r/therapyabuse

I have worked with a therapist for a bit over a year. She knew my anxieties and my fears about abandonment and I always felt like she's going to get rid of me because I would have anxiety or depressive days. Throughout our time together she always reassured me that I wasn't going to be discarded as if I was nothing. I even trusted her enough to accept hugs, and that's hard for me to do.

I showed up to every session, even when not feeling well. While she would cancel and be gone 2-3 weeks at a time (things happen, I get it). While working with her she spewed her lies of how proud of me she was, and how much progress I made. When things started getting a bit worse at her place of work, she started making promises that if she left- she would have me follow her. It was our plan and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone because she would get in trouble apparently, but she would tell me ahead of time.

Well come her very last session with me, I asked if we were sticking to the plan and she assured me that we were but she didn't take my insurance at the time and had to file some paperwork to do so. I said I would self pay until she was allowed to accept my insurance. This is where she started getting weird like she all of a sudden didn't want me to do that and wanted me to wait. She was also acting very cold, uninterested/uncaring towards me which made it very difficult to participate in session.

I made the mistake of opening up to her a little bit about how the hormonal shots (for IVF) I was on helped until after the egg retrieval then coming off those high hormonal doses made me crash into anxiety and depression episodes. She was gone for like 3 weeks during that time so it was difficult, sure but I pulled through. I had some ideations of not wanting to be alive, but I was doing better. According to her my feelings in what i went through was "scary" and i needed to be careful of what I say.

At the end of the session, she still said she told some other clients that she was leaving and they could go with her as well.

I realized when I got home she never told me where to go/platform she was going to be using. So she did give me a call and told me where to find her, what photo to look for, and she assured me that when we work together we are going to work.

So I book the appointment, self pay. She promptly cancels that appointment. I send her a message asking why? She tells me she's not allowed to see patients from her former place of work. I asked her why did she say to follow her there then. She sends back that she "clarified" she couldn't see patients and she won't respond to anymore messages on that matter. So, of course I'm having anxiety attacks wondering why she's doing this after the promises she made.

After a while I get a notice from the platform saying she accepts my insurance now. Cool, right? No. She canceled those appointments too. I reached out again and asked why. She states that she doesn't have the "capacity or resources" at the time and can't accept me as a client.

This whole time working with her was full of lies and manipulation. She was completely unethical (client abandonment) and highly unprofessional. She sat there for months and lied to my face, promising that we would continue working together and that we were in it for the long haul.

Even through ruptures, i stayed. She made me think that she actually cared and she was a safe person and she wasn't. I've been left more harmed by her than when i started therapy.

I have no issue putting the name of this therapist out there. I'm just not sure we are allowed to here. 😓💔

Hello. I am glad this group exists. Sometimes I comment but then delete but i appreciate reading others experiences nonetheless.

So since about 2023 until now (I officially ended all forms of paid therapy) I’ve been in various therapies with 3 different people .

I have recognized through my own research I struggle with complex trauma and attachment trauma . I especially deal with the avoidance /freeze response which is apparently the worst to help because your anger is so suppressed and it becomes a hiding response & a lot of these people are isolated as connection is their biggest struggle.

Im going to summarize my feelings as to not make this too long winded :
Both therapists and 1 counsellor knew they were not helping me after a period of time. 2 of them drifted into boundary blurring pseudo friendships , emailing , occasional texting and the other insisted on parts work when I was adamantly against that as I spend enough time in my head. They stopped the parts work but I came to them for something else.

None of these therapists did any kind of progress check in, see how goals were progressing after trust was built or revisited their competence to perhaps refer me to something more appropriate or stop the therapy altogether . None. They kept taking my money and booking appointments while I got worse .

During my time with these therapists, I became somewhat dependent on them . I started revolving time around these therapy appointments.
I realize healthy dependence is good , but I do not agree emotional dependence on a paid professional is good when you are not making progress or more importantly when they don’t understand how to recognize trauma responses…I consider this to be exploitation.

