Tips for Finding a Therapist
Many readers email me to get suggestions on how to find a therapist. Counseling Seattle.com has some good suggestions on how to find a therapist. You can read their tips here or see my post on "How to Tell if Your Therapist Sucks like a Bilge Pump."
posted by Helen at 11:00 AM
25 Comments:
If your therapist sleeps with his client and then whines to the media that she said she loved him, he's a BAD therapist.
http://poponthepop.blogspot.com/2007/07/britney-spears-boyfriend-john-sundahl.html
Greek dude with a little swirly hypnosis wheel who tells you to masturbate to increase your seratonin levels. Not good.
You mentioned in a previous post that you'd seen studies suggesting marital counseling didn't work. Do you have any links, or perhaps more comments on that? I ask because the couples I've known who have gone for therapy have all divorced. But they were in bad shape to begin with.
Phil-Z
Anonymous 12:52:
Here is a link to one such study:
http://trishwilson.typepad.com/blog/2005/04/new_study_shows.html
I hope I'm not stepping on any toes here. But I changed the above url into link form.
Here is the link to the New Study.
Kenshu ani,
Thanks. That is easier.
I remain a Gemini on this: Both an optimist and a pessimist.
I've only once met, in face to face life, a therapist who was willing to stop TELLING me and start LISTENING to me. Considering the number of times I've tried, that is REALLY bad odds.
Also, it's like there's a script flowing through a therapist's mind telling him/her to mistranslate what I say and why I say it. It is really MOST frustrating. Maybe it's how I talk? Or the fact that I cannot smile? (tremors) I'm sure I play a part in the thing, but I have never been able to isolate what that part is! Funny too, people in real-life seem to understand me just fine.
I've talked, as an advocate, with a great many therapists. One of the most frustrating parts of that is mistranslation of motivation. Lately, I've been talking to a US psychologist from the APA group 51. He has this thing going through his head that feminist power theory is pure science. Thus, anyone who sees that theory (and thus much of psychology) as hatred of men MUST (in his eyes) be jealous of women or want to harm women. He just plain CANNOT understand that there are other valid ways of seeing the thing. So very many times I've seen that exact fault ' X is the only way to see Y. ' DUMB! Real dumb.
Dr. Helen: I put the whole thing together and I am not entirely sure it is possible to pick a therapist of any brand with any reliability. It seems to be a matter of most are fine with ordinary problems, depression and such, but once you've stepped outside of ordinary the odds of finding someone go down to abysmal. Plus, even for ordinary problems, there will be many really bad therapists.
Sorting out the mess and finding the jewels is thus, in my mind, not at all a simple problem. It is a problem fraught with multiple difficulties. There's good professional people out there, but they seem to me to be such a small minority that the whole problem comes down to looking for diamonds in the muck pile behind the barn.
"the couples I've known who have gone for therapy have all divorced"
That's because marriage counseling doesn't work. If you can manage to speak to any therapist off the record, they will all admit to you that all it amounts to is the wife whining the whole time because of wildly unrealistic expectations that are now built into our very culture. It's not really the fault of therapists, because if a therapist was to point out the truth each time that women are to blame 98% of the time for a miserable marriage because American women are miserable people, he/she would probably even end up losing their license. If it gets to the point of marriage counseling, it's already over. The smart thing to do as man is to not get married in the first place.
Therapy in general has pretty much been shown to be a useless and dead practice- an antique from another time when the laws and culture still made some semblance of sense. Worse, the field of psychology has become nothing more than a dangerous political tool used by the hate group called Feminists to use in stripping more and more basic human rights from men.
This too, shall pass.
"the couples I've known who have gone for therapy have all divorced"
----------------
That's what I've seen too, I saw that with 3 couples close to me and more couples that I didn't know as well. Most of the stories I heard involved the wife (mostly successfully) trying to use the therapist to make the husband do exactly what she wanted. The feelings, frustrations and problems of the man were not even on the radar screen.
Here's the major problem with therapists: They are not big into an objective, scientific analysis of what works and what doesn't. That's why so many of them have nutty theories.
The small amount of scientific studies that have been done show that a whole lot of psychological tests DON'T work. Rorschach tests don't work. Talk therapy for depression doesn't seem to be a whole lot better than getting better on your own. I think the time quoted was around 9 months or so for moderate depression, whether talk therapy was involved or not.
It's basically a big, unscientific crock.
Here's an article on the success rate of a lot of psychological tests (a lot, like Rorschach, are not much above chance, if that):
Projective Measures of Personality and Psychopathology: How Well Do They Work? Scott O. Lilienfeld in: Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. 23, No. 5, page 32; September/October 1999.
I work next door to a psychiatrist's office and have been for 2 years now & the vast majority of people going in there are single mothers with their out of control children- out of control of course because the fathers have been legally forced out of their children's lives cause it's the 'in' thing to do. So mostly the little boys are being drugged and made mentally ill because of it. The whole field has become a menace.
Psychiatrity and psychology are really quite different. The former involves medicines, the latter does not.
