Horrible Family Therapist Made PD Parents Worse

[SaltwareS]

Hello, every so often I come back on here to warn people not to go to family therapy with their PD parents unless they are braced for the worse possible outcome.

I knew I had nutty PD parents and made the mistake of listening to MY therapist who said I "had no choice" but to go to family therapy with my PD parents. My therapist was wrong, you always have a choice. If I'd had a message board like this back then to search, I would have found a message like this and pushed back on MY therapist, and I can't even describe the amount of damage that ensued I could have steered around. Sure, if I'd remained LC, it could have drifted into NC or just stayed LC. But I had already accepted LC as a way of life. But multiple relationships were just nuked as a result of this family therapy. Relationships with more people than were in therapy with us.

I was already LC when this started. But family therapy was like adding heat to a nuclear reactor. I already knew we disagreed and my PD parents would never agree. I already knew this was a relationship that could be "managed" but never "cured". The therapist said "oh it can be cured". That was a red flag right there and I didn't trust my instincts.

The family therapist was not braced for my parents to get aggressive about changing their story midstream. The therapist was not willing to push back on their gaslighting. The family therapist was not willing to absorb any discomfort in order to push back on their lies. Also, I started family therapy with the intention of going no more than one session, and was not prepared for the PD parents to manipulate for more and more sessions and to gaslight the therapist into going along with one hair brained discussion after another.

Finally, it was our last session and the therapist was supposed to confront the PD parents about an agreement they didn't follow through on, but she let it slide and I had to do the confrontation myself. When I was finished, instead of honoring my agreement with the therapist that this would be our last session, the therapist pulled a bait-and-switch and said "so, should we schedule nine more weeks?"

I have mildly traumatic flashbacks about the whole situation. I *do* notice, thankfully, that society has progressed and grown out of this immature notion that any therapy is good therapy. There is finally more skepticism and more scrutiny: therapy CAN help, it MIGHT help, but it is not always helpful. Sometimes you get a bad therapist who has no principles or direction or goals. Sometimes a therapist can just drift forever, and take credit for any positive change in the client's life.  present for a discussion and does not facilitate a discussion. It was very hard to trust people after this. If it had been a sleazy salesperson (as opposed to a good salesperson) pulling this kind of fraud, I would have shaken it off. But her job was to be a therapist.

Again, therapy can be a tremendous help. I'm not writing off all therapists. But if I had found this post years ago I would have trusted my instincts and avoided something I had a hunch would blow up in my face.

The therapist just didn't have a lot of rigor in her integrity from session to session. And that's the last person who you should go to for group therapy with a PD.

[SaltwareS]

Also, I visited the therapist's website years later and she had added "personality disorders" to her list of specialties. This was after I had confronted her saying she had not noticed the gaslighting taking place and had not protected me and had not done her job.

It's funny how dealing with true PDs, you really learn the meaning of some cliches. If this therapist had been trained to deal with personality disorders, it must have "gone in one ear and out the other".

I think it is worth trying therapists, but be on guard the first few sessions and give yourself permission to disagree with their advice. Technically giving advise is not their primary role. Also be willing to leave one therapist and shop around a bit for a therapist who seems to get it. And this ends my PSA. Honestly, these message boards are more helpful, in my experience, or should be used in combination with therapy.

[GettingOOTF]

I think "therapy" in dysfunctional relationships is thrown around like family members of addicts throw around "rehab".  The reality is that very few people have any idea what therapy involves. It's not some magic potion that "fixes" you. Like rehab you have to 100% want to change and do the very painful and difficult work.

My experience has been that neither of these work for most people as they do them for the wrong reasons, mainly because they feel pressured by others.

I really lucked out with my therapist. She saw through the abuse, helped me leave and then worked with me to accept my upbringing and then finally go NC with my family. When I think I back to how vulnerable I was back then it frightens me to think of where I could have ended up with a different therapist.

I read somewhere that many therapists get in to therapy as a way to deal with their own upbringing. The only date I ever went on where I felt physically unsafe was with a therapist. I told my therapist and she said to be careful with therapists as many of them have control issues. This guy fit that description. He was a text book abusive manipulator. I could see all the flags straight away. Yet he was good liking, charming, successful. A few years earlier I would have been thrilled at such a "catch".

I think you are right that we should all trust our instincts. Just because someone has a qualification doesn't mean they are good at their job. Therapists are people too and come in all shapes and sizes.

[hhaw]

I'd say some therapists, a large percentage, do more harm than good, IME.

Those not working their own stuff out, as a life habit, aren't as likely to keep ego out if the sessions, IME.  I found a great trauma informed T practicing EMDR and Memory Reconsolidation to be an amazing resource for my journey.  She worked through addiction and tends to her inner world daily....goes on retreats..has a community if like minded folks working on themselves.  The difference in her ability to be present with me, and not react to anything I say or do, is night and day compared to all other T experiences.  Some toxic and traumatic, bc the T's had agendas, expectations and ego involved.

