Bad luck with therapists

[Daniel]

{begin vent}

I cannot take therapy anymore -- or at least need a 6-month break. Another therapist barking up the wrong tree. My latest therapist was talking about "primary gain" during the last session, so I cancelled my future appointments with her and told her why. Basically, she said a number of other things to strongly suggest I have OCD because I want to have it. The therapist before her said I am addicted to the drama of anxiety -- and that is a direct statement. He said I would rather be anxious than bored, and that is my primary problem.

I am done with therapists who do not have a PhD, though the ones in Florida with a masters were never assuming like these therapists here in Arizona. I think the problem is most of the therapists here also specialize in addiction since the town they are in is nationally known for drug rehab.

I can barely stand my psychiatrist at this point. No one (except people on this forum) seem to understand me -- not my therapists, not my husband (who is still smoking up our money with his high degree of marijuana use). And my psychiatrist seems to only have an academic/superficial understanding of me as a person. Oh well...

Once the psychologist-in-training I saw last year becomes an independent psychologist, I may go back to her. She understood me more than the two therapists I have seen this year. Until then, I may look into online therapists in Arizona that have more qualifications for OCD and take my insurance.

{end vent}

 

[gooblax]

Yikes. How invalidating and infuriatingly wrong. Sorry to hear you've been having such bad experiences with them.

You deserve a good therapist who actually understands, rather than people who are stuck framing everything in the one model.
Well done for sticking up for yourself and telling her how she'd got things wrong. Did she offer an apology or say that she'd change approach? Or did you do it more as a unilateral cancellation rather than discussion?

 

[Daniel]

Her reply was one of denial. And then she said she never even mentioned the term "primary gain." So her memory is bad, too.

Client-centered, she was not. The most client-centered therapist I had was a psychologist in Florida, but he doesn't do telehealth.

 

[gooblax]

Wow. She's got no business denying it. Even if she thought she hadn't done it or couldn't remember, the reasonable response would be one of validating your position.

As many problems as I've had with my psych, he's never really been defensive about it or denied/invalidated a concern I've had with what he's done (or when he did invalidate, once he realised he was contributing to a bigger mess he then stopped and corrected).

Good job ending it with her. I hope you have better luck online when you're ready to give that a try.

 

[Daniel]

Thanks, it feels like I have seen Dr. Phil this year instead of more typical therapists

 

[GaryQ]

Well venting, here, where you'll get support is a great safe place for pressure release.

So if I understand what the 2 said was that 1 you just want attention and 2 are addicted to the Adrenaline rush that anxiety produces. when you intentionally and voluntarily have a attack for thrills. And it's all in your head

I think opening up here usually produces faster beneficial effects (even if it's a silly response to lighten the load with al laugh) then going through the crap here just explaining MDD is not my main problem it's a consequence and side effect of my combined mental and physical health.

Please don't take this the wrong way. but when you do open up on the rare occasion it reminds me you're human and vulnerable like us all. :support:

Is there a the possibility of therapy overload in your case? There's only so much someone can absorb and retain from what they read and learn etc. before the gains start being nulled out by information overload. Just a thought.

Like food you can stuff as much as you want in your mouth but it has to be at a rate your system can digest it properly over time. Maybe you need a break from all this therapy for a bit and it's not like you don't have a million things to keep you occupied as it is.

 

[David Baxter]

My latest therapist was talking about "primary gain" during the last session, so I cancelled my future appointments with her and told her why. Basically, she said a number of other things to strongly suggest I have OCD because I want to have it. The therapist before her said I am addicted to the drama of anxiety -- and that is a direct statement. He said I would rather be anxious than bored, and that is my primary problem.

That is infuriating. I feel enraged just reading this. I have worked with and personally known a lot of people with OCD and/or anxiety over the years and I have never met a single one who "enjoyed OCD" or the "drama of anxiety". OCD and anxiety are not fun. They are incredibly stressful and painful and it takes enormous effort and strength to even cope with them on a daily basis. That's the kind of ignorant uninformed comment you might expect from an uneducated insensitive redneck, not from a counselor or therapist. I don't know how people like that manage to get a license in the first place.

She couldn't even get the term right. It's "secondary gain", not "primary gain". Just another damned stupid Dr Phil wannabe.

These are prime examples of people who are in entirely the wrong profession.Unfortunately, they will probably continue to convey their boneheaded "advice" and so-called "diagnoses" to other people and do an incredible amount of damage to vulnerable people seeking informed help.

Good for you for firing them! I cannot express how angry hearing this makes me.

 

[Daniel]

And it seems both of them went to the same graduate school of redneck therapy. Because both of them said that medications are very effective, and so my history of using many psych drugs over time and still having to seek out therapy again is evidence that I am keeping my OCD/anxiety and depression alive for some personal reason.

In stark contrast, I remember my last psychiatrist in Florida said I was doing great and to keep up the good work. All the more reason to like him

 

[David Baxter]

Sadly, no profession is immune to idiots.

 

[GaryQ]

Sadly, no profession is immune to idiots.

