Comment on Money doesn't solve everything, but it helps.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 22 hours agoThe job of any professional is to convince you to give them money. There are valid and invalid way to do that. In my experience, a lot of therapists are more than willing to overpromise results.
I’ll give you an example: one therapist said she was CONVINCED she could fix me in a limited time frame; but before we got to the end of that time frame, she said she might have to discontinue therapy with me because she didn´t like my teasing. She brought up with her supervisor and everything and they decided that she’d had enough and she had to tell me: the teasing HAS to stop, or she would be discontinuing the therapy. The thing is, though, that when I teased her she would always LAUGH and say, “Oh, stop! You’re killing me here!” I would have immediately stopped if I’d known she wasn’t enjoying it. And the first time she seriously brings it up, it came with a threat of termination and this was the best course of action she came up with another professional. I quit the next session because I did not feel safe with her anymore.
And I know what you’re going to say (well, one thing you MIGHT say): that’s obviously a bad therapist and that does not represent every therapist! Yes, those things are true, but it’s kind of like an ACAB situation. What does it say about therapy as a profession that obviously bad therapist like her continue to practice, year after year after year?
She’s not alone. I’ve run into much worse therapists than her, people that showed their true colors almost immediately. One made me feel like I´d walked onto the Dr. Phil show in my first session! These people are licensed professionals who are bad at their jobs and making a living seeing clients every day for years and years and years.
Go look up your state’s licensing cases. See how many licenses are sanctioned for being “obviously bad therapists.” No, what you’re much more likely to find is people who has sex with their clients, or who had dual relationships with clients. Short of that, you can be as terrible a therapist as long as you can keep getting clients.
That tells me that professionalization of therapy isn’t being done to help and protect clients, but to help and protect therapists.
raze2012@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
Cops are unionized and work as a team. Ultimately, most therapists work by themselves. Not to mention that systematic abuse of power gives cops that reputation. Which is a hard argument to make for therapists.
So I don’t really think the comparison applies here. If you feel you were wronged: since it’s a licensed profession, there is a board you can report to. It varies by state, though. If what they did was especially egrigious in terms of the rules in your state, you can get their license revoked.
A license is to make sure they follow the laws and regulations of their state. Not to make sure they are “a good therapist”. The license is to meet a minimum bar of quality and from there make sure they stay in good standing with laws. Just like how a driver’s license can be given to people of varying skill levels.
The closest aspect to your scenario is a therapist’s rating and testimony. Most services (if not, a 3rd party website) will have a review board for such thigs to read and a scathing review can be a softer way to damage their reputation than the licensing board.
If you look at any job cynically enough, you can apply this to anything, and anyone. A firefighter doesn’t want to put out fires, they want to protect their job. An athlete doesn’t care about the game, they just want to be famous and get sponsors. [insert literally any job ever] is only doing it for the paycheck.
At the end of the day, it come down to trust. if you can’t trust your professional, you shouldn’t hire them. That’s for all of life. But your lack of trust alone isn’t enough to invalidate an entire field.
schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 15 hours ago
I bring an ACAB because ACAB means that even “good cops” will lie to protect bad cops, and they will certainly not call out other cops or report them. Though therapy is regulated, it operates in much the same manner. Therapists are interdependent and to call out another therapist would have professional ramifications.
It’s not as BAD a situation as ACAB, but at the very least therapists have been SOCIALIZED to shut the fuck up, or they have to get through 2 years of higher ed, and 2 years of practicum to get their license, years were they entirely dependent on the good graces of other social workers
And it’s funny you should bring up firefighters. Fightfighting houses notoriously would START fires so they could put them out and get paid. It was only when municipalities started hiring permanent full time fire departments that the arson stopped. Therapists still have financial pressures.
I don’t trust therapists for my own personal reasons, but I’ve laid a pretty systemic comprehensive case that therapy as a profession is extremely flawed (elsewhere in this thread). Again, not that you can’t find a good therapist out there or that it’s not helpful, but as a profession that are several ways it’s not the same as, say, being a cardiologist.