seperate the good from the bad therapists

Therapists are like shoes - one size doesn't fit all. If you're lucky, you'll find the right therapist straight away, or else you may have to try a few before you find one you click with. What you may consider as a bad therapist someone else may find amazing. It's a matter of personal preference.

yeah, I always wonder if I sense that they have personal problems. I know a young therapist with many personal issues and think: how is it possible she can "help" people?

I also dislike therapists constantly saying that they wanna "help" you. I'm more like: just help, don't say it.

I once saw a psychologist and she hated the USA. When I mentioned I would like to visit that country she said: don't do it, those people are all the same, I've lived there for a while and it's true what they say. I was happy to be back in Belgium.
It felt like she wanted to impose her opinion on me.

I wanted to change something about my looks ( don't want to elaborate on it but it was something very obvious and something that made me look bad) and she said: you are pretty, you should be happy with what you have. You have the right to be happy the way you are. The risks were pretty low and she constantly kept saying: what if something would go wrong? I mean: do you have to live with the idea that the roof could come down any minute?

But over here doctors and people in general think: if someone has a college degree, they're good, they're qualified. If you don't like them, it's your problem. So in the past I kept going back to the therapists I didn't like because I was the problem. If you have a bad feeling about it, it's your fault because they're professionals.

djenner wrote:If you don't like them, it's your problem. So in the past I kept going back to the therapists I didn't like because I was the problem. If you have a bad feeling about it, it's your fault because they're professionals.

You hit the nail on the head I think. It's difficult to know when it's the client's issues and when it's therapist's. Therapists are human, they all have issues too. What matters though is how they manage their own issues. So, I guess, giving them the benefit of the doubt and not dismissing it could in fact be your own issue hindering therapy process is the first step. Try and bring it up in a session. Soon you'll know if it's you or if it's them. But I wouldn't rely 100% on someone's opinion just because they hold a degree.

Thank you, the question is: do they have a professionel code they're actually breaking when they say: americans are people you shouldn't like ( don't take it personally, I love them in general)

In our country a judge can force you to have treatment and most of the time they choose the hospital and doctor so you don't really have the right to change. I don't think it's good.

In this country, a therapist's job is unlicensed so anyone can say they're therapists. Qualified therapists think this is a shame.

When someone you love dies, it hurts and it cannot be ignored, but there are different ways we can make ourselves feel more comfortable...

we have the needs to show more respect, more love, we dont know how to do it...

We can send flowers every day, to show our love for them..

By sharing our love, to them, it makes us more relaxed...

What pwople ask from us, is to surrender, ignore and focus on something else to feel good...

but they dont understand we dont want to surrender, because we love, we respect; and we dont ignore or forget...

We dont even want that... even if i feel somehow i am forgetting, i will keep remind myself to not forget...

Last year my mom was at the hospital. It was very serious and her life has changed ever since. My therapist said "work" could be a great distraction, maybe for some people it it but in my case, I had no focus, started crying whenever colleagues were yelling over a smaller professional issue. Another cliche but it doesn't work for me.

about you, your mother is much more important than a job, so because of that something less important cannot be a distraction

A job cannot help, because you care about your mother, you dont care about your job On moments like that...

You have emotional needs to show some love and respect to your mother it cannot be ignored...

You can feel more comfortable by sharing your love and respect...

By sharing our love: we feel like ok, finally i can relax because i done something good...

My point is that; we dont have to work against our believes system; our human needs, our natural instincts...

Instead, we have to show our love, until we finally relax...

djenner wrote:But over here doctors and people in general think: if someone has a college degree, they're good, they're qualified. If you don't like them, it's your problem. So in the past I kept going back to the therapists I didn't like because I was the problem. If you have a bad feeling about it, it's your fault because they're professionals.

Napoleon once said, "In war, as in prostitution, the amateurs are often better than the professionals."

My experience with therapists is that most of them are badly trained, have a poor success rate, and look like they're dead inside.

There are good therapists, too. They're the ones who look like they're still alive, and who are too busy doing useful things in session to waste time lecturing you. They're the ones who emphasize their skills rather than their credentials.

@ robert

A therapist is no clown to entertain, if that is what you expecting...

Robert Plamondon wrote:

djenner wrote:But over here doctors and people in general think: if someone has a college degree, they're good, they're qualified. If you don't like them, it's your problem. So in the past I kept going back to the therapists I didn't like because I was the problem. If you have a bad feeling about it, it's your fault because they're professionals.

Napoleon once said, "In war, as in prostitution, the amateurs are often better than the professionals."

My experience with therapists is that most of them are badly trained, have a poor success rate, and look like they're dead inside.

There are good therapists, too. They're the ones who look like they're still alive, and who are too busy doing useful things in session to waste time lecturing you. They're the ones who emphasize their skills rather than their credentials.

"Most"? That's pretty harsh. I meant to say "many."

Good topic.
Researcher and clinician Donald Meichenbaum (an important developer of cognitive behavioural therapy) published a paper on what expert psychotherapists do - and he broke it down into seven tasks.
He said that after looking into all of the research on what works and doesn't work in therapy he came down to this core list of seven tasks. I think they're pretty good. A good way for a therapist to review their own work in each session (how many of these did they do?) - and a great way for a client to review the session with the therapist.

1/ Focus on developing the therapeutic relationship (most important). Also known as the working alliance (trust, shared agreement on goals for therapy, shared agreement on tasks in therapy)

2/ Nuture HOPE!

3/ Conduct psycho-education (some type of transfer of information/knowledge - doesn't have to be direct teaching, can be by asking questions)

4/ Teach coping skills

5/ Assign some daily tasks between sessions (e.g. experiments, try out new behaviours, take the learning outside the therapy room, apply it in the world)

6/ Ensure the client self-attributes about improvements (that the client realises that they made the change and got the change)

7/ Ensures relapse prevention

As a new user they won't let me post URLs to the article but just search google for "core tasks of psychotherapy" - I reckon those tasks separate good therapists from bad quite easily!

What do you think?

Best regards
Mark Davis