I missed time that could have been better spent visiting my aging grandmother. Or volunteering , or really immersing myself in a hobby .

I could have taken at least 4 trips for real self discovery / expansion for the amount of money I spent on therapy over 3 years…..

I’m angry at myself for letting this happen , but the only message I want to leave is to not give your authority away because someone with a licence claims to know how to help you or gains your trust or acts like they care , because majority of the time they do not , they can fake it for your continued bookings.
have regular check ins on how you are doing (aside from getting dependent on the therapist) how are things changing in your external life….some will say they can just walk alongside you , but this is BS and code for all I can do is listen , which might be fine if that’s what you want , but where are we as a society when we have to pay people to listen ?

I personally believe this to be a mostly harmful industry as there is barely any oversight or vetting . Therapists can write whatever they want on their profiles , that they work with trauma , but don’t and the client ends up paying. Therapist is never accountable as licensing boards are there for their reputation, not to help a psychologically harmed client . I hope more people start to see this industry for what it is , exploitation & unearned authority /privilege masquerading as altruism and help. & a return to community listening/mutual aid.

I feel so angry. I feel cheated out of life because for years, I struggled without any real reason or support given. I was gaslit so hard about my struggles and genuinely believed that I was mentally ill when all along I was just a disabled woman who was given no accommodations or guidance to navigate a life with these challenges.
I’ve been in therapy since I was 8 due to the fact that I had a “traumatic experience” growing up (it wasn’t that traumatic) and was underperforming in school and relationships.
The common theme with the therapist/psychiatrists I would work with is that they would Hyperfocus on the mental health symptoms as the origin of the problem without ever looking at the full picture. I cried in my therapist office as a child because I told her I felt dumb because I couldn’t get good grades or socialize like other kids, she diagnosed me with PTSD and said my underperformance and friendlessness was due to the trauma. This would happen multiple times in my life.
I complained again as a teen that I had trouble focusing in class, that I constantly failed tests no matter how hard I studied, that my peers at school thought I was odd and was outcasted a lot . I told the psych that I was depressed and had low-self esteem because of it. I told my psych that I believed that I might have a learning disability and that I was hopeless for the future and stopped having academic and career goals and dreams because I knew I would never achieve it.The psychiatrist immediately diagnosed me with depression and anxiety and put me on Prozac and Seroquel. Her reasoning was that depression can make it hard to focus, even though the depression came after the bad experiences.
Fast forward to adulthood, I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth. I take classes at community college. I start working a part time job and was fired from it shortly after because I kept making too many mistakes, messing up orders, or forgetting things. this would repeat for multiple jobs before I stopped trying. I would try to get my drivers’ license and failed multiple times because the amount of multitasking I had to do was too much. I was failing at life, just like I suspected I would. I once again went to a different psychiatrist, explained my problems, and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after being asked a ton of leading questions.
It wasn’t until the age of 28 when I finally met a provider who was willing to entertain a possible ADHD diagnosis that I finally felt validated in all the struggles I went through. The only reason I got taken seriously (The Psych still tried to prescribe antidepressants) was because of a therapist I had who advised me to completely stray away from talking about depression, anxiety, or low self esteem because she knew the clinician would ignore the ADHD symptoms and diagnose me with depression again. I know I likely have more (I suspect Autism and NVLD) but I’ll never know because my insurance doesn’t cover Neuropsychiatric assessments for adults.

I feel so angry and resentful over the fact that the problem was so obvious, yet every therapist and psychiatrist missed it. Whether it was on purpose or not, I’ll never truly know. All I know was that years of my life were wasted because I never got the help that I needed. I had to watch so many goals and ambitions die due to this disorder, and had to deal with so much blame and gaslighting from professionals for YEARS before I was taken seriously.
I’ll always mourn the life I didn’t get because of this.

This is my opinion and experience, so feel free to disagree!

