Provocation therapy/ Counsellor playing devils advocate

[abanico]

Does anyone have any experience of this? Would a counsellor tell you if that's what they were doing?

We bashed it out a bit (well, a lot) in my last session. She got really quite defensive but I think we're ok now.

Still not convinced by her explanation of the "but he's your dad" comment, she couldn't understand why I took this to be sympathetic for him, when people only ever use these words in a sympathetic context. She said she didn't expect me to take that from 4 words and that she clearly meant so much more than that.

She also said I sometimes don't develop what I say so what do I expect her to do, if I only give her absolute, short statements without explaining in further detail what I mean, she is obviously going to draw certain conclusions . The irony of this was not lost on me, given that she pretty much said it's my fault for misinterpreting her absolute, short statement that meant so much more than "but he's your dad".

Anyway. Don't know. I think she thinks it was a whole therapeutic thing, she said it's good to get in touch with my angry side. I'm a bit more cynical than she is, but I feel a bit better about it.

I am still a mess though. Still not sleeping, evidently. Still feel like I am being strangled by pain for every waking hour.

I think it's rather easy for bad therapists and councillors to hide behind 'it's all part of a clever technique'.

There is no 'technique' that involves undermining you, disbelieving you over personal lives experiences that she has no right to decide to take against, and slipping into superficial cultural myths at random when she feels like undermining you some more.

I would see a pattern between the way this therapist person is treating you, and the way your family have treated you. Bad therapists can recreate the same dysfunctional relationship dynamics they're trying to help with - simply fulfilling the vacant role.

Good therapists would set the tone and respect within the session. They will validate your reality and experiences whilst gently and supportively challenging assumptions, and unhealthy patterns etc. they would also check in about their emotions in the session, eg 'I'm feeling a lot of anger listening to the way that person did x, I'm wondering what you're feeling? Type of stuff... They should never be showing their feelings towards the patient/ person as a good therapist would feel the emotion, register the emotion and seek to discover why their feeling it, and what that might mean for them, and for the person involved.

They will also go beyond a pity party and towards insight and resolution. Some styles more than others, but no therapy is about listening and nodding then saying goodbye.

I don't think this means you're a failure or no one can help you, it means this counsellor has reached the end of her journey with you, and you need another person to help you take the next step.

Get the GP sorted if you possibly can, and ask for help. You deserve it and it's completely possible to heal and move on from here - keep the faith and hope up a little bit longer

Are you on ADs op? Please don't rule them out if so. I am a great fan - modern miracle imo. When I couldn't sleep bcs of, well, profound unhappiness, they got everything running along properly again - and not just sleep. Do consider going on them if you're not already; or increasing the dose if you are. Xx

No I'm not, partly through the useless GP mess I don't even know if they're an option. I was considering buying some off the internet when I got desperate (don't worry, I won't do this). or some other drugs. Ginseng? OTC sleeping pills? God knows.

Thanks MiscellaneousAssortment. I'm mulling this over.

I did all the natural stuff, a stash that grew and grew. Yes there's a place for it eg low-level depression/anxiety [not that it feels like low-level!!] but if you're considering checking out and daily life is a relentless, unbearable grind then do consider ADs. They are not tranquillisers, they work on brain function that has fallen into inaction following prolonged stress and anxiety - ie normal/natural feelgood chemicals stop firing. ADs get them firing again.

There are things you can do to address switching off the stress response (adrenalin) eg good breathing [our breathing gets short and shallow when we are stressed, which triggers the adrenals: fight/flight] and addressing thought patterns - which is where CBT is an appropriate and wonderfully effective discipline. Exercise is of course truly excellent for getting the good stuff pumping in the brain dept. These, and others, are good skills to ensure good mental health hygiene. Part of my life now.

But sometimes stress patterns have become too longstanding and entrenched that chemical assistance is required to reboot. As I said, I am a fan of ADs, they saved my life, no question, when i became ill bcs of too much stress and heartache for too long. And I'm Ms do everything naturally as a rule.

That said St Johns Wort is the most prescribed AD in Germany - and it is a herb, natural. You can't get it on prescription here but it is a good support during times of low-level (!) stress. As it is a herb it can only be taken for a finite period (eg 6 weeks); check it is not contraindicated with other meds and avoid strong sunlight.

