Do you think most psychologists and therapists are batshit crazy?

[NewYearFitQueen]

I know about 4 in real life and trust me, they do not lead lives you would want to lead, plus at least two of the seem batshit crazy themselves

This is really interesting. Because I would assume psychiatrists are interested in the brain as an organ and the fascinating things it is capable of, but not necessarily holding any particular interest in emotions or thoughts, or behaviours

And that was the start of the problem with my sister's psychologist - she gave advice to my sister based on her own family experience. She stupidly encouraged my sister to lean on my very dysfunctional family members when she was suicidal - they let her down (I knew that would happen but her psychologist said it was ok and she trusted her) her psychologist was convinced if she shared just how ill she was with them they would jump up and support. WRONG! They manipulated and fucked her around - not entirely their fault - our whole family is a walking disaster of dysfunction but her psychologist was so convinced by her own family bonds she couldn't quite understand other family dynamics - now I didn't study psychology but even I knew our family would shit on her head and my sister really didn't need another let down. But that wasn't just it - she moved to her shrink to provide therapy - he encouraged her to go back to a new job when she was in bits - he was convinced that if she could just work it would all be fine. 4 high pressured jobs later that she couldn't hold down I convinced her that she should stop working and take a break - still not enough she started a masters lasted two weeks.
Latest therapist - not sure of their qualifications, advised her to go travelling around the world and keep going until she sorted her head out, and she bought a one way ticket to life avoidance - that is not therapy - her latest therapist is possibly the worst yet.

We're all a bit nuts. Having a different perspective too the norm also kinda comes along with extra nuts.

If you're happy with your norm you'd not be seeking the perspective of an outsider.

I'd have more of an issue with a therapist that seemed to be a flavour of normal tbh.

I do agree with we are all a bit nuts
I know I am 😂😂

Fair to say that everyone that I know who is in the profession have their own issues. Am not thinking it’s a negative reason,experience is actually a good thing in any profession .

a person could be shall we say different, but the knowledge / intelligence they have can or could be high grade intel, so to me never assume because they seem odd that their intel will be odd

these days also apparently large numbers are now using chat etc rather than humans

I only know one therapist, he is a really kind and balanced person.

My sister in law has become one ,we both married into a very unusual family with obvious mental health issues that since training pretends they are normal ,it's so odd!

I think it was Paul McKenna who said "psychiatrists Keep going on about the problem, for example you break your leg falling downstairs, they keep going over and over the details,whereas, a psychologist says,ok, so you broke your leg falling downstairs,it's mended,yo you won't do it again, and move on". My DH had multiple serious phobias, saw psychiatrists,got nothing,many years on antidepressants, then saw a hypnotherapist. He's from sarf London, doesn't believe in hypothesis! He didn't listen to her disk to get used to her voice, from what he told me when he came home,he was definitely hypnotised! He didn't complete the course, but it helped enormously. I rang her many years later,DD menopausal,in a damaging relationship, she spoke for free with DD for an hour,told me she had retired early because listening to other peoples problems is very hard, she was burnt out. Lovely lady though, and not a bit mad.

I knew a woman, the wife of my husband's colleague. She is the most extraordinarily vindictive woman. She went to life ruining lengths to constructively dismiss terrified employees. She surely has a personality disorder. Her life blew up around her. I Googled her a while back and blow me she's a counsellor with a website, letters after her name, the real deal.
It has to make you wonder about the quality control component of these courses. Generally I'm contemptuous of the genre and think its a gravy train.

I know of someone with a doctorate in ‘child psychology’ and she is the worst mother I know, and so emotionally abusive to her children. Fortunately has no job relating to it though.

yes. there’s a reason why people get into this field…..

i got interested in behavioural science years ago to work out how my brain works and why i do what i do. so im bonkers too lol 😜

Depends. Anyone can call themselves a therapist or counsellor. Anyone can take an online course or one at the local college for a few months to get a basic qualification. I’ve been to one therapist and I felt I knew more than her from the get go. Clinical or counselling psychologists are different - they’ve completed an undergrad in psychology and a doctorate in clinical or counselling psychology. It takes at least 6 or 7 years and recruitment onto the doctorate is highly competitive and very rigorous. I’d hope that most of the ones who shouldn’t be there are weeded out by that point.

