To think therapists are mostly charlatans?

[BlueJuniper94]

I've heard in real life of people who have made radical decisions/changes in their lives because of what a "therapist" has said to them. Things that have surprised me as it seems outside the scope of what I thought therapists are there to do (although it's perhaps not entirely clear what that is now).

Today I was listening to woman's hour where a woman being interviewed about her husband walking out on her and her kids tried to keep it from them for a month as per her therapists advice which she said looking back was the wrong thing to do. I am surely this therapist was handsomely paid nonetheless. Aibu?

I don’t necessarily think they’re charlatans, but from my own experience I wonder if some of them are just not that good. I was thinking how many celebrities seem to put quite a bit more faith in therapy than I do, and I wonder if that’s because they can just afford better therapists.

"Most" therapists are charlatans? What a ridiculous sweeping statement.

Are you sure it's not advice from a 'Life Coach' rather than a (licensed by BACP) therapist?

I think that therapists are the ones with the biggest mental health issues. Shouldn't be therapising anyone.

I don't think they are charlatans but some might be and others might not be very good. Essentially anyone can pitch up and call themselves a therapist and others will be very highly trained with a lot of experience and excellent supervision.

There’s lots of types of therapy and therapists work in different ways. Some follow techniques/theories that are established. Others let the client lead the ways. . It’s very much open to interpretation and not all types of therapy are suitable for everyone

I have trust in a clinical psychologist, but not someone who has done a few counselling courses.

Lots of awful life coaches around these days, grifters.

My therapist has changed my life from being a people-pleasing, self-loathing depressive into someone who is much more assertive, more confident and generally happier.

She doesn’t give advice but we do talk through options and she points out when I’m being inconsistent.

I’ve had to put a lot of work in though and regularly put myself outside my comfort zone by trying things we’ve talked about in our sessions.

If your therapist tells you what to do (as opposed to making suggestions or talking through options), makes you feel uncomfortable, doesn’t listen to you, just listens and doesn’t help you to unpack your thoughts or give you psycho-education, then get a better therapist. They are not all the same.

I'm a psychologist and also trained in systemic therapy and EMDR. I also had the dubious pleasure of managing a team of counsellors for a couple of years. Some of them were the most emotionally unstable people I've ever met in my life. I wouldn't have trusted them to put my bins out.

There's therapists and therapists though. I've met bad ones, average ones, solid ones and a few genuinely talented ones in my career. Paying more doesn't always guarantee a decent one either. Some of the most expensive therapists are also the least ethical and the most full of their own bullshit. The best therapists I ever worked with were at the small charity I did one of my systemic therapy placements with, they weren't paid much, but they were all genuinely decent people. The clinical lead, one of the best I ever worked for, she set high standards and didn't like mediocrity, she was hot on good boundaries as well, and IME boundaries is where a lot of therapists fall down.

I'm a therapist (remedial hypnosis). About an hour ago I got an unsolicited message from someone who said they were actively suicidal. We've been messaging back and forth ever since and are going to chat properly tomorrow.

Is that the definition of a charlatan?

I remember the first time I heard about therapists on TV - I think it was Jeremy Irons in the eighties. He joked about how everyone in Hollywood had a shrink when he first arrived there and how strange he found that but nonetheless he was soon spilling his guts to a therapist himself not that long after arriving.

I think it's a luxury for people who can afford it rather than a medical service for those who need it the most. I think most people are just paying someone to listen to their woes and then on they go.

I remember two teenage girls in Skopin, Russia who had been sex slaves/prisoners for 3 and a half years in a basement were offered therapy free of charge by the state but they both turned it down as they did not think a therapist could help them in any way.
That spoke volumes to me.

In short, I think the majority of modern therapy is just a sounding board for those who can afford it rather than those who need it.

I wouldn't be engaging in lengthy conversations with a suicidal person at night time outside of working hours, to be honest. Private therapy is not a crisis service.

Most therapists aren't charlatans, but I have seen some get themselves into difficulty by being overly nice, having poor boundaries, blurring work and personal life, and working with complex presentations they're not experienced enough to work with, ending up with clients who quickly become very dependent on them for support, de-escalation and crisis care.

No offense, but yes. Where’s your safeguarding?

@CrazyGoatLady It wasn't the end to my evening that I was expecting but they said the Samaritans weren't answering.

@Eyesopenwideawake then you direct them to the crisis line or A&E, not chat to them yourself. So unboundaried and dangerous

(I’m a clinical psychologist) - HCPC registered

I had a great therapist but she was so objective that I never really felt it helped me make decisions. I've also had a terrible one that burst into tears during my session because she never learned the cello. I still dont know what that had to do with me and my anxiety 🤣

The senior clinical psychologist I worked with was definitely not a charlatan

Hopefully your risk assessment and safeguarding processes are more robust than your boundaries!

Don’t you have a duty of care to get help for this person?

In the same way a lot of alcohol advisors are recovering alcoholics, in my experience a lot of counsellors have mental health problems. I have some concerns about that. Whilst it may give them empathy and a deeper understanding of what their clients are going through, I think it would affect the confidence I felt in a counsellor. If I was in mental turmoil, I think I’d want to speak to someone who was very firmly grounded and strong. Not someone who had the potential to be as fragile as me.

Counsellors and therapists provide different services.

I’ve had some good and some bad therapists. On the whole I’ve found therapy useful for figuring out stuff but not always useful for knowing what to do next. The best therapy I’ve had is IFS and somatic therapy.

One of my biggest issues with therapy is how “human” therapists are - it can be quite transparent when we stumble across something that triggers a reaction that is about them, not me.

For example, I once spoke to a therapist worrying about my drinking as I was drinking roughly 300ml of vodka every night. This was many years ago. The therapist spent a lot of the session insisting that that wasn’t that much to drink and didn’t sound like an issue. I haven’t drank in years but I often look back and think about how odd that was. Even if it had been a small amount, which it was not, what a strange reaction to me expressing concern and wanting to stop drinking.

Another therapist I had for much longer but after a while I spoke with him about how DH and I were thinking of moving cities so we are in the middle of both sets of extended family and we would be in a nicer area. We had both already moved around a lot and although I was a bit nervous I was feeling quite positive about it.

My therapist reacted really badly, telling me how it’s a terrible idea and how I should stay where I am and DH will just have to cope with us being far from his family. It maybe would have been an appropriate reaction if I’d expressed concern about the moving plan or implied I was being pressured but I didn’t.

At first I cynically thought his issue was that I would no longer be paying to see him but as the session went on it was so out of character that I’m convinced something happened in his own life regarding conflict/resentment around a house move.

I get nobody’s perfect and we are all human but when it comes to being emotionally vulnerable in a way I’m not with others and paying a lot of money, I find it hard to just accept them warts and all in the way I would accept such flaws in a friend.

Have you signposted them to an appropriate unscheduled care service or emergency service??

Surely as a therapist and your client is ACTIVELY suicidal and not just ideation, you’d breach confidentiality and get them to A&E or crisis team support??