If I break my leg do I have to keep walking on it before a cast can be put on? NO.

The more I talk about my trauma, the more I remember it, and that makes it worse. Example: this happened in therapy a few sessions ago. Therapist was pressing me to come up with more stuck points. I already told her idk like 2 times. The more she asked me the more memories it brought. Things I had forgotten about my trauma. Now I remember them. And I ruminate about them even more than I did. What was the point of that shit? I am not more healed.

Another example: I was always depressed but after acknowledging the years and years and YEARS of trauma and abuse I had, it made me 50 times worse. I know its messed up to say but... ignorance is bliss sometimes. If I can't do anything about it, why keep talking about it? Talking about my abuse won't change it.

WRNING: Gaslighting

TL;DR--> MY ACTUAL PLANS: I should of just spent my money and eat italian ice to drown out my sorrows. ( was stripped naked, locked up for 7 hours behind a glass wall, among other degrading things I don't even want to mention)

Therapist: "OK, I want you to be honest with me."

If I can't even be honest with my therapist, then who in the world should I convey my distress to?

I told her the severity of my mental state and the everyday challenges which it brings..and how I "might" one day in the future commit suicide and I cannot refuse that possibility because I can't predict my future self. However, I am doing great academically despite the horrific living environment,etc, and that has contributed to helping me acquire a small joy.

She "nearly" took that all away, all my hours of hard work..She tried make it so I would leave my grades as an incomplete and withdraw and hospitalize myself in an environment with nothing that brings me comfort. She wasn't the one that worked 16hrs+ everyday, I did. She had no right.

Her supervisor stated, "If you try to run, I will call the cops and they will handcuff you.". I truly hate them, what I did wrong was being honest to the people that should have helped me, rather than destroy me further.

At the hospital, they forcifully stripped me naked and to show them my self injuries because I refused to change into patient clothes and show them on my own.

Then, they left me waiting inside a dark room for SEVEN HOURS with nothing, but to stare at an empty room with a large glass wall towards the hospital staffs. I felt like a caged zoo animal for display. Eventually, due to the amount of stress and being left alone with my own thoughts for so long and having nothing to comfort/relief that stress, I started slamming my head against the wall and scratching, biting myself. So, they forcifully drugged me with a sleep medication due to that disruption.

After another few hours, a social worker finally came in and tried to tell me some of the following, "you need to talk about your trauma to get better" "we just want to make sure your not dead and you have a 'safety plan'". "We are doing this to help you, you have to be honest, but if you say you feel like dying everyday, then we cannot ensure you can keep yourself safe, therefore we will have to keep you here for your own safety so that you can feel good again, then we will discharge you once you say you don't have suicidal intent."

According to their logic, their inhumane treatment, and having me locked up with my music(phone) coping device taken away while listening their pretentious bullshit is supposed to make me feel better. Having my human rights taken away, my concerns and what is "causing" the distress doesnt matter, they only care that I am not physically dead because they are so self-righteous.

​What this experience has taught me: Never be honest/open up with my therapist about my true feelings ever again, in fact, I will never seek one out again. This is my third therapist that I trusted after my second(trauma therapist) cried and dropped me.

TL;DR--> MY ACTUAL PLANS: I should of just spent my money and eat italian ice to drown out my sorrows. ( was stripped naked, locked up for 7 hours behind a glass wall, among other degrading things I don't even want to mention.)

I'm looking for help sorting through something that happened to me recently. I was fired by a therapist after being told that to continue therapy she would need to speak with my ex or my ex's therapist (she has never met/spoken to either) to find out more about the power dynamics in our relationship (we are now not speaking but technically not on bad terms) and what my "blind spots" are.

This felt like a massive violation to me so I said not when she first raised it. Yesterday in a session after disagreeing with her that my ex was groomed by a colleague (and therefore about whether I could hold them accountable for emotional infidelity), she said we could only continue working together if she spoke with my ex and their therapist (with my ex's consent of course). I feel this was a big violation of trust and ethics and kinda coercive?