The other problem is that a lot of people have unrealistic expectations of therapy, regardless of who’s delivering it. They’re expecting unquestioning validation and support when it’s often not - it’s often challenging and uncomfortable and people sometimes don’t like that, and don’t like having to be accountable. As with anything, one size doesn’t fit all and it’s worth spending time being honest with yourself about what kind of support you need and looking for a psychologist/BACP registered counsellor who can provide references and have a frank conversation about approach and expectations on both sides.

More women than men take psychology as a subject. I think the reasons for taking it can be numerous and include chaotic family life and potentially undiagnosed neurodiversity. Autistics often struggle to understand human interactions and behaviours and study them, for example. If you add all of that up it isn't really amazing that perhaps a larger than usual proportion of people attracted to jobs in this area also struggle with life. Anyone that doesn't is a bit weird, in my opinion!

Generally I'm contemptuous of the genre and think its a gravy train.

There is a lot of this kind of attitude around and it is extraordinarily ignorant. If you think about any other profession, most people can understand that all practitioners are not the same.

A few things in the UK make this debate more complicated. First the fact that therapist and counsellor are not protected titles. And second there is a lot of misunderstanding about what therapy is and what the professional is supposed to be doing. I keep seeing comments about advice again and again - this is fundamentally NOT what the professional is there for. So if you think that is what a counsellor should be doing, you dont understand the purpose of therapy. And if your counsellor is advising you, they dont know what they are doing and I would be wondering about their training and competence.

If you went to a dentist and felt they were not competent you would go to another one. You wouldnt traduce the whole profession.

And a gravy train? When I have treated someone for PTSD who was suicidal at the start and who tells me they have their life back at the end, there's nothing trivial or easy about that.

There are undoubtedly people on this thread who have bad experiences and this is why the profession needs to be better regulated in the UK. And others who were unrealistic about what therapy was or could do for them or were causing their own problems but did not want to admit it. A lot of ill feeling toward the profession will be coming from the second lot who are always much in evidence on these kinds of thread.

This thread is so interesting to me, as I studied psychology and was top in my year and considered becoming a psychologist but had huge doubts about how good I would be and so never followed through. When I was older and had more life experience, I again considered doing it but as I have had diagnosed PTSD and OCD, I once again doubted if I would be a good enough fit.

I’ve seen three psychologists in the past and two out of three were quite poor and unprofessional!

My sister is a psychiatrist and she certainly does walk to the beat of her own drum!

I know a psychiatrist and a psychologist who I suspect are both autistic.

I think they’ve been attracted to the jobs because they’ve wanted to study human behaviour.

they are both very gifted, clever people, yet quite socially awkward.

they are highly trained, not batshit, but maybe present to people as a bit odd.

"If you went to a dentist and felt they were not competent you would go to another one. You wouldnt traduce the whole profession." @MrsChristmasHasResigned

I think the difference is that if you go to a dentist over a toothache, they'll take an x-ray and tell you (for example) that you have a cavity, and 99% of the time they'll do a perfectly good job filling said cavity, fixing the problem. You have a problem, there is an established guaranteed solution, and they will enact it. If they don't do so successfully, you can complain and have that remedied.

With therapy, however, even with qualified clinical psychologists, there is no one way of doing things - there are a variety of different types of therapy (DBT, CBT, EMDR etc) which may, or may not work, on certain types of people or trauma, and which may, or may not, be enacted well by the psychologist. Methods and efficacy vary wildly, and every time a person tries a (private) clinical psychologist, it costs them a large sum of money per session.