Also get some blood tests to check eg vitamin/mineral deficiencies. A good GP will anyway do those tests before prescribing ADs though they rarely do

And eg thyroid function! (Sorry, tired)

I'm not really a believer in alternative medicine and snake oil, so I'm with you that herbal stuff is probably not for me (though I appreciate they may help some, even if it's as a placebo). Apparently St John's Wort interferes with my contraceptive pill, the last thing I need is an unwanted pregnancy should I seek some comfort in sex and a condom fails.

I used to give blood until they tested me and said I was pretty anaemic. Still not allowed to donate and my iron levels are still low (though I would have hoped this would make me knackered enough to crash out and sleep! )So not only am I extremely stressed, I'm exhausted through lack of iron, I hoped one would cancel the other out but it's kind of the worst of both worlds. I'm finding it a struggle to keep on top of my diet and get a bit lazy with supplements, but maybe sorting this out would help even if a little bit. I do loads of exercise, this does help.

I'm also consciously trying to breathe better! I find it fine when I'm in a cool down after an exercise class or something, but when I'm in bed and my mind is racing and I feel panic and like I am being strangled, it's pretty hard. I had CBT and said I just wanted to know how to control feeling so terrible, but the therapist kept going back to the dim and distant past rather than helping me cope with panic attacks and spirals of doom in the present.

Erm a great deal of pharmaceuticals are based on plants/herbs eg aspirin (willow). I'm not talking eg homeopathy here - I would understand you being sceptical about that.

I'm hoping you can at last land safely with a GP who will take your health seriously and work on getting you back on an even keel both physically and mentally. I think you have so far been badly let down - but did you engage with your previous practise? It may be an idea to make contact with MIND to get some tips, pointers (eg sympathetic GPs, processes/tests you can ask for - and expect) and general support

Well done with the breathing btw! Keep going, it takes a while but eventually becomes second nature. It really does knock a lot of nasties clean on the head so it's worth plugging on with it.

I was talking more "drink camomile tea for anxiety" or unregulated, dangerous Chinese medicine than scientifically proven pharmaceutical products derived from plants. And I didn't say herbs didn't have an effect nor that they're only placebos- I said I know some people do benefit from them, and even if that's a placebo (it may or not be) then great. But it's not for me.

I've been in touch with Mind.

Not for me with the present problems I face. I find ginger for my motion sickness works a treat, for example.

Name change fail? Are they case sensitive? Who knew.

My breathing has been hampered by a cold! Gah. I dont think snuffling is allowed in yogic breathing. But I think the snot is stopping me thinking about much.

Just as long as you keep your breathing into your stomach, not your chest.

I'm not good with caffeine and yesterday inadvertently drank 2 mugs of caffeinated tea - realised too late. Cue horrible wired. My 'energy' (can't think of a better word) was high, tightly in my upper chest, shoulders and neck. I struggled to get it down - then remembered a course I once did where the facilitator suggested wiggling your bum to get it down (almost shake it down!). I had a go and it worked.

The aim is to get your 'energy' (sorry for the word) coming from your core, your centre. I'm not talking weirdo religious stuff, I'm talking as one who has struggled very much with mental/emotional distress most of my life; and keeping your energy down, not high up in your body/chest, does create a sense of calm and stability. Pilates could be a good physical discipline as it focuses on the core.

Back to breathing: as said previously, deep, not shallow, breathing oxygenates the brain and keeps the adrenals quiet. Nothing woo there.

I started Pilates recently as it happens, my core is like jelly. It's early days but it makes a difference - I find it tough though! I thought it would be a piece of cake just lying down...wrong. I will keep it up.

I definitely think things like this can help. As well as sweating it out - a combination of hard physical stuff and the relaxation has helped me a lot.