Talking does not help much at all. Trying new behaviors can really be most helpful! When I listen to people in my practice, it is with the goal of them finding and trying some new choices and evaluating how they work. Think of it as assisted problem solving and implementation.
And regarding the Rorschach, I was involved with a man, Les Phillips, Ph.D. who could do amazing things with the test. I would administer the test for him. Then we did some presentations where Les did not have any identiying information or background other than the person's age, gender, and Rorschach responses. The folks listening all knew the person's history, psychiatric problems, and life story.
Les would proceed to read about three or four responses then describe the person in uncanny detail. He had a Scottish brogue and I remember thinking I could stump him with a person from the V.A. that was midway through sexual reassignment surgery. 'This is odd. It is as if this person is not sure if he is a man or a woman! I 've never seen anything like it." Think Star Trek the original series when you read that.
Now it was magic because Les could not really explain how he did what he did, but he did it in rooms full of people, I provided the data, and he did not cheat.
Finally, interpersonal and cognitive behavior therapy have a long history of documented effectiveness in the treatment of unipolar depression. That data is robust.
Trey
Let me begin by saying I hate insurance companies.
Now that you know where I am coming from, you should also know that for me the best kind of therapist is a psychiatrist. This gives me the best of both worlds - analysis and meds - with the emphasis on minimizing meds.
I have been in therapy for over 10 years now. I have gained confidence and now I conduct interviews. Meeting a new doctor I say straight up that 30 minutes of our hour will be spent with them answering MY questions. It works!
How else can a successful professional relationship be established? We would never hire an employee without knowing something about them, would we?
Ranting. Sorry! :-)
Dr. Helen:
Upon the discovery (relief it had a name, actually) that I was ADHD at the age of 44, I went to a therapist for a while, and a psychiatrist for meds and further questions. It sort of made me angry to be "patted on the head", handed a prescription and shown the door, for $175.00.
Are all psychiatrists intentionally vague, or is it just their way of being non-committal, so as to protect their hind quarters?
My disillusion with both the psychologist and psychiatrist has left me to handle things on my own the past ten years. I've read 7 books on the subject. The closest they come to thinking the same is parallel lines that don't meet.
I agree with carrie on insurance companies. Seems weird a 26 year old holder of a Harvard MA is able to tell my doctor, and therefore me, when I am well, what kind of meds are appropriate, and what meds they will pay for.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
I have had many counsellors over the years... I have to say, that the majority of them were useless. Their opinions and some of the running commentary was "shocking" to say the least.
Some of you are very right in that, some take things you say and are issues that you are grappling with and twisting it up into some kind of BaffleGab / Gobledegook.
I have PTSD and it is pretty severe... It took a long time and I got lucky and connected with a Trauma Counsellor who is working "WITH" me and it is helping a lot. He Listens & Hears, feeds back observations and offers suggestions in transferring my feelings / reactions & processes.
Just as a side note: I have met Psychologists, Psychiatrists and other "Therapists" that needed therapy far more than I. Are they like that to start with ? Or do they get like that after dealing with people and their problems.
Dr. Helen,
I think you got it right... Forensic is quite a different tack. Thanks again for your Blog.
Mr. Steve,
So glad you found a counselor who is helpful. As for your question about psychologists and Psychiatrists needing treatment, some of them do have problems and this is why they go into the field and perhaps dealing with patients with problems exacerbates the problems they have--dealing day in and day out with people who are emotionally ill is hard work and takes its toll. That said, there are plenty of therapists who are emotionally healthy and are able to help their patients. The key is finding one that you connect with.
I would like to see a therapist, but I have the fear of being too meta. That is being aware of how ridiculous it is that I'm sitting there describing events that happened to me 35 years ago and expecting to have some sort of breakthrough.
Will he or she help/expect me to give up the anger I've carried toward my Dad for the horrible way he treated me as a kid? The bad part is my memory is starting to fade and all I have left is the anger. And now that he is a 77 year old blind guy that I haven't talked to 10 years my anger is barely focused on him anymore.
Pete,
The key is to ask yourself how much the anger plays a role in your life. Is it helping you to lead the life that you want or is it emotionally draining and causing you problems in work, relationships or in life? If the former, perhaps all is well. If the latter, you may benefit from seeking out someone who can help you to deal constructively with the anger in a way that will not harm you or others around you who may not deserve it. Anger in and of itself is not an undesirable emotion. It can be good. But it can also be destructive when it comes out in ways that are no longer adaptable to the situation at hand.
I'm angry that he instilled in me fear, insecurity, paranoia, resentment towards authority, and a very difficult time cultivating intimacy with members of the opposite sex. He was, and is, a bully who liked to ridicule his own children. Not once in my childhood did he praise me for anything I did. On more than one occasion he took a stranger's word in a dispute over mine. The last time we met, we had a fistfight at my younger brother's wedding rehearsal dinner.
Thinking back, I think he resented us(5 boys and 3 girls) getting between him and my Mom.
pete:
You seem to be inching towards some kind of on-line therapy. That's not reasonable.
I would personally say: Live your life and drop your self-imposed whatever-it-is, but then again, I'm not a therapist.
Nah, I'm not that rude.
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