Where are the therapists going?

[Riley Z.]

I've been doing my best to go to therapy. I'm a young guy, I want to get better, and I feel like it's easy for me to connect to therapists.
But I've been in a painful, monotonous cycle.

I meet a new therapist, we spend like 3 sessions trying to get to know me, we have a few more sessions just open up a bit to them. There's always sometime that happens. One quits, the other gets fired, other ones just stop replying, they move, etc. I'm quite literally on my 5th therapist in the span of a year and a half.

It's exhausting. It doesn't feel like it's worth it anymore. It's always just talking and no therapy. Just "oh I'm sorry to hear that" and then they leave. Another 3 sessions with someone new trying to get to know me. I can't keep doing this. Is therapy even worth it?

 

[MisterBGone]

I’d say it sounds more like a numbers game, and a case of incredibly bad (or good, depending on how it all turns out!) luck! While this highly unusual to burn through that many in such a short time span, given the reasons that you have given, it is even more understandable than the norm. Where people on both sides: patient & psychologist are both deciding of this is a mutually beneficial “fit.” I had one guy who told me from
The start that his best approach was to be direct and come right at you with both barrels, because he felt that that was the best way not to waste time, and get things done in a productive manner. The smartest friend I’d ever had went through about ten therapists, I believe she’d told me - before finally settling on a permanent one while in graduate school at university. Also, when taken into account, the degree of difficulty with the job, in terms of dealing with human condition in the fashion that they go about it in (which could be argued is more psychologically taxing than the psychiatrist who only practices “med management,” with their patients for 5 minutes. . . Not the kind that service the rich and have you lie on their couch, in other words; like you see on tv & in movies—); coupled with the fact that many of them - just like everybody else, probably have their own “issues!” Which may very well in part be why they got into the profession in the first place. Along with the pay - relative to some other like or similar fields, as well as “life happens,” kind of a thing... & it should be, at least in part, a little bit easier to wrap your mind around. Not that it’s easy to accept. But perhaps thus will lead to a really great connection with one! And that’s what you’ve got to hold out hope for...

 

[sinking_ship]

Wow, that's really frustrating. That sounds like quite the streak of bad luck. I have found therapy very worth it. But of course you have to be able to see a therapist long enough to actually accomplish anything. Maybe if you look again for a new therapist you can mention that you've been dealing with this, and try to suss out if they are fairly stable in their practice, if they've got any reason to think there might be an issue there.

 

[Winslow]

@Riley Z.
Looks like I'm the Opposite of you, because I'm in my 60s, and I've had the same therapist for over ten years! And he's a good one too--that's why I've kept him for over ten years.
Your run of bad luck is incredibly unusual. After that many disappointments, you will eventually find a therapist that's steady. Just from the law of probability alone, you will find a steady one.

 

[Acy]

Hi, Riley Z. I’m sorry you’ve been having trouble getting therapy. It sounds frustrating.

Can you afford to get private therapy from a psychologist or social worker/counsellor?

Therapy is worth it when we find the right fit and the treatment plan is long enough to get somewhere. Sometimes the client and therapist can work out the length and goals of therapy early on, and then periodically review the treatment plan. If that is set at the beginning, there is often a better sense for both parties of how therapy is progressing.

I agree with @sinking_ship that you could talk about all these changes in therapists with a new one if you try more therapy, because it is hard on a person to go through that over and over.

I hope you can find someone that you click with and can work with for a good while.

 

[Riley Z.]

Thank you everyone for your responses!
That's a good idea; my first therapy session with my 6th psychologist is on Tuesday, so I'll bring it up to them.

Can you afford to get private therapy from a psychologist or social worker/counsellor?

All of the therapists I've seen have actually been a psychologist (well, one of them was a social worker but she lasted around 2 months). They always work at a community health centre and then they end up relocating or moving or in extreme cases, shut down their clinic. I think I just have really bad luck, lol. Thank you for your well wishes!

 

[hope_cope_nope]

That's the sad reality. Private therapists are the same.

The reason is very simple: the failed education system.

Our current education system is a complete disaster and usually produces very incompetent people. It's not only about therapists. Doctors are the same for instance.

Universities used to be the place where you learned something, but today you spend your time there smoking weed, f*ing around and playing video games. The only practical skill that universities teach is cheating on exams and lying about your education level, which is then carried forward to job interviews.

There is no easy fix. You will be better implementing self-help programs than wasting your time on therapists.

 

[may71]

Sorry that this is happening.

Is therapy even worth it?

That depends. If you've got something you want to express, or a therapist is going to teach you something, then it can be helpful. My experience was that therapy was only mildly helpful at best, and counterproductive at worst.