You say camomile is ineffective for severe anxiety and I agree it takes more than that when things are grim. But it all helps! eg my issues with caffeine: I could do without anything that gets me even vaguely wired. I drink decaffeinated hot drinks (mostly rooibosch - excellent antioxidant as it happens) bcs of this. I don't drink camomile often but when I do there is a definite benefit, however small. It all adds up. It also all adds up the other way, too eg caffeine, sugar, simple carbs etc. I'm a serious addict on the last two (comfort!) but I'm at least aware of my blood sugar levels and have an eye out for keeping it as balanced as possible (by making sure I get some protein in). I'm not perfect, in short

Patrick Holford is the expert on nutrition for mental health. He's written a book on precisely that afaik. Nutrition for the Mind? Something like that.

A psychiatrist once prescribed me a very strong antihistamine to help with sleep as I struggled with other sleeping pills. It was promethazine and I think you can buy it over the counter. Maybe speak to a pharmacist about it.

A qualified psychodynamic counsellor here.

Here's how I read her comments.

1. The comment about looks - it sounds like you are using your looks as an excuse for why people don't like you, and you've already decided this is one thing you can't change. Your therapist is pointing out the problem with this thinking - as long as you think your looks is the only reason, then you two can't really work on changing anything else. Following your own thinking, if you think your looks is the issue, then why not change that? (You would probably discover that changing your looks wouldn't make any difference because the real reason you struggle with relating to people is not your looks but something else.)

1. The comment about your dad - if I'm reading it correctly, you said you have no feelings about him and what he did. I don't think she is saying there is a bond just because you're related but rather that it's unlikely you have no feelings about it at all. Don't you feel angry your dad didn't stick around? You've mentioned problems with your mum, don't you wish your dad had been there and the family dynamics would have been different? And it's not entirely surprising you think people don't like you when your dad left. My hunch is you feel he didn't like you much or that you weren't good enough for him, but these feelings are very painful to be in touch with, it's safer to cut off all feelings about him.

A lot of posters are saying therapy should be supportive and "kind". And to some extent, yes, that is the case. However, with a client like you, OP, who has had longstanding issues and tried a range of different treatments, and two years into your therapy, it would be absolutely unhelpful to only be supportive. A good therapist will say the things the client would rather not think about. It's also totally normal for the client to feel angry about things the therapist says. A psychodynamic counsellor will be aware of transference and how the issues you have in other relationships (from childhood onwards) are being played out in the therapeutic relationship. If you generally feel people treat you badly or don't like you, it's very likely you're going to project this onto your therapist and start thinking she too is treating you badly.

Nothing you've said makes me at all concerned about the way your therapist is working. You do need to be as open and honest as possible and tell her how you feel when she says something. That is the work of therapy.

Someone upthread says two years sounds like a long time to be in therapy - not at all! Longstranding problems will not be solved in 12 or 20 sessions. You might well be in therapy for another 2 years, or more. I can recommend a book called The Last Asylum in which the author talks about her struggle with mental illness and recounts her (very long) therapy, and her recovery at the end of it.

I disagree completely that it sounds like you are using your looks as an excuse for why people don't like you.

OP, I used to get an unbelievable amount of verbal abuse for my looks - in my case, it was my nose. It went on for literally decades, until the wonderful therapist I finally found in my late thirties (after many years of trial and error) supported me in having surgery, and held my hand through all the deeper emotional issues around it.

It started at primary school and continued right up till I had the op. Children would openly call me names or snigger behind their hands. As an adult, complete strangers would hurl abuse at me across the street; a man once came up to me at a massively crowded bus stop (rush hour) and yelled very aggressively right into my face "you're so ugly". Clearly he had MH issues but that didn't make the experience any less awful for me, and coming in the wake of decades of people laughing at my nose and how ugly it was, it was obviously harder for me to deal with than it would have been for someone who had never experienced that and was reasonably secure about their looks, and to whom it would be unquestionably that man's issue and nothing to do with them.

I think this is what you're trying to get across, abanico, and what your counsellor and the pp above are failing to understand - if you're repeatedly on the receiving end of comments like these, over a very long period of time, it hurts. It's not about being happy with your looks or not, it's about people continuously using you as an emotional punchbag for their own crap, and not being able to stop it, and how much that hurts, and how crap it feels.

I was the scapegoat in my family and was subjected to emotional abuse and bullying from all my family from a very early age, so that made me an easy target for bullies and fuckwits of all descriptions. I couldn't defend myself because I felt this was what I deserved, because I was so used to it. I know how it feels to be constantly frightened that someone is going to start picking on you for something you can do nothing about.

