To think therapy culture is creating narcissists?

It was something like 6 free sessions a semester or year of uni, I cant quite remember.

Yes, I guess I found the advice stupid enough to wonder why I wouldn't keep up contact with my parents for just wanting me to do well in life 😂

No

Simply put - I am scared of dogs so I avoid the park
I am scared of dogs because ‘X’ happened to me as a child. The impact of this is ‘Y’
….if you stop at this point in therapy then you will get ‘it’s how I am’. A person has to want to change-adapt somehow…..

And I find people are often now coming to therapy with their labels already in place, self diagnosed and firmly held as the reason x, y and z are hard for me. A lot of time can be spent unpicking those labels and challenging “it’s how I am” and folk get fed up because you’re not fully validating them. So they leave, unhappy, and reinforced in their own belief that they just can’t be helped.

Therapy is meant to be hard work, it’s very hard to examine and challenge beliefs that have helped you manage day to day, and to see who you might be if those beliefs changed. It takes time, and trust, to understand how your past impacts your present and to figure out a more healthy way of being. Throw away phrases and the language of DARVO and boundaries etc isn’t therapy. Therapy is gaining insight into why - and crucially being able to set those things aside to make real change.

It’s not a friendly chat where someone helps you feel better about yourself, it should be a robust, honest relationship on both sides working together. That kind of therapy is absolutely life changing.

There are lots of people with personality disorders that do present to services. Some diagnosed some not.

There are notoriously difficult to treat and can cause havoc in therapy- imagine trying to form a therapeutic relationship with one.

Some people with PD - genuine ones struggle to function and can end up in crisis.

True narcissists don’t go to therapy. It’s very rare - they will not choose to subject themselves to self reflection or challenge. Narcissism is an over-used, trendy term that’s thrown around.

I agree with what you say bit would add

Good therapy includes introspection/analytical processes BUT these are the forerunners for growth. Good therapy’s would use the analysis to change/shift forward.

Simply put - I am scared of dogs so I avoid the park

I am scared of dogs because ‘X’ happened to me as a child. The impact of this is ‘Y’

….if you stop at this point in therapy then you will get ‘it’s how I am’. A person has to want to change-adapt somehow…..

I am scared of dogs but if I do this instead I may be able to go to the park - this is where the hard work is necessary for change

Ues there are far too many people on therapy who do not really need to be there. Just because you’ve had an awful time and label it as traumatic does not mean you need treatment….a lot of things are treatable eg OCD - if you claim g PIP and have a career would you be motivated change - which is necessary for the treatment to be effective.

I've said similar before and been flamed for it. The above is based on my experience as a professional accredited therapist.

I work in an inner city with serious levels of deprivation and last time I spoke out some MNetters just could not believe that people claim for this sort of stuff. People ask for letters of support for their PIP/Criminal injuries claims on a regular basis.

No therapist would use those terms. Those are the kind of ‘nonsense armchair psychology’ terms thrown around on here.

Perhaps the shock of the idea of 'no contact' helped you to realise what was important to you in your relationship with your parents, so in that respect it did help.

Although one free therapy session probably isnt a great idea unless the therapist is highly skilled in single session therapy.

Tony Soprano got to the bottom of what was causing his panic attacks though, so in that respect therapy was successful. Therapy can't stop people committing crimes, it's true.

My last therapist was the biggest narcissist I’ve ever met.

I remember going to a free therapy session once when I was at uni.

My parents have always shown unconditional love and support, but they are just very critical of my choices. I had always struggled to live up to my parents expectations and they would always make up excuses as to why I should not come home (mum was working through her own issues at the time).
However, it was coming up to Christmas and I knew I would be coming home to criticism about my degree and marks. So I thought I'd give this free session a crack and asked how to deal with the past hurt/anger and those comments.
And pretty much the first advice from the therapist's lips was: "Have you considered going no contact?". Then some crap about imagining my emotions as shapes.

Like what? Going no contact is such an extreme response in my opinion?

If she was going for reserve psychology it worked, because I ignored her advice and now my parents and I have a much better relationship as they've just accepted that I'm an adult who makes decent choices most of the time now.

Part of the issue is thinking that therapy is about the therapist giving you strategies. Yes in behavioural modalities that may happen but in ongoing relationship based therapy, what the client tells you is just part of the work, most of the work is actually careful observation and experience of the client in their relationship with the therapist.

Patterns present in your behaviour with others also turn up in the therapy room, because wherever you go, there you are. A good therapist will be able to recognise the dynamics in the relationship and their observation of how you speak about whatever, not just what you say, and use that therapeutically. In doing so you can get underneath what’s being said and work with the person rather than their story.

Agreed, my mum is one of the biggest narcissists I've ever met and she's had more therapy than any human needs. She has the ability to make herself the victim in every situation and all the therapists have believed her and validated it, making her never change. I'm not surprised though when she was sectioned for schizophrenia, she managed to convince the doctors she was okay to come home even though she was hallucinating.

I have never heard a therapist (I have friends who are therapists as well as having been to a few) use the term narcisisst. Tbh I have only ever really heard it on Mumsnet.