You might want to try reading about CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) on your own. A member here has recommended The Feeling Good Handbook by Dr. David Burns, but I'm sure there are other good CBT books out there too.

The links in my signature have some information about treatment methods. Self-treatment, acupuncture, traditional Chinese herbal medicine, and dietary changes are my favorite treatment methods.

Here's a copy of the links in case you're on a phone

Treating Depression, Anxiety, Insomnia and General Help
Acupressure Self-Massage for Depression, Insomnia, and Anxiety

 

[Gonz]

You will be better implementing self-help programs than wasting your time on therapists.

And even better off not bothering, since it's generally failed therapists creating those useless programs in the first place. Or just some writer with even less expertise.

I've suspected, and the evidence keeps pointing in that direction, that we're all better off just accepting our lots in life and casting off the entire parasitic industry.

This place alone is solid evidence of that. How many people here have been in therapy for years, decades even, and still actively want to die?

It's cruel, holding out the promise of "getting better" to people who never will, to take money they often can't spare,

I'm not saying the whole thing couldn't work in theory, but theory is a long way from practice.

 

[Riley Z.]

And even better off not bothering, since it's generally failed therapists creating those useless programs in the first place. Or just some writer with even less expertise.
I've suspected, and the evidence keeps pointing in that direction, that we're all better off just accepting our lots in life and casting off the entire parasitic industry.This place alone is solid evidence of that. How many people here have been in therapy for years, decades even, and still actively want to die?
It's cruel, holding out the promise of "getting better" to people who never will, to take money they often can't spare,

I'm not saying the whole thing couldn't work in theory, but theory is a long way from practice.

I think some programs are better than others, personally. I'm a psychologist in training, though I'm not going the clinical route. I'm focused on forensic psychology, which is identifying competency to stand trial, consulting with abuse survivors for their rights, determining how public law cases go, etc etc. But I do notice that a lot of clinical psychologists (and I would know, I've studied with them) tend to rely on books and theories in their studies that aren't effective just because they read about them in their classes.

Some therapy techniques, such as CBT and RET and recently DBT have had empirical studies done that show their effectiveness. But a lot of therapists use the bandaid of "let's just slap a list of things to do and a step by step process on there" instead of consulting each and every person for their individual needs and looking at every aspect of their life (biopsychosocial model) instead of just a pure psychological model (that focuses on cognition and the way we "think")

But yes, I am very wary of a lot of self-help books that aren't backed up with empirical studies and actual clinical evidence. All with the promise that doing "breathing exercises" will make it all better.

 

[may71]

And even better off not bothering, since it's generally failed therapists creating those useless programs in the first place. Or just some writer with even less expertise.

I've suspected, and the evidence keeps pointing in that direction, that we're all better off just accepting our lots in life and casting off the entire parasitic industry.

Some people can benefit from therapy, if they have a good therapist, and the therapist has the right approach for them.

I agree that it's a parasitic industry though. Some therapist may have the desire to actually help people, but quite a few others are there to cop a power trip on their clients, and milk them for as much money as possible.

 

[hope_cope_nope]

And even better off not bothering, since it's generally failed therapists creating those useless programs in the first place. Or just some writer with even less expertise.

I am against therapy, but not against self-help. And I'm not talking about some psychological self help, rather how to improve certain area of life. For instance some bodybuilding book, or money management or similar. This really works.

Happiness should not be our goal. Rather it's a by-product.

 

[sinking_ship]

Hope if you're in a study, you have to sign informed consent. I'm sorry to hear you feel you've had bad therapists. But many of us have not had that experience. It sometimes just has to be the right match for a person.

 

[Riley Z.]

<quote removed for inaccuracies>

I'm not sure what you mean. I'm a psychologist and I've done extensive research on cancer patients (studying the effects of eating disorder on youth with diagnosed cancer) as well as suicide rates and therapy effectiveness on front line responders and police force workers (specifically, detectives). Additionally, placebo groups are not under deception (unless they sign for it). They signed informed consent and agree that they don't want any sort of therapy, so they don't administer it. Most studies also don't just "remove" suicidal people. What would be the point in studying psychology if all psychologists just ignored it...?

edit: also it's not just calculated on 50/75? there's huge statistical equations looking at correlation, linear regression, probability, etc... they try to be sure beyond reasonable doubt that therapy was what caused the improvement, not outside factors

But I'm sorry you've had bad experiences. I just want to say that as someone who is part of the field, that's not really what goes on behind the scenes. We have tons of ethics boards and the whole field isn't corrupted by the few bad apples that you talk about. In order for any study to be published, rigorous ethics boards have to be signed onto it and peer-approved by many people both within the psychology industry AND outside of the industry to remove bias.