It sounds to me like you have a similar scapegoat dynamic going on and that you too were somehow conditioned to be a target for bullies, and find it difficult to tell them where to get off. Understandably.

And my advice would be to change therapist immediately. Sorry, I know you've invested a lot in this one, but continuing to try and work out issues with someone who just doesn't have the depth to support you through them is never going to work, it's the sunk costs fallacy. She just doesn't get it, is my take, and I saw quite a few therapists and counsellors of different styles in the decade before finding the right one, who similarly just didn't get it. Regardless of being qualified, supervised, etc etc etc.

The right therapist for me got it straightway, she understood the depth and extent of the abuse I'd been through (and was still going through) and she also understood how hard I was prepared to work to change things. I'd been trying to work that hard for years with the other people I saw, but because they were not up to the job, it didn't get me very far.

And working with her did help me make huge changes in my life. Obviously I had the surgical option available to me which you don't, and I have to say that made my life easier literally overnight, but the work I did around the bullying and the scapegoating and how that had penetrated me to the core was and is equally important, and you need someone who gets that. You deserve somebody who gets that. Yes, it's expensive, but you deserve it. You deserve better than going through life being a potential target for any twat who feels entitled to dump on you to make themselves feel better - because, sadly, there are a lot of them about.

Thank you both particularly for the last two posts.

SmallLeaps you get exactly where I am coming from - it's not an excuse, but it's certainly a reason. I know there must be other reasons as not everyone in the entire world is shallow, but I definitely know that a lot, a lot, of people have ridiculed, abused and hated me because I am know pretty enough to please them. This is horrible to deal with and of course it will have an impact on your self esteem and feelings of self worth - I can live my life doing all I can to be a hardworking, kind woman and try to kid myself that that should be enough to get through life unnoticed and in peace, even if not loved. But then if I pop out to go to Tescos and someone yells at me to "get off the street you ugly fat bitch", I'm going to feel like shit. If I'm distant from my family because of how they treated me, and even supposed friends subtly but poisonously point out my place as the fat, unconventional looking one, I am going to feel like shit. I am going to feel very isolated, lonely, unsupported and unloved. i can get rid of poor influences but I can't avoid people altogether, and some of these people who treat me like shit are people I can't chose to get away from, like strangers in the street or colleagues. So yes, my childhood was shit, but my adulthood is also shit, and these things are actively hurting me now and I hoped to be able to talk about how to deal with them. So it's not an excuse, people have definitely disliked me because of the way I look - I know they are the bastards, but I am the one who is hurt. This is extremely difficult to handle and I thought that counselling might be able to help me, as well as talking about why my dad was a knob.

If all my problems are mainly because I don't speak a secret language that you don't learn or (even know exists) if you had a fucked up childhood, I don't know how I am supposed to talk about it. I know counselling doesn't give you the answers but it feels like she is asking me to tell her the Cantonese word for "pestle and mortar" and I don't speak any Cantonese let alone know this really obscure word, and she feels really frustrated that I am not cooperating with her, but I literally don't know what she wants me to say. All I can do is express what I do know, and know very well because it happens all the time.

It's like my therapist believes that all my problems are caused by the fact that no one called me beautiful while I was growing up and this has led to me feeling like I am not good enough for this world, and the feelings about people judging me and actively hating me for nothing other than my looks is a figment of my imagination. It really isn't - people really tell me I am not good enough, and even if I don't want it to be true, people are making that judgement of me, ergo I'm not good enough because a lot of people judge me so, which stops me progressing, and it's horrible.

My counsellor is, I'm sure, a very nice person and it's like she simply can't believe anyone would judge me negatively for the way I look, and they would see me for being beautiful on the inside, ergo I must just be imagining that people are repelled, and just repeating to myself what my family told me when I was growing up. It's all in my head. But she doesn't seem to believe that not everyone in the world is as nice as her. The adult version of "sticks and stones may break my bones" and "they're just jealous and saying it to make themselves feel better about themselves" just doesn't cut the mustard if you are losing out on so much because of the anguish it causes. They're not saying it to feel better about themselves, they're saying it because, inexplicably, they get great glee out of making me feel like shit.

stripytease, thank you also. I am also not concerned by the length of time involved. I knew that three decades of problems would take more than the usual "6 sessions of CBT and off you go" to fix. 1.5-2 years sounds like ages but it's really not in some contexts. I even think there is an argument for everyone having a therapist for life whether they have issues or not (my lifelong one will be the good people of Mumsnet...)

