To think therapists want you to hate your parents?

[Dreolady]

I approached a therapist because I’m feeling low about a particular issue and have anxieties about the future: The therapist wants to work on healing my inner child and talking about my childhood. I’m not really sure how it’s linked to the issue I’m currently facing but she thinks I need to do “deeper” work. I trusted her judgement on this but now I feel like she wants me to be angry with my mother. and I don’t know how I feel about that because we have a good relationship.

I know my mother wasn’t the best parent but I think she was limited in her understanding of how to parent and she had a lot of her own traumas and issues to deal with. My therapist feels Im making excuses for her and I need to find my anger in order to heal my inner child.

I spoke to my friend about this and she had the same experience where she felt that her therapist wanted her to hate her parents. Is this common?

You're right OP.

I came off an SSRI and got royally fucked up, signed off work etc. DH and I thought we might as well use his health insurance to access private mental health services to get some support quickly, biggest mistake ever.

Referred to a Psychotherapist who did the exact same, kept insisting I needed psychotherapy to heal, I could have a personality disorder, etc etc. Absolute bullshit. My brain chemistry just needed to adjust. Been seen by NHS psychiatrists and counsellors who never suggested anything of the sort and held a very balanced view of my parents and childhood, who did their best!

Can only assume that the private facility (it was the priory) were in it for the money. My parents are actually psychiatric nurses themselves and had their reservations about these places which I completely agree with. A place for the 'worried well' to do some navel gazing. Mum said psychotherapy could take a decade, and you might not feel any sense of resolution at the end of it. The BPD suggestion they were appalled at - this diagnosis has become somewhat watered down in recent years but it used to be a diagnosis that indicated a very very troubled patient that nobody would want to work with, on locked wards.

Well yes, that's exactly it. Society is rife with dysfunction and so are families, pretty much by default. Low contact or no contact are usually for self preservation. Would you be able to imagine what it would take for an adult child to do that? Its not because 'mummy ignored me when I was 6'. Cutting off parents is a horrendous process and this process is the better option for some as opposed to staying in the family system. Imagine what that must be like.

Its not usually necessary if people take accountability and accept rather than dismiss the other person's pain. The key is always changed behaviour, but sadly some people don't want to change but remain in denial.

Because processing something painful can lead to a much more amazing life you didn't know existed.

Former psychologist and family therapist here.

No, we don't want anyone to hate their parents, as lasting hatred is a usually quite a destructive emotional state to be in and would not be healthy to promote.

We can't really escape the reality though that our primary attachments and other significant relationships in developmental years do contribute to how we see the world and relate to others etc. Sometimes it can be helpful to look at those relationships and the patterns we learned and may be enacting and repeating in adulthood, and whether they're helpful to us or not.

This was my thinking from what you've explained as well op. It was reading as if you didn't feel your anger would be... justified maybe? Given that you had that understanding. So if you were talking to me and describing it in that way, I'd definitely be hearing it as you finding it hard to prioritise your own feelings in the midst of your empathy for someone else? So maybe this is the conclusion your counsellor has also drawn which is why she's encouraging you to explore that more and is trying to create a safe space for you to allow yourself that? I think you're right, that talking to her is a good idea. I think the bit I struggle with is that you can feel healthy anger WHILE understanding why someone did what they did. For example I was attacked in work a while ago - I fully understood why they did what they did but actually I would still have been justified in feeling angry that that was something unfair that happened to me. Does that make sense? When you have a parent who is struggling to parent well through their own trauma, essentially they teach you that people who love you can hurt you and you need to find a way to process that in order to be OK and sustain the relationship so often we end up at trying to rationalise it all out. But that's actually also shutting down the feelings and emotions and working purely off logic which can be really useful - I've made a career out of it! - but it's not always completely healthy.

Not saying this is how you feel or should feel, but just that your therapist might worry about that?

"I've heard they encourage estrangement "

@passingstranger From who??? Have you ever actually had therapy yourself?

Also meant to say op that anyone can call themselves a therapist there are certain accreditation bodies like BACP who are more regulated and require certain standards of their counsellors if you're in the UK.

She may just not be grasping that you have made your peace with some events and circumstances in your life. Some clients do repress anger and sometimes I guess it can be difficult to tell.

I know there have been times my therapist has been beside himself trying to get some anger out of me before it ends up killing me. Possibly your therapist has the same worry?

What tends to happen is that when hurt I withdraw. I sink deeper and deeper into myself, repress any and all emotion until eventually something pulls the pin and it explodes in bouts of violent self harm. I get the impression this isn't an uncommon reaction in traumatised people. Perhaps she is concerned that you are repressing your anger rather than realising that you have already worked through it

the the

You can be angry with someone without hating them.