I'm not against talking about the issues with psychology as a field but I want to steer away from these harmful perceptions and theoreticals because therapy can genuinely help people. Not every therapist is in some secret organization to torture people.

 

[hope_cope_nope]

I read that in a scientific paper.

When you see that "70% of blahblah clients improve" then patients in a serious stress were removed before and patients who committed suicide during therapy were removed afterwards. If those 2 groups were counted in, numbers would look much worse.

Therapy efficiacy reported in papers is inflated. Reality doesn't look very well.

 

[Sunspots]

Did you know that suicidal patients are excluded from these studies? It really chilled me when I first read about it.

First thing, people with some serious conditions are not accepted as research subjects. Usually the people that need help the most: cancer patients, mourning, etc.

Even worse. Patients who committed suicide during therapy are removed from the statistics (on a basis they dropped out, lol).

Consider this example: we have 100 suicidal patients. Serious cases have already been removed, so the therapists have it easier. Now we send them to the therapy, CBT for instance. During the therapy, let's say:
- 50 improved
- 25 didn't improve
- 25 committed suicide.

Now we remove drop-outs, because who cares. We are left with 50 improvers and 25 suckers, 75 total. The effectiveness of the therapy will be calculated as: 50 / 75 = 66%

When I first read what those psychologists really do with us, I was seriously thrilled.

Also, the effectiveness of the in-therapy group is compared to a placebo group. Seriously, some people are not sent to a therapy, but to a pseudo-therapy where impostor therapists without psychological education deliver some pseudo-CBT jabber. Then they compare how many improved. I am f*ing serious.

I have a suspicion that I was somehow designated to a placebo group and whenever I start new therapy (had 18) my shrink checks some secret database and when they see my name, they default to the "placebo" chatter instead of real help.

I read that in a scientific paper.

This doesn't sound realistic at all knowing how scientific studies are carried out.
Could you link us to the article you read please?

 

[hope_cope_nope]

Sorry, it's gone.

There was a time when I looked for scientific papers from psychology. I made a thread on one forum where I linked it all. Papers, articles, books etc. I filled up several dozen pages, but one day I got angry and I deleted it all.

I'm not gonna do it again because I'm pretty much done with psychotherapy. I did it because I tried to help myself, but that was a dead end.

There are 3 schools of psychology that claim to be scientifically proven: CBT, ACT and DBT. The paper I was talking about was from CBT.

Some facts I learned:
- Severly stressed patients are not admitted to research.
- Suicidal patients are counted as drop-outs.
- Between 50% to 90% (numbers vary from poll to poll) people who committed suicide were in a therapy.
- CBT does not have any definition of depression and doesn't even recognize it as a valid condition.
- Some statistics don't show who recovered from depression, but merely "benefited" from therapy, whatever that means.
- Efficiacy of CBT was high in the '60s, but then started to go down and now it's on the same level as psychodynamic therapy.
- If the therapist suspects that you might be really suicidal, he will refuse therapy. (That I can confirm myself.)

This is all about CBT. Regarding ACT, it's based on Gestalt therapy, or rather it's literally Gestalt rebranded as CBT. Gestalt is based on a literal pseudoscience. There are certain ideas in Gestalt that found their way into ACT, like "paradoxical theory of change" that says change comes when you stop trying to change. This is completely unscientific of course and there is no research regarding that subject, but I believe it would be refuted if there were. Now ACT teaches the same, that you should stop trying and let go. This is directly based on the "paradoxical theory of change", but without explanation. The unscientific (or bona fide pseudoscientific) ideas from Gestalt were transplanted to ACT and labelled as scientific.

I didn't do much research about DBT. Maybe it is legit, but I doubt.

 

[Walker]

Listen, in no group of 100 patients are 25 of them committing suicide.
Finding one study that you read this in @hope_cope_nope and then being unable to find it again should tell you something. Spreading false information like this is very harmful to wide swaths of people.
Yes, you're somewhat right about groups of people being blocked from some studies but that's not all studies and it's not going to cover all topics.
The number of complaints / reports I came back to about your comment might be the largest number I've ever logged into -- so that should tell you something about the feelings of your stance on this vs -- well, the rest of everyone on the planet.

 

[hope_cope_nope]

I rounded the numbers, but the fact is true: suicides are hidden in therapy statistics as drop outs.

I absolutely do not trust psychotherapy.

 

[Sunspots]

I absolutely do not trust psychotherapy.

That's absolutely your prerogative but please don't quote unsubstantiated "facts" as your reasons for this. One unidentified article on the internet is not proof of any wrongdoing or conspiracy.