Which is ironic and brings me to my second point.

When I started therapy with her 2+ years ago she had a neuroaffirming approach and was social-justice minded and trauma-informed. Our therapeutic relationship was solid. Our relationship broke down earlier this year when she seemed to be integrating more formal models of consent, power and sociopolitical justice into her practice.

She assessed me as having more power than my ex based on age (31/26), maturity and finances – an assumption that was incorrect when I challenged it; and despite significant domestic and emotional labour imbalance. She interpreted my anger at broken agreements as entitlement under the consent framework while not applying the same framework to my ex's repeated failure to honour mutual commitments with absolutely 0 communication. She positioned my ex in a fixed victim role and me in a fixed perpetrator role despite the dynamic genuinely shifting all the time.

Here's the irony. I, like my ex, am AuDHD and queer. Her stated client base is explicitly neurodivergent and queer people who have been told they are too sensitive/too much. It seemed as though her neuroaffirming approach was applied to my ex's ADHD presentation, but not to my need for predictability and dysregulation when agreements were broken. I feel that I was pathologised while my ex was not seen to be accountable for most of their actions.

I asked for specific examples when she made general claims, and she was never able to give me an actual explicit example of something I'd said or done, just that it was true.

Now, don't get me wrong, I did act harmfully in my relationship with my ex and I was in therapy to work through my feelings of anger, resentment and learn concrete strategies and scripts so that I could reduce my reactivity and dysregulation. But my ex harmed me as well, quite often (emotional infidelity, silent treatment, splitting when angry, blaming me for suicidal urges etc.), and it seems as though she was only willing to acknowledge the harm I had done. I'm not here to bad mouth my ex – they were going through a lot and I know they never MEANT the harm.

But I AM here to question my therapist's rigid interpretation and complete deflection of my experience? It feels retraumatising to be honest.

I always thought it would be helpful to work with a therapist with similar values to me, sociopolitically, but I've learned from this that it can REALLY backfire when they don't have enough training, flexibility or ability to see nuance and complexity to apply it.

Having said this I still feel weird. This was a super weird situation and I don't really know what to think. I suppose I'm wondering whether my therapist's ultimatum was ethical, and whether others have had similar experiences with sociopolitically-aligned therapists?

The good news is that this classmate I knew from Junior High School and High School stopped her practise after two years. People claim that we change over time, some people, but not everyone. When we became adults, I reached out to her on Facebook in 2012. I realized this person was still the same: a narcissist. I went no contact afterwards. I learnt a few years ago that she had undergone a few weeks' training (not years, just 8 to 12 weeks). Basically, she mixed vague New Age pseudo-psychology with reading tarot cards to help clients get better energetically. I never knew that the term psychopractionner was even a thing. Her motto to advertize her office and consultations: was benevolence when she was, in fact, the most judgmental person I have ever seen and very good at gaslighting people. Where I live, work related to psychology is not regulated enough, and you have a lot of con artists who claim to be therapists with very little formal training or experience. I can't imagine what these emotional predators do to vulnerable people seeking help. I feel that a lot of narcissists go into these fields to keep on manipulating people while being paid for that.