Yup and the society that celebrates mediocracy and that you need a university degree and to get in and graduate all you need now is a heartbeat and debt for life. So social services and psychology are now in the easy degree category (no offense Dr. B) to get and so Dr. Phil's pop up everywhere and it seems that the scale is tipping more on the side of idiots.

BTW I laughed but was scared you were going to have a stroke or an aneurism when you first replied. I thought the same things but measured my words since I, contrary to you, do not have a degree in the field.

I've sadly only met one, a student, who seems promising he did the interview when the internal specialist referred me to her colleague but he did ask if I was OK with it then he came in after. The kid answered my one simple test question before we started "Have you heard of Clonidine being used for TS?" and he responded with a "Yes, I have. Why?" Then I decided this kid was worth my effort and me helping him get some field training on his academic journey.

 

[David Baxter]

Yup and the society that celebrates mediocracy and that you need a university degree and to get in and graduate all you need now is a heartbeat and debt for life. So social services and psychology are now in the easy degree category (no offense Dr. B) to get and so Dr. Phil's pop up everywhere and it seems that the scale is tipping more on the side of idiots..

That's really not true, actually. A Bachelors degree in any major may not be all that difficult to get but a Masters in psychology is much more difficult and a Ph.D. even more so.

When I was teaching, it was common to get engineers and science majors signing up for psychology courses because they assumed it was a "bird course", an easy credit. Typically, they dropped out after the first midterm when they discovered they actually had to work and study and learn to pass.

 

[GaryQ]

OK, I'll let you win that one.

Except it seems to contradict all forms of logic.
If so hard how come so many are incompetent idiots?
Not just psychologists but shrinks too?
(no need to answer it's a rhetorical question)

 

[Daniel]

If so hard how come so many are incompetent idiots?

David Burns has talked about it:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-therapy/200901/seven-questions-david-d-burns

Learning to accept failure on multiple levels is, to my way of thinking, the key to become a world-class therapist. But that means humility, and setting your ego aside, while you develop superb new technical skills...

I can't imagine doing effective therapy without these assessments. But it requires courage, because you often discover that things weren't the way you thought. And patients can be surprisingly honest and critical of therapists--far more so than in actual sessions. For some reason, they feel far more open and candid when completing these therapy session evaluations.

Narcissistic therapists--and there are some--cannot tolerate the assessments, because the patient feedback is too devastating to their sense of self-esteem...

Our field has a lot of room for growth, and for catching up with the other more basic sciences, such as biology, chemistry, or physics. That's the goal that my colleagues and I have been aiming for in our work developing a new a more powerful model of therapy.

Incidentally:

5 Signs of Narcissistic Therapists (The Ultimate Covert Wolves In Sheeps Clothing)

Credentials and even a seemingly stellar public reputation cannot make up for an appalling lack of character.

 

[Daniel]

I have decided I will make an appointment with the psychologist who worked in the same office as the last two psychologists I liked (the student psychologist and her supervisor). I will see him in January when my insurance changes.

 

[Daniel]

The psychologists I was interested in locally are all booked up due to COVID-19 and none of them really truly specialize in OCD, so I will go with one in Phoenix that is listed with the International OCD Foundation, ideally using telehealth. (So I am going to switch my insurance from a HMO to a PPO so I can have a lot more flexibility in picking providers.)

 

[forgetmenot]

Hope you find an excellent therapist Daniel one that knows what they are doing and listens and cares.

 

[Daniel]

Thanks. I finally got an appointment for January. I changed my mind again and decided to go with my previous, local psychologist that I liked (since I was able to change insurance companies during the last days of open enrollment). After having two therapists that were not a good fit (to put it mildly), now I finally understand why people stay with the same therapist for years.

Like a lot of psychologists here she is not taking new patients as the demand has increased so much with the pandemic, so I got grandfathered in

 

[Daniel]

During my second session with her yesterday (after not seeing her since 2018), the psychologist said she thinks I may have so-called [WIKI]high functioning autism[/WIKI] in addition to OCD.

While this does partially resonate, I do not plan on going back to therapy, at least not anytime soon. The sessions remind me of the "bad" therapists last year -- I feel only more alone.

It seems I would be better off with a personal trainer at this point, and I already have one--the new dog who wants to go for "walkies."

Another factor in wanting to take a break from therapy is that I found out that the psychologist, while she does accept my insurance company, is not contracted with my specific plan. So I have to file out-of-network paperwork in the hope that Aetna pays me back. Just another disincentive...

 

[Daniel]

Related books:

OCD and Autism

Stuck: Aspergers Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviors - Amazon.com

All Cats Are on the Autism Spectrum


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Social motivation, reward and the roots of autism | Spectrum | Autism Research News

It is probably best to think of autism as involving a general impairment in the motivation system, which plays out in unique ways for each individual, such as anxiety, the inability to derive pleasure from typically enjoyable social activities and the incentive value of special interests or repetitive behaviors.

 

[David Baxter]

Autism spectrum as a diagnosis would be surprising to me, @Daniel.

To be blunt, it sounds more like she's musing on her own diagnosis-du-jour.