You cannot look up drug information on the Internet today without coming across at least one page about the negative side effects of taking the drug. In fact, such side effects are deemed so …
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How is teaching breathing/relaxation techniques a bad thing during exposure therapy? A key component to exposure is relieving the panic/anxiety during or directly following the exposure. How are you going to do that without relaxation techniques…?
For more on the point you’re making, see
“The mental health crisis that wasn’t: how the trauma industry exploited 9/11″
by the noted social critique Christina Hoff Sommers,in REASON magazine from the summer of 2005
You can read the whole article at:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_4_37/ai_n15998616/
Your article is timely and deserves further exploration.The field of psychotherapy/psychiatry itself would be well served by engaging in honest self-reflection, evaluation and efficacy.FOR THE SAKE OF THE CLIENTS. Rather than the common tendency to avoid the work necessary to identify, confront, and modify those habitual beliefs in “cookie cutter counseling”.
*** long post follows …
Quote from above article… “To say nothing of normally-beneficial therapeutic techniques used inappropriately by inexperienced or poorly trained therapists.”…
Poor training or inexperience seems less dangerous than a field which attributes to it’s practitioners a higher than deserved level of psychological health by virtue of the training. Example: on the far end of spectrum; The mentally unstable military psychiatrist, who continued to be rewarded and advanced in his field, despite the obvious warning signs. By virtue of his position, status,(deserved or otherwise), and the tacit agreement/denial/cognitive distortions by his peers. Directly contributing to the horrific outcome. The lone voice of objection to this blind pedagogic approval, was unfortunately silenced vigorously or ignored, and later blamed for the outcome.
It was not simply due to inexperience or poor training alone which enabled this to take place. The climate which he trained in,deliberately and repeatedly minimized and ignored the red flags. I suspect in favor of upholding the idealized roles of the peers which seem to offer little value in applying the training to themselves with rigor first. Perhaps in order to spare the fragile ego of the trainee. And by extension those who could have taken a stand but chose not to. By sparing him from facing his own wounds, he went on to do much worse to others. This is endemic in the field in lesser ways every day.
In my personal experience, there is no end to the ugly distortions, mind- bending, games and abuses from these tendencies in the therapeutic community. There very few courageous voices to speak up about the unhealthy behaviors commonly practiced. Alice Miller being one exception who comes to mind among others more recent.
There is big money in training/educating psychotherapists. the training methods generally agreed upon, seem to guarantee that there are many out there doing harm in the name of “healing”. The universities seem unable or unwilling to weed out those who are less than healthy themselves, in favor of pay to play the role. Paying large sums of money to become a healer,(especially favored among those whose BA has nothing to do with psychotherapy), get their MA in their new field, in an assembly line fashion. Most can find a way to pass standard testing process. Seems like a very poor business model, lacking effective quality control. Toyota certainly pales in comparison! The resulting end product of these institutions which seem to lack enough vigorous oversight or responsibility justifiably expected for such powerful “medicine”. Unfortunately there is no recall mechanism for the consumer’s benefit/protection. And very little discussion which would be helpful/educational is put forward.
The result is often a healing profession which ends up offering substantially less healing and more than it’s share of harm. If psychotherapy had an effective screening, evaluation and quality effectiveness testing program in place, similar to what the drug companies must go through to market medicines, there might be less mistrust and disapproval bias and resistance in general. We test everything offered to the public, to the utmost, except that which potentially effects our very souls. How crazy is that?!! How many “car wrecks from inappropriate therapy have we all seen”? Just because the injuries are mostly invisible, does not make the any less life threatening.
The negative reputation among practitioners in all therapy fields is well deserved. There are wonderful exceptions of course. For both the money driven pharmaceutical industry and the therapeutic industry. Each can be toxic in their own way. It is much more challenging to prove harm when it is done to the mind and soul of a client. And very little recourse is available for the one who carries this awareness virtually alone.
Due to the minimum avenues for effectively addressing the problems.The willing blindness benefits only no one in the end. An obviously repeating pattern which seems to be for the most part, irresponsibly ignored by the peers and teaching institutions, themselves.
I spent years of intense study to learn as much as possible about what was ethical, skillful and helpful, and learned to identify the opposite qualities with courage and conviction. Years of work to counteract, protect, and correct the toxic, distorted kinds of “help” I had received from these liscenced ‘professionals’. should not have been necessary if the work had been done by those who gave them validity.
My curiosity is to why there is so little information out there regarding how to protect oneself from toxic/unhealthy therapist? Why is there so little written of the warning signs, red-flags, or questionable therapeutic interventions? Not every medicine is expected to benefit every patient the same. Medications have clear warnings and contraindications. Why are most warnings and education lacking in this field of medicine? Therapists would like to be taken seriously as a healing science. Yet the collective will seems lacking when it comes to being openly challenged as to whether it truly benefits clients based on follow-up and feed back. (ie. rigorous study as any science deserves).
Why are clients generally not expected to have credibility when it comes to evaluating their therapists and effectiveness of the modalities used? This seems to be a sign of archaic, patriarchal, backward thinking, for our modern world. [Similar to the resistance it took for the profession to address the harmful realities of sexual abuse].
Where are the verifiable measurements, including client feedback, validating the highest levels of excellence/effectiveness within the various schools of psychotherapy?
There is much written on what is wrong with the patient, and how to “help” them become healthier, more aware, balanced, etc… In my view there is very little professional support for honest self evaluation, investigation of ethical issues ,quality of care, and self regulation within the field itself. The expectation seems to be that the ‘fox guarding the hen house’ is capable and willing to self regulate. We saw what that expectation did for our trusted banking industry recently!