I was diagnosed with avpd, then bpd. Mild depressive episodes. I did CBT. DBT. Schema therapy and internal family systems. Nothing helped. My self image is ruined by the stereotypes of Borderline. The "treatmennt" they gave me. The stigma. They calles us "Bordis" in the handbook of my DBT group. I wanted to throw up. It was full of misogyny. Claiming that only young women have borderline. How manipulative and awful we are. The idea that I have to schedule my daily life around skills was drilled into my head. A nurse didn't listen to me. Accused me of avoidant and anti social behaviour. Whole time I had a migraine and wanted to go home and sleep. The psychologist told me to skill. It's all about skills, about coping. Never about healing. My therapist laughed at me, was always late to our sessions. One time she didn't inform me that she had put an emergency in our slot. Didn't understand why I was upset (It took me an hour to drive there). Said that withdrawing warmth is normal, the best way to treat "Bordis". Said that we all just want attention. Asked me how I felt arguing against her. "Good" I said, because my anger in that moment made me confident. She was quiet, I suppose she didn't believe me. I was told I could not be autistic or ADHD or OCD but nobody ever told me why. Nobody understood why I hated being diagnosed with BPD. They didn't understand they were part of it. Now I'm on a waitlist for a new therapist, a trauma informed one. To get it all off my chest, hopefully. But what does it change? Nothing. Even if I get the diagnosis removed from my records, my self image will forever be ruined. I was a monster in their eyes, in most of society's eyes. I will never forget it. And they will never know that they were wrong.

I’m not really sure where else to post this

Long story short, my last therapist used to email me back and forth between sessions almost all the time. In the beginning it was a few times week, then slowly over time it became more sporadic, distant, and vague until he eventually just stopped. I never admitted it and he never brought it up but this made me so distraught I felt like I was being abandoned all over again. Eventually when I asked he just sent something vague like he’s not allowed to email me from his personal email. What? Then why did he give it to me in the first place?? Was he secretly trying to gauge if we were compatible and just dipped when I got overbearing and unstable? Cause that’s what it felt like to me.
I am still internally angry over this and his ability to just compartmentalize me like it was nothing.

Another thing, I used to be friends with two different counselors over the years. Neither of them were good friends to me. They were both pretentious and obsessed with psychoanalysis and judging others, obsessed with protecting their boundaries, yet both of them ghosted me rudely after literally never bringing up a single problem they had with me.

I am still actively in therapy but the more I learn about western psychiatry and therapy the more turned off I am by the whole process. I used to want to be a therapist too, but I realize now it’s just another system of control used to regulate the masses into behavior deemed acceptable or useful by the state. I believe all people are valuable as they are regardless of these traits, but no amount of being affirmed helps heal my relationship to a profoundly sick society. I think the more people who become therapists with these self serving attitudes and who are coming from backgrounds of privilege they won’t unpack the worse off we are.

After going through a traumatic event I decided to go back to therapy and now I think I need therapy from therapy. For brief context I went no contact with a family member and was having trouble moving past multiple betrayals. Went I talked about the situation it felt like she was more so judging me rather than treating me. She detailed a treatment plan for me that initially gave me hope. However after a few more sessions she had revealed she had been using chat gpt to not only come up with my treatment plan but all my “homework”. Even though this should’ve been enough reason for me to quit seeing her. I was really struggling with handling the situation. I finally ended my sessions with her after she kept showing up late to sessions, and after she told me how she thinks my next season is preparing me for motherhood, despite me telling her how I have no support system and that I don’t want to even think about having kids anytime soon. I want to start therapy again because I’m struggling, but I’m afraid that other therapists are using AI to “help” me. Additionally this will be my 3rd therapist. My therapist before this one was rude to me after I told her how I couldn’t afford anymore sessions after job loss. And my therapist before that “broke up” with me because she said the things I went through were “normal”. I want help but I feel like everyone I’ve tried to talk to has been really judgmental and for a while and even now I was internalizing it thinking it was something wrong with me. I’m not sure what a normal session is supposed to look like and whether I’m doing it wrong :/

So my dad has physically and emotionally abused me and threatened me with honor killings and even tried to strangle me once when I was 16, and I tried to escape once but ended up homeless, and I went to a DV shelter, and they called my parents, and I tried to escape once again, but the police sent me back even though I'm an adult. Also, the DV shelter told my dad about a psychiatrist, and they sent me there, and she doesn't believe me when I tell her the things my dad does, and she also says my dad isn't conservative because he let me go to uni, and she is also rude, and I even told her about my CSA once, and she didn't believe me, and she even laughed when my dad said he owes me once, and one time I texted her about her behavior, and she sent my dad everything, and she told him to not listen in front of me, and idk why, but to me this feels like a snarky comment, and one time I told her that I'm scared of my dad hospitalizing me, and she threatened me with it the next session. Also, can you have side effects from antipsychotics if you don't swallow them but keep them in your mouth and spit them out?

