oh here we go again, I thought, another weirdo. Why do they bother to do their job becuse they clearly don’t like helping people. Where’s the understanding & empathy? I was asking inside y mind. These two didn’t seem to have the slightest regard for sensitivity or British manners.
I now realise, that a lot of narcissistic personality types, are drawn to working as therapists. These personality types get off on being purposely callous to others, who are less fortunate. In a bid to nourish their own highly damaged egos. Exploiting people in a vulnerable state of mind is one of the vilest things a human being can do.
Psycho-dynamic therapy is a cold form of therapy, I later learned. There’s a boffin called Sam Vaknin who relays the explanation very well on his you tube channel. He’s a twice diagnosed psychopath & narcissist, in his words. He recommends this form of treatment for narcissistic personality types. Take it straight form the Horses mouth. Seeing as though I’m a sensitive, empathic & compassionate personality type, this was the worst form of therapy I could have partaken in.
Occupational therapy
The only experience I’d had previously with occupational therapists, was an assessment whilst working in an office. One regarding physical ailments from desk & chair ergonomics. Then a high-flying one in London, a few years later. She was thankfully more switched on. For me at the time, she was like a beacon of light in the chaos. At this time in my life I was having the onset of MDD - Major depressive disorder. MDD is basically what they used to call, a nervous breakdown. This lady could sense my emotional pain, realising I was in a bad way sent me to a psychologist who was subcontracted by the firm.
His advice from a 50 minute session, was to eat organic foods. I only had one session because I had to quit that office job & I could sense he was most likely a charlatan. I always wondered about the 50 minute sessions, it always seemed a bit random to me. Take it as a pre requisite for being cut short. 40 minutes of talking & 10 minutes coming & going. Clock watcher types, all about the money.
There were many contributing factors as to why I developed MDD at that particular time in my life. I wont go into too much detail, but I can recall a guy who I worked with, who went to prison for murder a few weeks prior. Shocking life experiences like that, really don’t help your mental state. Especially after you’ve have detectives, sitting in your living room, asking you what your interactions were with this person who you used to associate with socially outside of work. There were a couple of shady displays of behaviour but nothing to indicate that he could do something as bad as killing an older lady, who was a family friend & very good to him.
I was then sent to two occupational therapists on the NHS. They were nice thankfully but the CBT sessions didn’t work out well for me either. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I’d done some background research & it seemed like there were elements of positive use. I was keen to try it but I found the lady’s line of questioning, confusing. It wasn’t implemented very well & It seemed too simplistic for deep layers of thinking. What I needed was to get underneath all the layers of crud, going back through a time line to childhood. Jump to the second guy, who did a bit of time line therapy with me. That was my saving grace, to understanding so many things about complex post traumatic stress & how it develops.
This was at the same time that I’d been misdiagnosed for PTSD with these two NHS workers. Another indicator as to why it wasn’t working. CBT seems to be the standard protocol of treatment offered by the NHS for people with depression etc. When it’s not suitable for deep rooted long term issues in my opinion.
A humanistic counsellor, who I’d seen privately a few year later, said that in her opinion, CBT is like sticking a plaster over the top of a wound. I agreed with her, explaining, that’s exaclty how I felt about it, a kind of “meh” feeling. Whilst it may temporarily help some people with trauma, I can personally guarantee that it will not solve the underlying issues that need to be brought up to be worked through.
Sometimes you can internalise these negative experiences, when you don’t feel like you are making any progress. They affect your already waning self esteem. Topping up levels of frustration, hopelessness & sadness.
These former road blocks, I now see as indicators, propelling me towards a holistic approach. So I ditched the madication, after that point (no that’s not a typo), I stole it from Andrew Austin a neurological nurse & NLP teacher. Prescription drugs almost killed me 10 years ago. After a 2 severe allergic reactions, my body was on a downward spiral of giving up completely. A very common issue with unacknowledged & unresolved trauma.
EMDR Therapy
EMDR stands for eye movement desensitisation & reprocessing. Using your eyes to engage with the reticular activating system within the brain. It help to access memories & brig about a clearing process within in the mind. In simplistic terms.
The therapist I sought out for this, I’m going to refer to as a clown. She made a point to say that she could be clumsy. When I think of clumsiness, clown images pop into my head. Clumsiness was shown firstly by letting me waffle on for 3 session. I’d pre-warned her that I had a tendency to waffle with anxiety spewing out my words at 100 miles an hour. When approaching therapy.
It was agreed that the EMDR treatment would start on session 2. It got to session 3 & I’d had enough of her treating me like a cash cow. A poignant moment that stuck me like an upperpunch to the guts, for many weeks after, was her laughing at something deeply troubling to me. It was highly inappropriate to say the least.
Another situation where you need to get up & leave straight away. Preferably without paying. Unfortauntely when you go into shut down mode with dissociation, it’s hard to react with quick action. The callous clown types know this, they’ve got you glued like a fly on sticky paper. Unfotunately, I sat frozen to my seat in tears & wasn’t able to move from being shocked by her reaction. When this happens it is a shut down response within the nervous system. A kind of trip swich as it were, to cut off the stream of painful thoughts & wounded emotional energy. That could easily trigger a fight-flight rage attack in some people.
In hindsight, my gut instinct about her avoidance, to speaking on the phone & something impatient about waiting rooms in her email, could have been my guidance to bail before even starting. When something that seems minor on the surface, keeps popping up in your mind on a loop, pay attention to the bigger picture that it’s trying to show you. Clues from the subconscious mind of red flags waving.
No accountability was shown whatsoever, after I emailed her, to say I wouldn’t be going back & outlining why. Not only was she in breach of the treatment plan, by not doing what was agreed for session 2. To laugh at something deeply traumatic, was astonishingly bad practice. No reaction to this, it was turned back onto me in a passive aggressive way. There’s another descriptive word beginning with C that I can think of here to describe this clumsy clown.
