Help. My therapist won’t let me go.

I knew a woman who became a therapist who was deeply insecure and had a life strewn with damaging things she'd done to other people. It was absolutely crystal clear she wanted to get inside other pepple"'s heads . I knew her in a work situation and she went out of her way to push for a friendahip in a way that felt odd to me. As soon as she had started to get to know me she started telling me what was wrong with me.. zThere was no genuinevfriendshop there. She just wanted to.put me down. She had the same pattern of behaviour with other people. I was utterly horrified when she trained as a therapist. She just wanted to feel superior to others. I dread to think how many people she has screwed up since she started practising. And there must be plenty of others like her out there.

I’ve never heard this saying and I’m a therapist.
The therapist person is from the NHS. The OP is not paying anyone’s mortgage. He’ll have a year long waiting list to just replace her with 🤦🏻‍♀️

I stopped going to my therapist because they looked exactly like the person who traumatised me in the first place.
I couldn’t bear it and despite telling the therapist, they just ended my sessions.

Becoming an accredited counsellor is a rigorous process requiring a lot of self scrutiny, personal therapy and supervised placements. I do worry for the damage that can be done by counsellors who aren't professional but it would be extremely difficult to become accredited and have something seriously wrong.

Well, I only know what I experienced and,tbh, I think what you said is a bit naive. Her website doesn't even show good grammar.

It’s very important that you gel with a psychodynamic therapist as you will be talking about some very personal private things. That’s the whole point - looking back to the past to see what’s effecting your life now - that needs trust and relationship building. Ask to change to a woman maybe

The first psychologist (NHS) I seen traumatised me. As with all professionals & human beings they are not the same. Some are good some are awful. Asking to change therapist shouldn’t discriminate you from receiving the therapy. Just ask for a women x

I think the point of DIT is to explore and understand your relationship patterns through your relationship with the therapist?

Like how you relate to the therapist would be a clue about how you relate to others. There is supposed to be a pattern.

I’ve got a fair bit from talking therapy over the years but found it only goes so far. I realised that my noisy mind was working very hard to distract me from feelings I was subconsciously trying to repress. Talking therapy can stay too much on the thinking / analytical level.

I don’t discount what I achieved from talking therapy but later found greater success with a somatic therapist who did EMDR and internal systems parts work.

I also found the techniques in this course, that I could practise at home on my own transformative https://www.selftherapy.org/#lt-listen-sh

I've never heard that in any of the NHS services I've been associated with.

In my limited experience we often try and stop therapy because its getting somewhere and the brain hits fight or flight so protect itself. If you dont feel like its actively harming you then id stick with it.
That being said when I was 17 I was raped and the victim support counsellor I saw told me she would report me to tje police if I ever said anything about wishing I could have harmed my rapist... I mean I was saying I wish I could have fought back and hurt him, if i had known how to defend myself I could have killed him and done the world a favour. She shut me down and told me she didn't want me to discuss stuff like that with her. I didn't go back.

I think being accredited shows more commitment but with that you will have had to have had many hours of therapy and work on placements for free and what we have ended up with is an industry that doesn’t not represent our society and seeing an accredited therapist unless on the NHS is costly. Many people are seeing trainee or therapists that are not accredited (some working towards accreditation but need to earn too). It’s how it’s set up and desperately needs to change as so many more people from across society would make excellent therapists. Though it’s often stated that you do not or should not need to relate with your therapist for some people there is a need just to get them to work with a therapist.

the very nature of the work is going to attract people who want to fix. Is this for themselves, for others, their past unresolved issues (ideally worked on through training/own therapy) a desire not recognised to control. I think all this can play out not all is negative

I have worked with some highly respected therapists who I wouldn’t trust at all they are so driven by their ego and others who sadly had to find other work but were really good simply because the work didn’t pay the bills

That is appalling, I’m sorry that happened to you when you were supposed to be in a safe space. I had similar with my first psychiatrist- she said at the very start of the session she’d have to contact the police if I said anything that might alert her to my abuser harming someone now. I was there regarding historic abuse. We’d not even started the session.

I think the industry should be much better regulated. There are some excellent therapists, but there are some real shockers too who are doing damage. The saying," physician heal thyself," really does come to.mind.

I had therapy that revolutionised my life. It was bloody uncomfortable. I’d think I was on the right track, then he’d interrupt me and say we were getting too caught up in thinking about A, and needed to talk about Y.
I felt almost attacked, in that he’d comment on the way I’d ask for a pencil, or want to know why I needed to leave and go to the toilet.
It was a bit like a meeting with a headteacher.

But he helped me understand and manage some pretty unhealthy thought patterns. Things that I assumed were sensible and obvious truths and values, he exposed as damaging training if picked up as a child..

That said, I believe he was unusually skillfull. It’s possible your guy is pants. I’d stick with it, just in case.

Why you needed to go to the toilet......are you serious. That's sick.

He was identifying an anxiety response. My body getting me out of a situation I was uncomfortable with.

No.no. Sorry. That's controlling and unethical in my opinion. Once ppl start controlling other people's basic bodily functions you are getting into dangerous territory..That's cult like behaviour. For every perdonn who thinks thia is ok I'm betting you'd find someone who thinks it's not remotely all right.

You can't really expect the NHS to fund therapy for you (and everyone else who needs it) for the rest of your life?

It's a shame she wasn't good but six weeks is surely better than nothing. I wish they'd give me any form of therapy. I've been turned down for everything as I'm too complex. Apparently!

Perhaps. It certainly surprised me. However, it was only once, and his therapy took me from a rage filled woman struggling to parent small children effectively and at risk of being abusive, to someone with much better understanding of the burdens I’d been carrying.
He didn’t ever push me to talk about the things that I was keeping under lock and key because I was afraid of the impact of addressing them directly. He reassured me that therapy was for the ‘hard things’, and that it was my decision.

I perhaps haven’t described the incident well. I never felt unsafe with him, and I’m someone who struggles to feel safe with people.

I don’t know where I’d be now without those sessions, and I’m for ever appreciative of my good fortune in getting them, on the NHS.

I expect he wants the income, or wants to show that people don’t drop out of treatment with him or both.

A lot of therapists work privately and are not accredited and a lot of consumers dont educate themselves before they sign up with people. It’s not uncommon for patients to be unable to tell me anything about their previous therapists training or modalities. This is why it should be a protected title like psychologist which then means in order to protect your practice you have to go through regular scrutiny. It’s not infallible, but it would give people some protection.

As pp have pointed out, the experience OP is having is mimicking ambivalence about attachment which is exactly what it should be doing. Therapy is not about being comfortable- if you are I would question its value.

He works for the NHS. Whether OP atrends wont affect his income.