I think in the 1920es therapy was for people who were perceived as mentally extremely disabled.

I think where I'm from people have called it for people being "crazy" and out of touch.

Cant find a proper translation.

I also often find that therapy and medicine has been kind of... misogynistic?

Think of victims of abuse, who were met with made up syndromes just to gaslight them to say what they experienced hasn't been real.

Often times women were accused of being "emotional" or labeled "hysterical" when they really just had a normal reaction.

Why also don't we talk about how psychology was tested for bad reasons, finding ways how to effectly manipulating people?

I just feel that the public is missing something about therapy, but I cannot name it yet.

Currently reading Jeffery Masson's Against Therapy, and thought this passage was great and wanted to share. It's about Carl Rogers, the guy who invented person-centered/Rogerian therapy and the idea of "unconditional positive regard":

---

One of the signs, for Rogers, of a client’s making progress was that “he becomes increasingly able to experience, without a feeling of threat, the therapist’s unconditional positive regard.” Note the dilemma: if the client does not feel this, if the client feels the opposite, that the therapist is filled not with liking, but with loathing, then this is a sign that the patient is not yet well, still “defensive,” still “resisting,” that is, resisting the truth of the therapist’s unconditional positive regard. But what if, in fact, the therapist does not feel such positive regard? How is that to be registered by the client? In Roger’s scheme, it cannot, because the scheme does not encompass such negative possibilities.

This problem of negative vision, of not seeing what is there, permeates Rogers’s theories. The history of psychology tells us that the ability to understand another person’s inner world has been more honored in the breach than in practice. The history of psychology (and psychiatry) is replete with examples of therapists who have been completely unable to understand what their clients were telling them. Freud’s misunderstanding of Dora’s problems is a good example. So are the countless women who have attempted to convince a therapist that abuse (whether childhood sexual abuse or battering by a violent husband) really took place, when the therapist thinks it is only a fantasy; and, until the 1960s, the children who were physically abused but were not believed or even noticed by physicians, including pediatricians and psychiatrists (and no small number of therapists); and the large number of former psychiatric inmates who have reported terrible abuses in mental institutions. If such empathy is essential to therapy, it has been singularly lacking in the history of psychotherapy. Without taking a position on these essential points, and this means taking a political stance, the therapist cannot even acknowledge their reality, let alone understand and sympathize with the patient’s experience of such abuse. Nowhere in his writings does Rogers acknowledge the existence of such abuse, let alone ascribe to it any importance.

And how does one decide that a therapist does, in fact, possess empathy? Surely there is something absurd in Rogers’s notion of measuring empathy by having “trained judges rate the depth and accuracy of the therapist’s empathy.” Who would train the judges? And who would judge the judges’ empathy? And would they not have to observe session after session to form a judgment? And what would the judges do if they decided that a particular therapist rates, say, only a B—in empathy?

It is clear that one of the things Rogers wanted a good therapist to be is a good friend. We all know that good friends are hard to come by, and cannot simply be purchased by the hour. But Rogers seemed to feel that a therapist, merely by announcing himself to be one, is automatically a better friend than even a real friend:

> “It will be evident that for brief moments, at least, many good friendships fulfill the six conditions. Usually this is only momentarily, however, and then empathy falters, the positive regard becomes conditional, or the congruence of the “therapist” friend becomes overlaid by some degree of facade or defensiveness.”

Here Rogers assumed that friends will behave in a normal fashion, sometimes they like you and sometimes they don’t, but that the therapist always likes you and is always genuine and nondefensive. What is impossible to achieve in real life is assumed to be automatically part of the good therapist’s equipment.