I’m not sure I agree.

Therapy and self reflection has its place and has probably resulted in progressive movements such as me too. People are no longer willing to put up with shit because ‘put up and shut up’. Boundaries are good and a way to take back personal power and free yourself from toxic family dynamics.

Im extremely wary of people who aren’t supportive of this as it feels like a reason for people to continue to put up with poor behaviour.

A lot more favour THAN that.

God I agreem I went out with some very nice 29-35 year olds we had a couple of days together (I'm 51). Somehow they got on the topic of trauma and I said I was lucky that I hadn't had any in my life, whereas they all said they had.
I've know one of them for years and she said that she disagreed with me and (with my permission) said I had been through several things (being sectioned, been in an abusive (not for that long) relationship, parents divorced, chronic illness, partner being unfaithful) not fun but not "traumatic" imo. That surely is things like severe bullying, death of a child or partner /parent at a young age, awful violence, abuse, neglect, war, being a refugee, termknal illness, terrible accident, severe disability.

The sort of things they thought of trauma were failing some exams, a grandparent dying aged 83, a car crash where no one was badly hurt, being unable to pay a bill (but getting it paid over a few months), being sacked for not turning up to some shifts..

I had to rearrange my face quite a lot.

The people who go into therapy are usually victims of people who should be in therapy. The people that need to self reflect and sort their crap out tend not to go to therapy; they drive other people into it.

We can all do narcissistic things. People who are high up on this continuum have always existed in their plenty. We didn't have the language. Having the language for this now, particularly when you start to realise how much you have endured,how messed up it is and how you've resultantly been a magnet to fundamentally disordered people; well it's life changing.

People who aren't in this place and don't have the awareness, or maybe had a very healthy upbringing, won't even understand any of this and are going to eyeroll.

The only time I'd agree with the post is if you have an appalling therapist who is incompetent, or you have couples therapy situations where one partner who is quite messed up can go under the radar and even be emboldened through the therapy to behave more appallingly to their partner behind closed doors.

But aren't you doing the same thing and blaming your inability to sustain relationships on your ex?

Surely one problem with therapy is that the therapist is only going on what they are told so if the client has no insight or lies to themselves they won't be helped.l by the process.

So if you go to a therapist and say for example that you were badly bullied at school, but the reality is that you were horrible and unkind and the other children were defending themselves and/or turned against you because of your behaviour then the therapist might give you wrong strategies.

Absolutely this. Society is suffering vastly from an overdose of “ a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” re therapeutic/ psychological awareness.

it’s painful to see people taking their half assed neuroses as their “ true self” and justifying their issues and shaming others into accepting utter bilge about them… bilge that would be worked through and discarded in good therapy.

YABU OP. Big difference between internet “therapy speak” and actual therapy.

Seeing as it’s been impossible for anyone who isn’t in serious psychiatric crisis (or even then) to get any kind of therapy on the NHS for about fifteen years now, I think YABVU. Even private therapy is vanishingly rare these days. You can be depressed and suicidal as all hell and even psychotic, and you still won’t even get access to in-person CBT, never mind any kind of other talking therapy.

Being “signposted” to a website for a DIY CBT questionnaire is as much as you are going to get, and there’s not much therapy-speak involved in that. Decent private therapy — as opposed to counselling or CBT — can cost £120-150+ per hour. Not many people are accessing this at all, and certainly not the average young person.

Wherever the “therapy” you’re complaining about is coming from, it certainly isn’t from any actual therapy.

My ex is like that, he abused me but he went to therapy and apparently the therapist told him that he’s not at fault because him being an addict and his childhood trauma caused him to behave that way.

No competent therapist would excuse abusive behaviour in the basis of early trauma. The language of therapy is everywhere, social media is rife with people encouraging self diagnosis and self help. So people have a framework to fit their own and others struggles and dysfunctions into.

The range of qualifications held by “therapists” has changed too - people can move from being a bank manager to a therapist after 2/3 years of part time study. They often don’t have the depth of knowledge and understanding and, crucially, haven’t done their own long term therapy - and it shows. They give clients a language based on diagnosis (that they aren’t qualified to make) and avoid the discomfort that is inherent in facilitating change.

Good therapy, by a well qualified, experienced therapist yes involves self reflection, but it also involves challenge and change. The rise of 6 session behavioural based therapy has undermined the value of long term, relational therapy with a well qualified therapist.

Therapy culture has become an issue.

So many bodies in society try to do the good thing and be sympathetic to victims but they only validate and accommodate the victimhood, they propose nothing to make you take the next step, go beyond the victimhood and reach resilience and autonomy.

Be kind doesn’t work any better than being harsh used to. Because both are extremes and you need a little bit of everything to make things right. They’re just 2 sides of the same coin.

As you can see with quite a few « be kind » people showing more and more they’re actually not that kind or caring if you don’t share their views.

I had a therapist who actually encouraged me to do this. ‘You can’t help it, you’re neurodivergent!’

I am not in fact neurodivergent, although she was herself and so were both her kids.