I don't think that the therapist needs to be kind, and they should challenge, but they shouldn't disbelieve or minimize what I say either. So I have no problem with her saying challenging things, but I do have a problem with her completely rubbishing me or misquoting me, or just not believing things that I know to be true. I never said that my looks are the only reason people don't like me, but it is the only reason I am able to articulate and, even if she doesn't see it as a problem, I do, and I think it's unfair to say "well go and change your looks then" because that's not helpful; that's not challenging me, that's making me look stupid. She might have said "do you think it's anything else?" sure, it may be, but no one has said it's your breath or it's because you're intensely annoying or deathly boring or anything, so anything else I say would be guess work and that's really distressing, because hey it could be all of those things and a million others. But the only thing I definitely know is the things people tell me about.

I discussed how I know she's not there to be nice or tell me the answers or even liking me... she then asked if I thought she doesn't like me, and I said that's neither here nor there, she's not there to like or dislike me. But she ended up saying she does like me... don't know what the point of that was. But I don't care if she likes me or not, it's not like we're ever going to be friends. But I do care if she disrespects my feelings and mocks me about them. I also care that she got annoyed that I was only bringing up feeling uncomfortable with certain aspects when we're 18 months in - firstly, it definitely wasn't the first time, so maybe she hasn't been listening, and secondly, feelings develop over time so I may only become aware of certain things at certain points. I was only able to say in the last couple of weeks how I felt about certain things because I had realisations based on topics that we discussed recently, so how was I supposed to bring it up at the very beginning? So I don't expect to be mollycoddled, but I don't expect it to be antagonistic either.

Re my dad - I have no positive feelings about him. I have no desire to get to know him, I don't miss him, I don't feel a bond with him. I never said I have no feelings at all - I have nothing but disdain for him, which is why I told him to piss off when he tried to build a relationship with me as an adult. So I may grieve for the lack of father in my life, but that's grieving the concept of a father figure, not grieving him; he can fuck off. He abandoned me and his responsibilities to me, he failed me in every way, I don't know what more I can say about it. It's not that I wasn't good enough - I was a baby when he left, It's inhumane to dislike a baby or think it's not good enough, it's a baby, it's done nothing wrong. A baby is the very essence of innocence that is totally dependent and deserves nurturing and total devotion from the two people responsible for bringing it into the world. He didn't give me that, not because I wasn't good enough, but because he's a lazy, irresponsible bastard who shirked his moral duties just because he could. He's not good enough for me, not the other way round. I've already done my own psychodynamic therapy on this since I was a kid, so the best I can do for my counsellor is pack it in a neat sentence of "he could get hit by a bus for all I care". That's all my anger, resentment and disdain for him right there. I think he's a massive selfish twat.

But I found your post really helpful, thank you again. I think I am going to continue for now.

I don't know why I almost spelled your username as striptease, stripytees . Freudian slip.

zombie thread, for the record.

So...this thread was me two years ago, sorry to bring a zombie thread back to life.

However, for posterity, I wanted to post again in case anyone is in my shoes some point and comes to Mumsnet looking for answers (MN is often my first/last port of call when I'm in a mess).

Firstly, I wanted to say thanks to everyone who helped me when I was at a really low point in my life. I know people take the piss out of Mumsnet but I have really been so alone sometimes, and strangers here have truly been the only people who have given a proper listening ear. @shovetheholly, your posts especially always stuck in my head for some reason.

Turns out my counsellor/therapist/whatever she is was indeed batshit, now the scales have finally fallen from my eyes her behaviour was so like the abusive relationships that wound me up in therapy to begin with that it is almost funny. I don't know whether she had good intentions but was useless, or if it was something more sinister, but either way my own well-being has paid the hefty price.

