Alright. Let’s get a validating vent session going. My fellow beautiful autistic people, what are some horror from your experience with therapists?
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In my early 20s, I was seeing a psychologist for depression. Because of issues with my mom, she thought it’d be a good idea to have an appointment with her involved.
So my mom came to an appointment.
And right after they met, it turns out they started meeting up personally to do some kind of craft project together.
The psychologist did inform me and check if it was alright but I had no idea what to say. Trust broken and I just stopped making appointments.
That sounds definitively against psychology’s professional ethical standards, and I’m thinking that their licensing agency would have liked to have known about that.
American Psychological Association - Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct
3.05 Multiple Relationships
(a) A multiple relationship occurs when a psychologist is in a professional role with a person and (1) at the same time is in another role with the same person, (2) at the same time is in a relationship with a person closely associated with or related to the person with whom the psychologist has the professional relationship, or (3) promises to enter into another relationship in the future with the person or a person closely associated with or related to the person.
A psychologist refrains from entering into a multiple relationship if the multiple relationship could reasonably be expected to impair the psychologist’s objectivity, competence, or effectiveness in performing his or her functions as a psychologist, or otherwise risks exploitation or harm to the person with whom the professional relationship exists.
Multiple relationships that would not reasonably be expected to cause impairment or risk exploitation or harm are not unethical.
I did get some accidental “revenge” for this one.
Sometime months later, for some reason my phone started pocket dialling this psychologist and nobody else.
I didn’t even realize it was happening. But it drove her so nuts she called me about it a few times, and eventually asked me to remove her number from my phone.
Oh I have another one:
One counsellor I went to see through work insurance was just awful.
Most notably, I was dealing with issues surrounding having open heart surgery, and when I brought it up she started talking about her nephew or something who had some kind of heart problem, and how that obviously means she understands completely.
I made an appointment with the only psychologist in a hundred miles that didn’t have a 2 year wait list in March 2020.
I went there specifically because I was pretty sure I had ADHD and suspected ASD.
She asked me why I was there and I started out, “Well, I suspect I might have ADHD. Beca-”
She interrupted me to say that she knew (I saw her once before years ago, long story) I had a college degree. And therefore I couldn’t possibly have ADHD because someone with anything “like that” couldn’t possibly have it.
She wouldn’t let me get through any of my reasons or listen to me at all. Not the least of which is it took me 10 years to get a 4 year degree.
I left that appointment, went to my GP and said, “I think I have ADHD and here’s why.”
She said “Yep, sounds like it. Here’s Adderall tell me if it helps.” (Helps a lot…not completely because also ASD but didn’t know at the time)
When I went back the next month for a follow up with my GP she said that the psychologist made a note in my file and that I’m banned from having this medication.
I’ve never had any substance abuse issues ever. My parents did when they were alive, but I haven’t.
I am close to my GP in as much as you can be while maintaining boundaries. We trust each other. She said the psych notes don’t match what she knows of me but she was unable to override them. She just…encouraged me to get a second opinion.
Luckily the rise of pandemic telemedicine meant I got an ADHD diagnosis and was properly medicated before the medication shortage.
But I continue to be fucked in the medical system by that one quack psychologist and I don’t even know how to move forward pursuing an ASD diagnosis.
She sucked.
The infantilization and otherization of minorities will never stop mindblowing me. “Yes, we know you may require this medication to have a functional life, but there’s the chance you might also abuse it to the point of harming yourself so its distribution will be extremely monitored, and we may give you extreme difficulties to get access to it.” Bitch, there are idiots who DRANK BLEACH yet no one has seriously considered mandating the requirement of permits to buy bleach, and the only difference here is that everyone uses it.
I am so sorry you went through that! That psychologist has absolutely no business in being a clinician. She’s not only unhelpful, but actively harmful. While this is entirely your decisions, I would encourage you to report her to the licensing agency because if she was like that with you, she’s doing it with others as well. Although you were lucky enough to have a supportive GP, many others don’t, and this supposed psychologist is actively preventing individuals from accessing proper care. She needs to not be in her position so that she won’t be able to hurt others.
However, I can empathize a little. I had a GI that I would see for a significant chronic GI issue. He noticed my attention deficit and encouraged me to tell my psychiatrist. I knew I had attention issues my whole life, but in my experience, telling a psychologist was a waste of time because they point out my successes and imply that I don’t have attention issues. Regardless, since I had confidence in my GI, I told the psychiatrist. This is exactly how it went because it was so shocking to me, that I never forgot it. I could paint a picture of the entire office setup when it happened because that’s how well my body remembered it.
Psychiatrist: Anything else you would like to report?
Me: My GI said to tell you that I have attention issues.
Psych: I’m not going to prescribe you stimulants.
At the time, I didn’t even know that stimulants were the medical treatment for ADHD. However, now I knew. I kept living my life, struggling and barely making it. My successes were highly supported by caring loving people that believed in me and gave me the support that I needed to achieve and contribute.
Edited: for reasons
While not even his patient, I went along to a family-member’s appointment. It was maybe their tenth session. Time’s up. Therapist starts nudging for signing next to a laundry list of appointment dates that even I know never happened. Uh, what are you doing? I’m watching you commit insurance fraud. I’m sure many of his other patients just signed in the box. So dramatic fraud and brazenly taking advantage of people is just part of the routine for some people.
I personally knew a therapist that would commit insurance and tax fraud. I’m 100% convinced the licensing system for mental health professionals is inadequate.
When I was 18 yo, I went to see a psychiatrist for symptoms of depression. It’s was a very dark time in my life: being pushed into it by my parents (“you are so smart, you have to realize your potential!”) I was pursuing higher ed very aggressively. No one, including me, had any idea I was autistic. “You are just gifted” they would often say.
One-way trip to my uni used to take ~3.5 hours, classes started at 7:45AM, and stopped around 6-8PM. Between having a single meal per day (my family was financially poor), working on home assignments on trains and pursuing a romance with an entirely disinterested person, I was only getting 3-4 hours of sleep every day, except for weekends.
That was a recipe for disaster, that would eventually come in a form of a self-harm episode. But at the time the doctor didn’t see anything wrong with me, so they left me with a prescription for a short course of tranquilizers.
This meat grinder of a regiment nearly killed me in 9 months. After my sh episode I had to spend a month in a hospital, and full physical recovery took another 7 months.
After recovering I decided to drop out - best decision of my life for sure! It’s been more than 15 years since then, and I am doing so much better.
Anyway, I kinda hate that doctor now, hope everything is ok with them.
I’m in Canada but that may be true here as well.
Even from that description though it sounds like a grey area? Doing a craft project with someone isn’t like a romantic relationship or anything.
At the waiting area for my doctor there would be pharmaceutical representatives. Inside she’d push new drugs on me where I could not buy from a pharmacy. It felt like she was using me for cash.
That’s almost unbelievable. I don’t know how people that do things like that exist. I’m sorry you had to endure that.