A couple of years ago I was finally seeing a therapist that I actually liked, after experiencing retraumatization and abandonment at the hands of other therapists. It was going pretty well but nonetheless I went into a bad mental state and impulsively tried to kill myself. I stayed in a horrible abusive psych ward for 8 days. Then when I got back, I was told I couldn’t see my therapist anymore. It wasn’t her decision; it was the director of the practice she works for. Because I attempted suicide, that makes me a liability. As in they’re worried about getting sued if I were to actually die.

I guess that makes sense from a cold, analytical, legal standpoint. But from a human empathy standpoint, isn’t that fucked up? After something like this happens, that should be the time you need therapy the most right? And an abandonment at that time is profoundly destabilizing.

Since when do therapists get sued for patients committing suicide anyways? Surely it can’t be that uncommon. It’s damn near impossible to hold them accountable for anything. I would’ve liked to sue another therapist of mine for giving me PTSD with her botched EMDR, but wasn’t able to (I’m not asking for legal advice, go away stupid box)

I haven’t seen another therapist since then. I only want to see her if I go to therapy, but I can’t. It’s almost funny, the times I’ve been to psych ward and hospital for self harm and suicide attempts since then they ask me “hAvE yOu tRiEd tHeRaPy?” No shit Sherlock, why didn’t I think of that? I was in therapy for 12 years, and my most recent therapist dropped me for the exact reason I’m in the hospital/psych ward.

Gosh, it’s almost like therapy is not meant for people actually dealing with severe mental illness.

​

Discussion and reflection

Hi, I want to share something that happened to me with a DBT psychologist two years ago. I have major depression and emotional dysregulation, and I was referred to a DBT psychologist because I can't do CBT. It turns out that when I went to my appointment with the new psychologist, I didn't feel 100% comfortable. She seemed very stiff and rigid, like a recent graduate. I wasn't convinced, not only because of that but also for other reasons (I felt judged by her gaze, and she told me to take advantage of the antidepressants to gain weight. I had previously told her that I'd lost about 4 kg due to depression, and since I'm thin, it's noticeable in my face and legs, which I don't like that much, but oh well, it's something that can be regained simply by eating and working out at the gym—the only way an ectomorph can gain weight: gym and food). The point is, she seemed a bit out of place, and I still wasn't convinced.

About a month after starting therapy with her (I didn't connect with her at all), I sent her a message six days in advance (I gave six days' notice so I wouldn't have to pay anything and so she could make arrangements) respectfully telling her I was stopping treatment. The thing is, she ignored me for a week until she finally replied on the day we were supposed to have our session at 5 pm. She bombarded me with calls saying, "I thought we were going to have a closing session." To which I replied, "But I gave six days' notice and you ignored me. It wasn't my responsibility to come because I gave notice." And she kept insisting. I ended up blocking her for trying to blackmail me, since she never gave any notice, she simply ignored me for a week and didn't even apologize.

English is not my first language, sorry. I use the Google Translate.

Hi all. I obviously can't give particulars but the headline is self-explanatory. I'm curious about anyone experience with it, if you got any measure of justice, or if accountability was had. How did you deal with the stress while waiting to hear anything?

It sucks seeing that your T is continuing to live their best life, starting at a new practice, in a new city, hundreds of miles from any possibility of seeing someone that they've abused and abandoned. Meanwhile, you have to stay sitting in the shock and pain.

I don't ever see stories about T's facing accountability, even if it's just having the truth presented before a council. It would be good to hear that there's still a little justice in this world.

For twenty years, I lived under the control of a psychiatrist named Boris Rubinstein.
Because of this subreddit’s rules, I’m including an outside source documenting him:
New York Post coverage of the lawsuit involving Rubinstein (publicly available and searchable).

If you want to understand what long‑term coercive control looks like when someone in authority crosses every boundary, just Google his name. You’ll find the video that lays out my 20‑year ordeal — and what happened after “treatment” ended.