A person could go to a psychologist for multiple sessions, trusting that it takes time to see the effects, only to discover that they never progress anywhere because the type of therapy isn't appropriate for them/their type of trauma, or the psychologist just isn't the right fit for them. But of course, that money and emotional energy has been wasted - and it's possible the person may be blamed by the psychologist for not making progress.

It makes therapy feel like a gamble, because ultimately it is, and that makes people justifiably suspicious.

"There are undoubtedly people on this thread who have bad experiences and this is why the profession needs to be better regulated in the UK. And others who were unrealistic about what therapy was or could do for them or were causing their own problems but did not want to admit it. A lot of ill feeling toward the profession will be coming from the second lot who are always much in evidence on these kinds of thread." @MrsChristmasHasResigned

I get it, you believe it's everyone else's fault and are looking for more regulation or for people to accept they're causing their own problems. Victim-blaming, in other words. Regulation will change almost nothing.

Having met dozens of fully qualifed (7 years PhD) clinical psychologists through my dc's illness over many years, I can say, with little exception, most are batshit crazy but do a fairly decent job of covering it up.

Think of them as a highly educated middle-class version of a charming used car salesman/conman. I think it's only 1 in a 100 that qualify manage to work as clinical psychologists so the ones that do get through are often manipulative and underneath the charming exterior believe they have a God like status and are better than you.

It's also easy for them to fool their older colleagues/management who are usually older high IQ/low EQ men who fall for the usually young female's rhetoric.

It would be easy for management to stop this. They could get feedback from the people attending their services. Then the batshit crazy that harm patients would be routed out quickly. This almost never happens.

Over the years I've seen young people go from mild mental illness to serious lifelong conditions, after following the advice of so called professional psychologists. Some of these young people lie cold in their graves, lives cut short. That's why I feel so strongly about this.

Every few weeks there's a report in the news of how mental health professionals failed people after someone dies. Nothing changes. We still have people victim blaming like the PP.

One of the better therapists we met was originally a nurse who had taken a course to become a psychotherapist. She didn't believe she had God like powers and had a realistic, down to earth, view of life. She didn't indulge in patient blaming, ever.

I caught the psychologist and psychiatrists ridiculing her behind her back on more than one occasion. In front of her they pretended to be her friend. Behind their fake smiles and dead eyes they were a nasty bunch.

The abuse of those who go to see therapists is rife, these stories need to be told. If you've found a good one you're very lucky.

I don’t think psychologists really need the specific people skills that therapists do.

any psychologist I’ve met through my SEND DC or my own mental health issues while young were pretty similar to a GP. They took a list of symptoms and gave prescriptions based on that information.

there was no deep understanding of the human condition or really listening to issues in the way a good therapist would.

psychiatrists tend just to give prescriptions based- they aren’t life coaches.

I’ve been to a few therapists over the years and have to say, it’s a mixed bag. A couple have been excellent, but others have basically just sat and listened like a sympathetic ear and haven’t offered any kind of insight or advice.

I went with a friend I didn’t know well who’s a clinical psychologist to help chose a gift for her brother.
I realised something wasn’t quite right when we had to scrutinise every single one on the shelf in great detail looking for any minuscule/ perceived flaw. It took an age and at the time it did make me wonder how her perception of her patients was clouded by her “high standards”

I only know one and he is definitely very odd. Friend of DH, had a strange family background. He went to therapy himself, kept trying to analyse DH and eventually went on to train as a therapist himself. There are no circumstances in which I would want consult him.

But there are NICE guidelines as to what should be offered for particular problems. And if you are going privately you should have a clear idea of what you want, and how you will measure success in therapy. US consumers are much better at this but there is no reason people in the UK could not be more informed.

As for your comments, @bohemiancatsody, your comments show you get nothing. I mentioned that there are poor practitioners, and people who have had bad experiences but that isnt the whole picture. Its ironic that you are the one happy to heap blame on the professionals while seeing patients as victims - I dont think people as so lacking in free will and have seen many positive outcomes for people in treatment. But there are a core of people who will happily vilify the whole profession and I stand by what I said earlier - its often because of their own personal issues.