therapist said i make her feel worthless and empty

[happyfrown]

talking about my deep set hate and lack or self worth and how i think others are judging me. she said in some words cant remember exactly but drift of it that i reverse my feelings on to other people?
she said i made HER feel empty and worthless, i asked how i made her feel that way and she mentioned in a previous session id said something like she is a therapist for mental health, so in a way is expected to help fix me? which made her feel worthless?

i was horrified id made someone i don't know feel like that and god knows how i make my close friends feel then? i was in bits and she says ''you seem more upset this week'' you think! i said yea cos you said id upset you and possibly any one i talk to.

i was close to getting up and walking out. but if i did that the 2yrs it took to get any help would be wasted, and was worried any futher help would be denied as id walked away from so called help.

i think she was trying to say my dcs must feel worthless in how i am, talk or lack of interaction with them too, im not sure.
i feel awful.

Hmmm... I think my first plan would be that you raise this at your next meeting and ask her to help you understand it. It's very easy, if you're feeling down, to hear things in a certain way that feed into that flatspin. It might be that she's said exactly what you think you've heard and if so, then I agree with PP then she's not providing you with a good service. OTOH, she might actually have given an example that isn't quite this damning but somehow that's the end of the stick you've grasped. Ultimately I guess we won't know until and unless you explore it further. Best of luck with it, anyway, and with your progress overall.

i will go back next week, i will ask her to explain again with a clearer head. the sessions are recorded so i hope when she plays it back will realise why i got upset!

I stopped cbt after one session after I explained that I am obsessed with no-one truly liking me. He said "well that may well be the case".
Awful people.

I'm wondering if she was talking about her countertransference toward you. Can you go back and ask her what she meant, can you honest and tell her how it impacted you? It's difficult without knowing all the details but if you could work through this then it might really help you.

I know nothing about therapy but this sounds terrible. She is paid (by you or the NHS) to help you, and I can't see how her comment would do that.

thankyou for your opinions and talking it through with me. i feel bad ive moaned but it was said in a bad way and all i heard was her saying i made her feel like me.

This is all really useful stuff though, please take it back and tell her how it made you feel when she said that. I know it doesn't feel good, but part of the therapeutic process is the relationship between therapist and client. It's important that you can be honest about your feelings, especially if it doesn't sit with you. Do you think you could give it another go? And if you still want to leave then tell her and schedule an ending.

You absolutely should talk about these things, happy. It's crucial for you to get other perspectives, since that's how you gradually end up (re)calibrating your own. Don't apologise for asking for an outsider's perspective. It's healthy and helpful, for all of us, to sometimes get a second view of things.

I don't know what countertransference is but I would report the therapist to the relevant professional body for misconduct. Sounds awful .

^^ Groundless. With the OP offering such a muddled and unreliable account of events, it will only ever come down to conjecture.

What is required is a local mediation meeting with the therapist so she can explain herself to the OP clearly. Because if the the account given here is representative - i.e. with PPs trying to second guess what was said - any complaint is going to be difficult to unpick with any certainty.

Sounds like psychodynamic therapy?

Fwiw never found it gave me anything but more problems. CBT is much healthier for me

Sounds to me like a psychodynamic counsellor reflecting, challenging and explaining transference. None of us know exactly what she said but I'd guess she was challenging you to look at how your behaviours impact on your children. Tough territory especially early on in your therapy journey. She may not be the right therapist for you.

Psychodynamic therapy is a poor choice for the OP, judging by what she has already posted. You need terrific insight for it to have a snowball's chance of working.

This comes down to a poor initial assessment. All it's done is set the OP back.

highinthesky I wasn't going to put in a complain, I understand she was possibly trying to help make me understand how my behaviour impacts on others. but telling me I make her feel like that made me feel worse. I take everything to heart and 10 times worse than normal. im going next week to tell her I was so upset by the comment and to explain further when I have a clearer head.

it might be psychodynamic, she does say I challenge you to think about your patterns? they called it D.I.T though? interpersonal therapy.
I don't see my pattern in the fog of it all, all I know is im not coping.

reminding me how shit of a mum I am also don't help. when I feel on edge, fighting self harm and better off dead thoughts im hardly in the mood to play board games with kids. though I understand the therapist is probably trying to get my mind focused on something else and interacting with kids will help me feel less guilty about the lack of bond. BUT it not that easy.
to me its like telling an alcoholic if they keep on drinking they will die - they aint going to say ok and put the bottle down. if something is deep set or an addiction words alone wont help.

sorry im feeling so defeated, I don't mean to put therapy or psychs down I just feel theres no light at the end of the tunnel.

I have a similar psychiatric/trauma background to you. Have you done any basic self care/stabilisation work at all? You know, focusing on being able to get out of bed and eat regular meals? It sounds like everything needs to dial back a bit before you can focus on the actual trauma. Do you see a cpn or care coordinator as well as a therapist? Who is delivering the therapy? CMHT?

haven't done any self care work? I do eat regularly, I count and weight every think so im probably over aware and focused on that.

no haven't got a cpn, I think they are based in the same building? I don't even know who im seeing. on the buzzer to get in it says name of borough - psychotherapy services. then the buzzer under that says IAPT.

I did say to her if my head wasn't so clogged with mental damage from childhood, guilt from not bonding with my kids, severe self hate, obsessive compulsiveness and impulses. I WOULD possibly have for mental energy for kids and people?
she said only i can change how i go about things - my fear is id be dead before that.

DIT stands for something called 'Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy', OP, and it is based on psychodynamic approaches. I hope this helps. Any decent therapist should be prepared to explain his or her approach to you and the basis for how they interact with you.

It could be that this is not the approach for you. Longer term more person-centred counselling might be better?

As a trained therapist... Bloody hell!

Yes it can be draining and when I used to treat people empathy would flip to sympathy (bad thing), and I'd feel drained and exhausted treating complex or distressing issues.

I'd never discuss my feelings with a client. No way.

If I felt that a client was a bit of a vampire I'd refer them to so.eone else "I don't feel qualified to help you in this is instance, but my colleague x has much more experience and is a great therapist".

EMDR is very effective for trauma.

No, by "self care and stabilisation work" I meant that it sounds like a good deal more time should be spent on trying to keep you safe and helping you build a "safe space" in your mind. If you're a self harm/suicide risk then trying to do more trauma focused work is something of a risk. The "foggyness" is a form of self protection called dissociation . I suspect you need to do more basic grounding work. OP, do you feel safe?

Safe space is essential. It is the building block of a lot of work.

It can be done - the human brain has an amazing ability to focus and repair. You have to be your own best friend and 'parent'.

Watch out for the vampires - usually there are people who aren't invited in you overcoming your issued.

It's not always bad or even obvious. Like a smoker trying to quit and their colleague who nips out for fag breaks with them saying 'oh just come out for one' so that they do that have to puff away in a draughty alley by themselves.

I found that it was opening up about my past which helped. My present problems at that time, anxiety attacks and depressed feelings, weren't really that relevant to my improvement (though they were the reason I'd gone for counselling). So for me discussing what I was doing with the DCs at present wouldn't help. And the counsellor never brought herself into the conversations unless I asked her something, eg how long she had been counselling or whatever, just because I was curious.

Invested not invited!

Op I do mean this kindly but do you think there is a chance that at some level you really don't want to do the therapy (it can be v tough) and so have seized on something that you've misunderstood or she has poorly explained as an opportunity to say "it's not for me!"