Her lack of accountability, is no surprise on reflection, when she wasn’t able to take control of the sessions in a professional way. I made a professional complaint about this woman. Unfortunately it’s not a highly regulated industry. Anyone can set up as a talking therapist with or without training. All that the reporting bodies do, is write their name on a list. If they continue to treat their clients with disrespect. They don’t get struck off etc. In the US it’s different, practicing therapists need to apply for a license, I believe. The UK governement should really think of implementing this.
After all these experiences, I was ready to give up on therapy & just do it all myself. I’d already found helpful people online, who’s free videos buffered me out of the despair hole. I’m eternally grateful for their free resources & their time. When I’m having difficulties, I draw on all the lovely people who genuinely care about others well being. Even if it’s not a face to face interaction, it still helps listening to a therapist talk openly. Often feeling like they are talking to you directly. The saving grace of synchronicities, showing up, just at the right time for you. Leading you down the right path, to self preservation.
It’s saddening that I didn’t get to experience EMDR in action with a therapist because it ‘s been highly praised for helping PTSD sufferes. Although at the time I’d started EFT - emotional freedom technique at home. I found a lovely chap online called Brad. I followed along with brad a few days a week & it helped to calm me down. Louise Hay talked about the method too. It involves tapping on various meridians in the body that engage the nervous system in a calming response. It was having a similar effect to what I was expecting with EMDR.
Hypnotherapy
I thought I’d try hypnotherapy to help my trauma. I’d been thinking about it for a long time. It was an added expense, with physical therapy appointments too. I had to make tough choices on how to juggle it all. This chap booked me in for 90 minutes. He talked about himself for the first 30 of those. Mentioning plays he’d written at the front door, leaving me lingering in his garden, whilst he projected his voice about the theatre again on my way out. I have a GCSE in drama & don’t mind hearing about people’s acting achievement's just not every time I go there.
It’s an isolating job being self employed, I should know. So I can see how wanting to engage in normal conversation, crops up with clients. It’s not as if I’m someone who doesn’t know how to interject into a conversation. To equalise the balance of power, I can be very direct when I need to be. Three sessions with this guy & the attention seeking about his theatrical exploits was really putting me off. As was the lingering fish smell & the lack of comfort in general, from the slanting futon, that I was expected to lay on in his front room. If my chronic back pain flares afterwards, I’m definitely calling it quits.
Life Coach
Another private therapist turned life coach with her program, really needed to check herself. The initial misdemeanor was a mean girl look in the waiting room. This was another costly mistake. If someone throws shade your way before you start the sessions, get up & walk out.
Not realising I was her client until it was 5 minutes or so later. When no-one else was in the waiting room, she looked a tad sheepish, when it clicked. She came as another recommendation by a massage therapist. There’s been a running theme with this. He had convinced me that she was “very loving”. So with that in mind & an aloof loo encounter a few minutes earlier, I kept myself rooted to the seat. Although I was a few seconds away from bailing after the evil eye. I’d also spoken to her on the phone a few days prior & liked her direct way of speaking.
I sat there thinking, maybe she just didn’t like my outfit? Maybe she’s got wind? She was in the loo after all when I arrived earlier. These justifications, can be helpful, to detach from a personal attack but you have to go off the person’s presence at the start. The evil eye felt like an attack on an energetic level. If you find yourself later, flashing back to year 7 high school, smiling at a year 9 girl because you think her hair is beautiful & the year 9 girl barks at you for just looking at her, take that as an internal cue. A cue that you don’t need this juvenile means girls crap, on top of everything else. The fact she kept saying she doesn’t do psychotherapy was an indication towards her self inflated mindset.
The initial appointment was scheduled for 2 hours. 2 hours with a woman who’d given me the evil eye in the waiting room. Usually it’s a standard 1 hour. Anything longer than an hour & take heed with this. Should your therapist waffle on for half an hour about what they know about narcissistic abuse. Another one like the attention seeking hypnotist. With the shady look, it was a second indication, toward her level of self importance. A lot of these therapists, get too bound up in their egos, when they are in a position of guiding people. They take the guidance aspect & twist it, so it becomes like a God complex. Be weary not to mistake these ego displays as presenting confidence.
Session 2 showed up some more high school antics. This time, with some competition with Dr Martins boots versus Converse high-tops. I knew it, it was my outfit with the evil eye initially. I’ve worn both in my life time. This woman was 52! Maybe the menopause was making her a tad nuts, who knows. Some people go a bit loopy at mid life. I know because I had a little pre-mid life crisis at 39. My endocrine system is certainly taxed from chronic stress. However, I don’t want to jump in my mental time machine & go back to the 1990’s before a therapy session. Not unless it’s the school disco & we are doing some inner child movement work.
I felt some shame that I didn’t check with my old school friend who’d written a testimonial for her. The only one on her website & an outdated blog were more red flags. This friend was brought up in conversation, so I stopped her mid sentence, telling her that we went to school together. She thought about it for a few seconds, then carried on with a dismissive hand wave. I had an intuitive memory about this school friend, after her given example & gave the true perspective. Therapists don’t really like it when you educate them on another perspective. Drawing from behavioural psychology, it deflected her seemingly “basic bitch” narrative. Breach of confidentiality too. They should not be mentioning other clients by name at all.
On the fourth session is was agreed by both of us that I didn’t need to be there. Aside from predicting her technique, she proved to be a judgemental twit. PTSD wasn’t even mentioned either. Another major red flag for a therapist not working on your issues. When someone downgrades their service, from psychotherapeutic counselling, to generic life coaching mixed with NLP, repackaged in an impressive work book, stop & ask why this may be.