I think the biggest lesson in the OP is to honor our intuition above everything.  Trust the gut.  Honor ourselves without hesitation.

Yup yup yup.

[Hepatica]

SaltwareS,
that is an excellent, informative post. Thank you. It addresses much of my concerns about group therapy with PD's. First of all, they love drama. My family would out-shine and out-manouever me in three seconds and have a weak integrity'd therapist snowed.

[LemonLime]

I agree with these posts.  I've been sad to see how rare it is to find a T that "gets it".   I'd done therapy several times in my 20's and 30's for issues unrelated to PDs.  At that time I was blissfully unaware of what a PD even was.   But the therapy I got for relationship/dating issues was not very good.  Many T's seemed just to mirror what I was saying, I suppose in hopes of making me feel understood.  But then they had nothing for me....no questions, no challenging of my beliefs.   
When I needed a T for counseling about my uPD, I researched carefully.  One that does DBT for a living suggested that I take my uPD up on her suggestion that the two of us meet alone and discuss "the discomfort between us" that happened after one of her rages.   Meet alone with an uPD so that she can gaslight me?  What a terrible idea.   The other ones were also a bit clueless and I got much more help on this board.   It's a bit scary to realize how few people understand the PD thing, even therapists who say they do.   I am convinced that people who have not experienced a PD personally cannot understand.  They may try, but they cannot.  And they very well may do more harm than good.  Thank goodness for this board.

[Blueberry Pancakes]

You just stated my biggest fear. Thank you SaltwareS for sharing. My parents wanted me to see a therapist when I was 11 years old because my mom thought I had problems. (No, the problems were not "mine" and I knew that.)  I realized even as a young kid that "therapy" under such conditions would do way more harm than good. I refused to go. Fortunately my parents did not force me.

I think as stated by others in the replies is what you need is acceptance of the dynamics and a willingness to look inward and alter behaviors. No therapist can make anyone do that.  Also, nothing replaces us trusting our own gut instincts about is right, trusting in your own abilities, and following what works for ourselves.

[D.]

I was married to an uPD who is a therapist...I hear you.  One T made things worse for me too, before I found the right one.  It can be so frustrating.  Lately, and 10 years after starting to leave the FOG, I figure it is my role as a consumer of therapy to help therapists/health professionals be aware.  I have been open w/the two skillful Ts and primary care provider about PD reality, and C-PTSD.  I encouraged them to take a look at these boards, Out of the FOG & OOTS.  Plus, the proof is in the pudding so to speak.  I know that they have seen me get healthier as I used these boards.  They both count these forums as a big part of the recovery for me.  And as for the T who made things worse, at one point I contacted her and let her know why and how she made things worse.  Not sure if she understood, but I did my part.  My skillful therapist followed up too w/appropriate feedback and reporting her to appropriate boards.  I think he was bothered that someone in his profession had done damage and some things she told me were dangerous for me.

I think my point in all of this is that we can also advocate for educating, especially the professionals, about the reality and dangers of PD characteristics. 

I also understand that we are all in different stages of healing, and the "professionals" have different levels of capacity to hear and/or change.  So this strategy may or may not be feasible depending on circumstances of course.

Thank you so much for bringing up the topic. 

[treesgrowslowly]

Yep.

C beat me to it by mentioning that some PDs are therapists. It's a job that would attract some PDs since they can operate for years without some of the checks and balances that come from other jobs where there's more accountability built in.

I'm so sorry saltwater for your awful experience there. You nailed it ...as you should have been able to observe the T address the gaslighting and other manipulations.

If the T has known how to do that you would have seen it. You are an astute observer and aware of these main parts of what therapy should include.

A therapist saying they will confront a PD and then avoiding following through is unforgivable. That didn't show integrity.

Therapy can help I think. But some therapists do make things harder for us. It can feel so discouraging to recover from a crummy therapist.

I hope you are continuing to recover from this miserable experience. Now you know you were right. It took me a while to recover from the crummy therapists I saw years ago. I agree this forum helps a lot.

Thanks for posting.

Trees

[Adria]

Some therapists pit people in their sessions against each other purposely, create chaos and drama, so as to try and keep their clients coming back. 

[FromTheSwamp]

My first therapist was so awful that I was going to ask to be transferred to someone else and they told me they had fired her.
My second therapist actually pointed me toward this website. 

[Sidney37]

Thank you for posting this.  I haven't considered going to therapy with my PDs, but I have had my share of bad therapists.  Some really don't have a clue about PDs.  Thanks to COVID and telehealth, I FINALLY found a therapist who gets it.   She quite a long drive away, but since I can see her virtually, it's been a huge help.  Good therapists are out there, but hard to find.