I’m sharing this because what happened shouldn’t happen to anyone, and people deserve to see the truth for themselves.

I know most posts on here are of people who have had terrible experiences with therapists, but I'm coming to this space with a different perspective. All of the therapists I've had have been good, but the fact that it took so much to find them, along with other things, tells me therapy is a largely a sham.

I've seen three therapists in the past two years. I know that sounds like a lot, but to explain...

First one wasn't a licensed therapist, but a somatic counselor via telehealth who was very helpful for getting me back to my body, my emotions, and breaking me out of overthinking spells. I saw her for a year; stopped going because I was paying out of pocket (dumb) and that shit was expensive. Second one was a relatively new licensed therapist, saw her for 6-months because I felt more stable and I knew if I kept going to just keep going, it would go into navel-gazing territory. Third one I'm with now is a licensed therapist; I decided to go back after life got very traumatic and stressful in the past 6 months.

Oddly, all of these women were in their 30s, which is contrary to what I expected. I thought an older woman would bring decades of life experience and tell-it-like-it-is-ness that would really help me. Oddly enough, most older women therapists I had a consult or trial session with were condescending, not understanding the depth of my trauma or what I was looking for, or comically useless.

I think lucking out with therapists came down to a few things, though:

1. I never did exclusive talk therapy. As I came around to the idea of starting therapy, I happened to come across lots of online content about the usefulness of somatics and intuitively knew I needed it. People not lucky enough to be exposed to that information — usually because they are dealing with trauma and trying to stay alive in this capitalistic hellhole — should not be rewarded with an insurance-referred, shitty therapist.
2. I came in with a high level of self-awareness and introspection. While I was hitting a wall by myself, it definitely made things MUCH easier for my therapists when I could summarize my issues eloquently and bring a lot of reflections to our sessions to work with. Not everyone can do that (not a slight against those people! therapy should help you do that) and that makes it way too user-dependent, in my opinion.
3. This is the main one. No lie, over the past two years to select these therapists, I've easily contacted 100 therapists, if not more. Had dozens of consultation calls. I was ruthless in deciding the best therapist for me. I easily believe r/therapyabuse because I have come across the most useless therapists you can imagine. I just trusted my intuition and logic and did not settle until I found someone who felt genuine, wise, grounded, tailored to what I needed, but also willing to challenge me. The overwhelming majority of the practice are dumbass people going by the book, putting on a performance, quick to patholgize you, etc., in large and subtle ways.
4. I have a stable remote job with great insurance benefits, so I could easily refer myself to a therapist, fit it into my schedule, and pay a very low fee. Very few people can do this, so just another reason to believe the main mental health stressor is poverty and economic injustice, because money should not impede getting a good therapist, but it does. Mental health only for the UMC, I guess?
5. Yet, with all of this, I still agree the mental health system is largely a sham. Someone shouldn't have to talk to hundreds of therapists to find a diamond in the rough. The pathologization and arrogance of the system is insane. Mandated reporting and how suicidal patients are handled — from the useless therapy given to their pain to the forced hospitalization — is abysmal. I had so many of these therapists in these consults label me with a diagnosis after a pathetic 9-question questionnaire.

Just sharing some quick thoughts. Good therapy shouldn't be this hard to find.

I know they talk about their clients but do they ever talk about other therapists?

I was sexually abused by a therapist. Yes I reported it but the situation was very niche and happened before he was registered with the college. In my city counsellors won’t be registered until 2027 so I really had nowhere to go. The association he volunteered with gave him extra ethics training.

I talked to my current therapist about it and my desire to warn people (I can’t make public posts about him and won’t) but I tell everyone his name when I can. I told her about my fear of people not knowing. She told me it’s okay and that therapists do talk to one another about stuff like this especially since it’s a small town.

Do you think that’s true? I really want it to be bc I am so scared of this person. I did everything I could do and I’m left with this person practicing as therapist with no paper or public trail of the abuse anywhere