Mentally Ill Therapist

[WonderWanda]

Should someone with significant mental health disorders of their own be practising as a therapist?

I have looked into this briefly and there are suggestions that mental health conditions are at higher rates amongst psychologists and psychiatrists. It could be argued that a therapist who has experienced issues for themselves would be more understanding and empathetic towards their client's struggles. In cases of of experienced anxiety or depression I can see how this might be beneficial.

Currently there are no restrictions on any mental health conditions that would prevent a person from practising as a clinical psychologist.

In cases of schizophrenia, BPD, psychosis etc, all of which that can leave the affected person detached from reality or with a warped view of events, is it ethical that they be allowed to treat others? I don't see how.

My (now ex) best friend is a psychotherapist and one of the most unstable, jealous, messed up people I have ever known. She gets regular therapy herself as part of her job. But I can't imagine someone who has treated people so badly her whole life is the right person to counsel vulnerable people. I certainly wouldn't pay (a fortune) for her to be my therapist.
In fact she went batshit crazy last year and I was worried about her clients tbh.

I’m a therapist. I guess I’ve my share of problems - resolved and otherwise. I’m human. It’s true enough that there are some people in the profession who are unsuited to it/doing it for unhealthy reasons. It’s not automatically a bad thing to decide to train as a therapist as a way to help others who have similar problems to your own; what is crucial is being able to distinguish between other people’s problems and your own. Many people are inspired to train after being helped by therapy. Whilst it’s not currently illegal to call oneself a therapist with no training, no professional body will accept an unqualified person as a member. An unqualified person wouldn’t be able to get insurance to practice and would be unable to advertise via reputable channels. Therapy isn’t a glamorous trade, and people are usually attracted to it because they have a sincere vocation. Yes, there are some people who ought not to be there because they are misguided, unscrupulous or unwell. Should you report your friend? You aren’t her client. You don’t have hard evidence she’s doing anything wrong, so no.

I had to do a few psychology modules as part of the degree I took.
I finished the degree realising a couple of things.
1). A lot of people study psychology to try and resolve some of their own issues. I always hoped I never needed to use their services as some of the people I met were seriously fucking weird.
2). That psychiatrists or counsellors etc try to push whatever worked for them, on to the people they were helping and wouldn't really give anything else the time of day. Just because it worked for them.
3.) Mainly I was put off the psychiatric world of study as from what I saw most understanding we have is just a load of theories, and a lot of these experts disagreed with each other. I was like wth?! None of it makes sense. Nothing is agreed. Therefore diagnosis is tricky.

I get that I only had a small snapshot into this world, but I remember feeling uneasy about it all.

Whilst it’s not currently illegal to call oneself a therapist with no training, no professional body will accept an unqualified person as a member. An unqualified person wouldn’t be able to get insurance to practice and would be unable to advertise via reputable channels.

I guess that relies on the qualification, there are so many training organisations who aren’t too lucky about who passes their courses, lots of private providers who will give the benefit of the doubt. I trained with a couple of people I wouldn’t have trusted, but who met the requirements to pass the course. I think instinct is really important, if you have a bad feeling about them, or any red flags, don’t work with them.

There does seem to be (anecdotally for me) a large amount of metal health issues amongst mental health practitioners, from nurses all the way up. Like any health condition if they are well managed and don't dump their own issues on patients and patients have no awareness of what conditions their practitioner may have, I'm ok with that. But I've heard some horror stories of MH practitioners who can't do that and end up almost using patients as their own therapy- that's never ok.

There's the danger of thinking 'qualified' = a great Therapist. It doesn't. Its not about the qualifications its about character. The therapists with issues I mentioned upthread are Graduates and accredited CBT/NLP qualified

If someone had MH problems that weren't really well controlled, I'd worry that being a therapist would exacerbate them tbh.

I mean, dear god, imagine going to work every day and hearing people tell you about when they got molested as a kid or getting hospitalised by a partner, or their self-harming when you're already fragile...

Omg shocking 😲 that's awful

If a therapist can't fix their anxiety, depression, would you be hopeful that they will help you achieve that?

Sometimes there isn’t a fix for mental illness. Bipolar disorder can’t be cured. In some cases neither can depression/anxiety. There’s so much we don’t yet understand about the neurobiological factors involved in treatment resistant illness. I have treatment-resistant depression and have never managed to ‘fix’ it despite years of various therapies, drugs, lifestyle changes and even some experimental treatments. I’ve even been offered ECT. I was left feeling like a massive failure, that it was my fault, if only I’d try harder etc. But I came to realise there’s just something wrong with me on a neurobiological level that’s out of my control. The best I can do is learn to manage it and I continue to put myself forward for trials.