I have noticed the field has become a haven for highly functioning narcissists, whose tendencies embrace and empower in each other, the very traits they claim moderate in their clients. As in the previous example of the military psychiatrist, the unfortunate tendency is to give tacit or direct approval toward self-aggrandizement and an idealized identity/role. Support and approval for this pattern, along with habitually using others misfortunes to perpetuate their own issues, is all too common.
Yes, I recognize have my own cynical side coming through here. yet these questions are valid and I hope to read your thoughts on how they might be answered/resolved.
Life could be simpler. But only if I could force myself go along indefinitely with the “Emperors new clothes”!
Regards, Annapurna
Dru said:
‘How is teaching breathing/relaxation techniques a bad thing during exposure therapy? A key component to exposure is relieving the panic/anxiety during or directly following the exposure. How are you going to do that without relaxation techniques…?’
Well although relaxation and breathing exercises may have a role BEFORE and AFTER exposures, if they are used during exposures they become a form of subtle (or perhaps not so subtle) avoidance to prevent feeling the full physical arousal associated with an anxiety or panic attack. In this case they simply help keep the ‘fear of fear’ cycle going.
I feel like the danger is more in the inappropriate fit of therapist and technique with client and problem(s). For example, David Barlow is a huge advocate of a technique called “flooding.” Basically, its about making the anxious person as anxious as possible so that they learn not to fear the anxiety and to accept it. I’ve tried it, and I not only didn’t get over my fear, I actually got traumatized by it and developed some PTSD symptoms. (I was doing this on my own). My therapist doesn’t support “flooding” and claims it tends to be traumatizing or at least can be.
If you look at psychotherapy treatment articles, you will find that certain clients far worse after the psychotherapy or don’t improve (waste of money and/or time). In my own personal experience, I left many of my therapy sessions feeling very upset and sometimes self-destructive. My therapist sometimes said or did things that messed me up. And my therapist is very experienced and skilled. She just needed to learn how to work with me. But I still think that over the long run, therapy was beneficial.
I don’t think you could really have “warnings” or treatment success rates though because it’s too individual.
I agree with Annapurna’s well-stated thoughtful post. The harm is built in to the very foundation of client-therapist relationships: paternalism, idealization, the illusion of rescue, dismissal of client feedback in the guise of “interpretation,” pathologizing, regression, dependency, victimhood, and encouragement of a narcissistic, negative worldview. And this from “well respected” therapists. When will psychotherapy examine itself?
The profession rarely seems to seek feedback from clients. “Unhappy” clients usually are explained away, just as in an dysfunctional family.
Missbella writes, The harm is built in to the very foundation of client-therapist relationships: paternalism, idealization, the illusion of rescue, dismissal of client feedback in the guise of “interpretation,” pathologizing, regression, dependency, victimhood, and encouragement of a narcissistic, negative worldview. And this from “well respected” therapists. When will psychotherapy examine itself?”
Missbella, I agree that the issues you mentioned are quite prevalent, however I wouldn’t say it’s a universal truth. It took multiple tries but I finally did find a therapist who was collaborative and not paternalistic, who focused on wellness as opposed to pathology, and she was emotionally stable which was definitely a plus. I worked with her until I addressed the things I needed to and graduated from therapy. THe question everyone in therapy should ask themselves is, Am I improving with their treatment? If the answer is no, then maybe it’s time to re-examine the treatment.
It’s unfortunate that there are so many screwball mental health professionals out there.
So, I’m mentally “unstable” now. I’ve recognized and accepted that “terrorfyimg” fact. My problem is that I cannot accept loss of loved ones. (I believe the only reason I’m still alive is because I’ve never lost a loved one). I was put on effexor XR over 2 years ago when my ex-wife and I divorced. I took myself off the medication when I was no longer depressed. The only thing which let me from killing myself or going mentally insane from sever depression was that I had hope that I would eventually meet someone else, which I did. I haven’t told my new wife how I am. The reason why is I fear she’d leave me, which would trigger severe depression again, which would force me to get on medication until I’m stable enough to meet somebody else. I’m living a very dangerous and unstable life. I’m fine as long as my loved ones are alive and I have somebody in my life. With all of this said, I have my first psychotherapy appointment scheduled in 2 days which gives me hope that I can one day be rid of this fear of loss that I have and truly begin to live my life. I’m 33 years old. After researching medication and therapy on the internet, it worries me even more. So my question is, are people like mysllf simply doomed to be another suicide statistic? Or could I hopefully live a happyand long life free of fearing things which I cannot control? Any advice is much appreciated. I’m sick of worrying constantly and would finally like to just start living my life the way life was meant to be lived.
Dear Sir, while agreeing to the fact that psychotherapy can have side effects, i beg to differ that the stated facts in the article are more of contraindications than side effects.
Good point. However, folks who engage in a treatment that are contraindicated may experience serious harmful effects. How often are thorough evaluations done before treatment begins to assess contraindications and indications if the vast majority of clinicians think therapy is only very helpful or less helpful. Even when thorough assessments are done, outcomes of treatments show that even folks where a treatment is expected to be helpful can actually be really harmful. Despite this, how often are clients really informed of this potential when being told they should start therapy ? Therapy is expensive, time-consuming, and draining, and while it may be helpful for some people in particular ways, it can also be really damaging to others. This topic is not talked about nearly enough.