But the way you were parented can set you up for bad patterns and adulthood even if your parents weren't neglectful or abusive.

It sounds like you have already done the processing about your childhood in quite a conscious way and arrived at a position you’re ok with. Maybe this therapist is more used to patients who haven’t previously explored this.

But in any event I’d say it’s time for a new therapist who can help you work through your current concerns. CBT practitioners specifically don’t deal with your past, and maybe your previous psychiatrist could also help or suggest a colleague.

That’s not the point of the OP. Even if that happened, you should not be made to feel like you hate your parents.

@TinkerTiger No one is saying that. What is being said is that anger towards parents does not mean you hate them. I think people are conflating these two points.

Therapists might encourage a person to express their feelings, anger being one of them as people can feel ashamed of their anger and so it is often suppressed (often by means of rationalisation). This does not mean the therapist is encouraging the person to hate their parents, or anyone for that matter.

I am a psychologist so my role and training is a bit different but I agree with therapists in the thread in saying that family estrangement is rarely encouraged, and if healthy relationships can be formed then that is the preferred way to go. The caveat to this is instances where families continue to be abusive in the present, but even then it is the persons choice whether they are in contact or not. It would be an abuse of power and against therapeutic code to tell clients what to do and to dictate to them. Therapy tends to encourage autonomy and self expression, not the opposite.

I absolutely agree with you no parent is perfect and they seek to find links in trauma the obvious link is responses in childhood but thst dorsnt nean thet were bad parents

Therapy is not about labelling people as 'bad parents' or 'perfect parents', or giving them a mark out of 10. It's about the impact that their parenting had on YOU. A good therapist will be interested in helping you to understand yourself better, and no interest in blaming or shaming anyone else. They certainly don't have all the answers, but they may have a different perspective on what you share, and it may be useful to discuss that together

Yanbu. DH and I stopped seeing our therapist (we saw the same one) after both of us discovered she kept making us feel angry with our parents

They were normal flawed humans, but decent ones

The therapist refused to address the huge traumas I had been through and just kept trying to circle everything back to my parents. But it was the traumas that changed me deeply and left me scarred, and they were random events, nothing my parents could have shielded me from

@EuclidianGeometryFan That’s an interesting question. Honestly I don’t know how the issue I approached her about is linked to how my mother was. At the moment I’m struggling with things like a lack of belonging, lack of community, struggling with integrating into mainstream society as a child of immigrants.

It's interesting, scanning this thread, that therapists seem uncomfortable to acknowledge that the work they do could cause harm.

I think maybe it's an area where therapists as an industry need to do some real interrogation and be very honest about the risks of this current emphasis.

Perhaps even helping a client to process the impact of childhood in a safer way, that keeps those important family ties intact

This. And good therapists are entirely willing to hear ‘I don’t want to talk about this now’ or ‘This is too much’ or ‘I will need to work up to x’ or ‘This is not a helpful approach for me’.

@Itissunnysomewhere This is exactly what therapy is for, a safe space for processing trauma. It is not about annihilating family bonds!

The harms of therapy have been thoroughly researched. Therapy is difficult and de-stabilising, that is often how the most powerful changes and insights come about. It depends on the type of therapy, but most isn’t without challenge and the discomfort is part of the process. However this can lead to long term healing and improved functioning / better relationships / stronger sense of self. It is very brave to engage in therapeutic work as it is not easy, particularly allowing yourself to be vulnerable with a relative stranger.

There are issues with this though,.to list but a few

1. I just think many therapists aren't skilled enough to manage the reality (as opposed to the textbook ideal) of family life.
2. life is real and messy, as DH got to the point the therapist was making him see the flaws in his mum, his mum got ill and she died and he has many regrets that he had backed away from her during this time because of the therapy
3. several of us have mentioned struggling to get therapists to focus on actual real and profound trauma we went through that was entirely unrelated to family. It feels like there's a dominant narrative and many therapists aren't skilled enough to move away from it.

And,.to reiterate, I think therapists should take some time to reflect on why they are so insistent they aren't doing harm when people are saying that they are.

I think if you’ve made your peace with the past there’s no point ruminating on it. Therapists can help but they can also do a lot of damage. I keep meaning to read Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier as she looks into the damage that has been done.

Obviously a lot of our adult issues stem from childhood but that being said as parents aren't we all muddling along wks learning as we go? Societal norms for your mother like smacking and discipline etc obviously not au fait now but what's not to say when our children are adults that something about what is ok now won't be something our kids will say was poor parenting?

I heard a comedian say he's already told the joke that will get him cancelled. Parenting is a bit like that

Yep. Therapists made my sister hate my mum. She is a lovely mum and to us all. And that's not me being blind to anything.. sister just loves having issues.