For what it’s worth I personally don’t have a lot of faith in counselling. Proper, structured, evidence-based therapy with a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, yes. Open-ended venting for £50-120ph, not so much. I had a friend who, last time we spoke, had been seeing her counsellor weekly for 7 years. I think it’s unethical.

On the other hand, perhaps a person who manages their own chronic health problem successfully enough that they can function at a high professional level could be well placed to support others to manage their health problems too.

Well the truth is that it's not ethical, OP, and someone who is actively suffering from a serious mental illness should not be practicing or working with vulnerable people in this way.

It's obviously different if it is something like mild depression/ anxiety and under control.

But when you are training to be a psychotherapist/ psychologist/ psychiatrist you have to demonstrate that you are of sound mind and mentally resilient enough for the profession and what it entails.

Actually, so long as an individual is fit to practice as per GMC, health board/employer and any relevant training programme criteria, it's not legal to discriminate on the grounds of someone's health.

If the OP has fitness to practice concerns, there are routes to raise those concerns. Otherwise, her friend's career path isn't really any of her business.

Tons of mental health professionals have mental health issues. It's incredibly common. If they are at work, they are well enough to practice.

Of course we shouldn't try to ban people from doing their jobs on the basis of behaviour when they were unwell.

GMC, health board/employer and any relevant training programme criteria

In the case of therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists, this criteria includes being mentally/ emotionally well and resilient enough to handle the job.

Yes, so, if someone is deemed fit to practice, then that includes being considered to meet that standard. So, OP should either make an official report of a concern about fitness to practice, or leave their 'friend' to progress their career and hopefully find friends who don't talk about them on the internet.

Of course - but there is a difference between having a mental health issue such as mild depression/ anxiety which is well-managed, and being mentally unwell.

Therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists have a duty of care to patients/ clients, and they should have the self awareness to be able to recognise when they are unwell, and to take themselves away from work if that is the case.

This would have been thoroughly drummed into them in their training (assuming the training programme was of a good standard).

If you suspect that somebody is practising in one of these professions when they are mentally unwell and may be putting patients at risk, then it needs to be reported and investigated.

I agree, and it depends entirely to what degree OP's friend is actively suffering from their mental health condition.

If OP has concerns then they should be reported.

If someone is actively unwell and experiencing an episode they will be off work to access treatment. Other than that they will be managing their conditions. What about addictions, gambling, alcoholism, stress management issues etc, overly judgemental about the root cause of people's health issues...

I did an entry-level counselling course years ago - largely because the listening skills gained were useful in my day job at the time. Oh my god, there were people on that course that were so unstable they should have never been allowed within 10 miles of a vulnerable client! Talk about 'physician heal thyself'.

I could have written this post. I would have liked to train as a counsellor but after 2 years decided I didn’t have what it takes to help people gain insight into their issues or how to best help them make progress.

Students on the course included :
A guy who had a really toxic attitude to women
A guy who had been abused as a child but desperately needed help, rather than thinking of helping others. He was clearly traumatised the poor thing.

A guy whose voluntary placement was with Victim Support. He told us and the tutor that the person who had committed the crime didn’t look like the sort of person who would mug someone.
A woman who took her life as she darednt break up with her bf who had been diagnosed with a serious illness. Poor woman didn’t tell anyone she was suicidal. It was a tragic waste of a young life.

I really worried for the mental health of anyone who went to see these people after they gained their qualification. Some said they were going to set up after they had got a certificate and enough voluntary hours in . So frightening.

Anyone who's that obsessed with workings of someone else's brain is bound to lean towards having some MH issues. All the shrinks and counsellors I know have at least 2 or 3 diagnoses.
Can an overweight person be a bariatric surgeon? Can an ex drug addict be a drug worker? Can someone who only learned to read aged 15 be a teacher?
They've got more experience of it so in that way it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, very similar experience with this too. I suspect that being in counseling tends to lend itself to wanting to counsel as a shortcut to making your own life better. And a way of making your own suffering mean something positive, which is a nice idea but it rarely works. Usually the person's own problems worsen and the people who come to them for help get someone in no true mental state to really help them.

I think a counselor who has genuinely overcome their issues could make a great counselor. The thing is though, that most people who truly get themselves into a better place, rarely feel able to relive the worst parts of their lives through someone else's pain. While most people who go down the counseling route, do so while they are still in too early a stage.

My SIL was a therapist. She took her own life.

@WonderWanda
quite Weirdly insightful thought provoking thread theme,

Thanks for having this as a thread..

People take their own life in a lot of challenging fields—that is no evidence that they were unsuited to the work. The job with the highest suicide rate in the US is veterinarian.