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You can avoid being victimized by therapists and
trainers.
Research the consequences of any psychological training before you start -
especially if hypnosis, belief-change or programming are
involved. Check the consequences of a psycho-theology on your life and your
relationships.
Therapist-Client Codependence
Client abuse and student damage can be subtle. If you like a
practitioner or trainer, you may be
motivated to return. If you are in love with a counselor or teacher, you may be unable to
stay away. If you are obsessed with a therapist or psychiatrist, you may do anything to prolong
your meetings.
Lonely people often extend unhealthy relationships ...
and lonely counselors, coaches or therapists may, consciously or unconsciously,
do the same. They may cheat you - or use you as a substitute for a friend
or a lover - and bill you for this blessing. They may justify such abusive behavior
with: "It was only for your benefit".
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British Counselling Association (BAC)
Code of Ethics, 1998 |
Counsellors must not exploit
their clients financially, sexually, emotionally or in any other
way ... Suggesting or engaging in sexual activity with a client is
unethical. |
Friendly Solutions
If you have a problem, probably you first talk to your friends and family about
it. Family and friends can provide a simple quality control.
If a therapist or counselor demands that you not talk about
your sessions with friends and family, this may prevent or sabotage your
opportunity for this quality control. We consider such demands to be cult-like manipulation and abusive.
Professional Solutions
Codependent helping professionals may avoid
getting help because they feel good. Instead of emotional health, they move
deeper into identity loss - they not-feel emotions and become obsessive. They
may want
affairs with clients and damage
marriages. They may burn out and suffer depression.
We offer professional help or
supervision to professionals who have abused clients. We can help you dissolve your conflicts,
transferences, identity loss, fixations and trauma. We have provided
an anonymous coaching service to many therapists, coaches and counselors. We
don't need names.
Codependent Coaching
Some people want to help you for their own benefit. They
may want to recruit you into some religion, training, psycho-theology
or cult. Instead of helping you become independent, they may coach you to
become codependent or dependent.
For lonely people, such relationships can feel good - for a while.
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After two Soulwork sessions,
I said goodbye to my therapist of four years. She helped me do so
many little things that I came to depend on her. She was so nice to me
... I somehow forgot that I paid her $20,000 to be my Mom. BC, Canada |
Helping professionals who want children, or who have
adult children who have left home, may attempt to become your substitute parent.
But if their pleasure or sense of life depends on
helping you, they may damage your health to prolong their own pleasure or
sense of meaning in life.
Some helping professionals pride themselves on their business
acumen. They generate income streams by selling you books, audio programs or short-sighted
fixes for complex life problems. They may give you advice that worsens
your problems. For example, your divorce may be profitable for
them - and have unpleasant
consequences for you and your family.
Evaluating Partnership
. Divorce
. Divorce & Children
Few health professionals seem to explore or even consider the
relationship consequences of healing sick people.
The obvious goal of healing unpleasant symptoms may obscure the actions and reactions
within a codependent or symbiotic family.
Often diseases have functions and benefits in families. See When Disease Makes Sense.
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Don't promise anything unless you whole-heartedly
believe you can deliver.
Let your experience speak to you as well as to your
clients about what to expect. You can promise to provide the agreed
changework, you can discuss every technique before using it, and you can
promise your clients your compassionate attention! |
Exit Coaching
Our exit
coaching
helps people leave cult-like groups. Such groups often
teach hypnosis or use hypnotic language to achieve the leader's goals.
You may be unduly influenced by hypnotic suggestion, and create
toxic fixations with the leaders.
The result: you may think or feel, "I can't
leave" or "I must stay". Your
power of choice has been displaced.
Some organizations use and abuse transference. If you
allow someone to
take a role of a parent or authority to you, this can create toxic bonds in
which you become abnormally compliant to
that person's suggestions. Such fixations can create
chaos in your relationships and your life.
Why be a Therapist?
Many therapists, counselors and coaches become specialists in
their own biography. They may also become evangelical about whatever modality
or psycho-theology helped them sort out their lives.
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At school I really didn't know
what to do ... My girlfriend took psychology so I did too ... Now I have
high credentials in psychology and a practice with clients that I
really don't like. ... but I need the money ... I'm trapped. California,
USA |
Common motivations for becoming a therapist:
- To enjoy a stable income
- To attract romantic or sexual partners
- To gain recognition, power and self-respect
- To join a community of helping professionals
- To gain professional stature and accreditation
- To resolve own relationship or mental health issues
- To create models and systems for human development
- To help people survive and resolve difficult life situations
- To learn an interesting but not demanding subject at university
Psychological literature show that clinical training
programs may ignore abuse. Alpert (1990), for example, wrote that there
is "relatively little formal education and training in child
sexual abuse" (p 324). Articles about training
in abuse emphasize the lack of prior attention (Alpert & Paulson, 1990).
Abusive Clients & Abused Therapists
Some helping professionals are
manipulated by abusive clients. Some clients are professional victims who search for
practitioners to deflate. They may proclaim, "My problem is greater
than your solutions!"
Such clients may be excellent amateur hypnotists - they can tell their
story so well that they can hypnotize a coach or therapist into believing improbable tales
of their victimhood and eliciting sympathy based on lies and distortions.
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I came to fear one client, and
dreaded her appointments, but either pride
or masochism stopped me canceling her sessions. She would storm at
me, and criticize me for everything in her life.
Your coaching helped me realize that I had bonded to her as a substitute
for my critical mother. New York, USA |
Consequences for Abusive Therapists
Some people attend coach or therapist training, and then
abuse the people they were trained to assist. They not only hurt their
clients, they experience depression and sabotage their own happiness.
If brought into a court of law, they may face punishment and lose their ability
to practice counseling.
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Sexual
contact by a psychotherapist or a pastor during counseling is a
serious crime in some countries. Yet professional boards of examiners
may ignore laws that govern these relationships to avoid publicity. |
Don’t give up on professional help,
give up on incompetent professionals.
We can help you find
effective solutions to many emotional and relationship problems.
Do You Want Results?
Plagiarism is theft. Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2003-2012
All rights reserved.
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