I don't doubt some people have been helped by therapy. However, when you are in a very vulnerable and desperate place it is difficult to see whether something is working, and the immense imbalance of power can so easily tip it into an damaging situation for you if you have an abusive/careless/just plain useless therapist.

I'm not trying to warn people off therapy, and I am truly pleased for people who have found good therapists.

I'm just saying "buyer beware". BACP membership or whatever is meaningless. If you have therapy and feel it's helping, great. If you feel it isn't, do not feel afraid to stop, and do not start to doubt yourself when the therapist very subtly but very definitely starts to make you feel like you are totally mad and therapy failures are your fault, and these new additional problems it has brought on will only be solved by further therapy. It's almost cult-like.

For a while, around 2-2.5 years onwards,, I had raised a point about feeling that I hadn't made any progress - the two major problems that I came into therapy for were still there, unresolved. She dismissed it by saying "but so what, xyz has happened!". It was as though she was wanking herself silly about having been a major player in my life achievements, while ignoring the fact that I was still drowning in sadness. Which really sucks when you are baring your absolute deepest sorrows, most embarrassing thoughts and biggest shame, and paying good money for the pleasure. And of course, any success was down to therapy. Any failure was down to me. That's not a good way for a therapist to make you feel.

The scales really started to fall from my eyes when I thought I had made a massive breakthrough by having placed completely normal and healthy boundaries in a potential new relationship (which turned out to be completely right as the guy was a complete arse, but that's a whole other story).

My boundaries had been really screwed, as a result of a cycle of abuse that started in childhood. However, I met someone, saw some massive red flags and then decided to be cautious, while at the same time not being so risk averse that I stifle myself.

I really felt I had turned a corner, I was pleased and feeling really positive, and really looked forward to telling my therapist at my next session. So I did. And then she started absolutely laying into me for having a victim mentality, and that I was being unfair to the poor guy who sounded like a nice bloke. (Him later proving himself to be the exact opposite of a nice bloke and her having to eat her words didn't give me as much satisfaction as I wish it did, sadly).

I won't go into the whole story as it's tedious (this post already is, of course!), but it's like she switched as soon as she realised I was starting to stand on my own two feet, and everything I said she turned back on me to beat me down even further. Then when I broke down she'd suddenly flip back into soothing therapist mode and insist she isn't trying to reject me.

She always shrouded things in therapist jargon. I am reasonably intelligent I think, but I just kept getting more and more confused by her using nebulous words like "process" and "grieiving" and "rejection" and "hearing". I know what all of those words mean, of course, but I kept asking her what exactly are we doing. She couldn't explain it.

So, not sure if therapy is shit, or I just had a shit therapist. Just saying to anyone else who is feeling that therapy is making you even more fucked up,, do not be afraid to question it. Ask Mumsnet. Listen to Mumsnet. Search for the "therapy is a con" blog on google. Read the book "Shouldn't I feel better by now?" Read and listen to everything David Smail has said. Listen to your gut instinct, don't let your therapist make you believe it is wrong. Educate yourself so that you can make an informed decision. Don't beat yourself up if you get it wrong.

Wow, way to slate my entire profession based on one bad experience there 🙄 (which I also agree with the previous therapist who posted was not working in an inappropriate way)

You're right BACP membership is relatively meaningless as it does not denote experience, but BACP accreditation is different and indicates a certain quality of training and number of years it supervised practice. Everyone would agree that the most important thing is the chemistry between the two of you, and the most qualified therapist in the world would not necessarily be a good fit.

We get such a slating on here for not being fucking mind readers sometimes, honestly! Did you actually have a conversation with her about how she was making you feel or challenge her at all? That's where the work actually is, especially within the psychodynamic approach!

I've been a therapist for 10 years and I love my job, but some clients are just not going to make any progress, because on some level they are comfortable being stuck. They will bat back every useful insight or suggestion with a 'yes, but..' response. They don't want to make changes, they just want to hear 'there, there', which is not actually going to get them anywhere and is not what therapy is.

Tbh I remember this thread the first time around and something about your posts irritated me then. I think you need to have a break from therapy and reflect on what you ACTUALLY want from it, then go back into it ready to do some work.