Mental health and ˜bad’ therapy
Mental health and emotional health is just as important as our physical wellbeing. Unfortunately many people do not seek assistance for their emotional and mental health until they are at the limits of stress, anxiety or depression. For this reason it becomes even more important to have a mental health therapist that you can trust and who is competent enough to give you the tools to become empowered for your own mental health in the future. Unfortunately this is not always the case.
Over my years as a therapist I have had many clients who are somewhat ‘afraid’ before they get to know me due to unpleasant experiences with counselors and other therapists in the past. I have heard countless stories from clients who have gone to see therapists for their mental health issues who, on paper, have the qualifications to be adequately trained and the experience has left the client in a worse state than when they began the therapy.
It is very important to whom you entrust your mental health and emotional health. When you are looking for a therapist there are several things you need to be aware. If a family member is reading this for someone who is suffering with mental health issues please take note that just because someone has a qualification on a wall or a number of years experience it does not necessarily make them a good therapist.
So what are the things to look for in terms of finding someone who can genuinely help you with your mental health or emotional issues? Firstly it is important that the person does actually ‘help’. If you are seeing someone for several months and there is no improvement in your mental health or emotional issues then you need to begin to question what this person is actually doing. Similarly if you are leaving sessions feeling even more depressed and anxious than when you went in you also need to question what is happening there. However you need to be honest with yourself and ask yourself if your bad feelings regarding the therapy are coming from your own denial and fear to shift in your mental health and emotional issues or if the therapist is simply not doing their job. To do this takes a lot of honesty on your part and also some patience. No-one can solve your mental health and emotional issues for you. You are the one that needs to have faith and trust, stop being afraid and allow yourself to grow.
If, after reflection, you do come to the conclusion that your therapist who is supposed to be assisting with your mental health and emotional issues is not taking you forward, not opening you to new opportunities and not giving you the tools to empower yourself then you need to find someone else. Remember that people that have mental health and emotional issues at that point in their lives are vulnerable and unfortunately there are many people that take advantage of that. If that is what is happening to you then for the sake of your mental health and emotional issues just leave that therapist and find a new one who will help you to grow.
Over my years I have been in many workshops for my own personal development as a therapist to enable me to grow on a personal level to assist my clients. I have seen what I will call ‘bad’ therapy and it is unfortunate that there are unscrupulous people out there who prey on other people’s vulnerability. I have witnessed workshops and groups where the therapist/facilitator has pushed the person to the limits of their mental and emotional despair where the person has been in tears asking the therapist to stop and the therapist has not stopped. This is what I call ‘bad’ therapy and an invasion of client’s boundaries. I have seen incidences where people were ‘told’ what they were feeling and when they said they did not feel that at all were simply told they were lying or in ‘denial’. I have heard of other instances where therapy has divided families – mother and child, husband and wife instead of assisting and empowering the parties involved to reconcile. Admittedly in some instances the situation so affects the mental health or emotions of the people involved that it is best to part, however once the therapy with the facilitator stopped in these cases, after a few months the people did reconcile and the family was happily reunited.
Your mental health and emotional issues are yours and good or bad please don’t just hand them over to anyone and leave it in their hands to play with your life. If your therapist makes you feel bad, does not honour your boundaries, has you in tears regarding your past and threatens to break up your family rather than assist you in reconciliation (if that would be for your benefit) then please have enough guts to walk out, leave and find someone else who is honest enough in their endeavour to assist you. If your therapist is causing you to be more aggressive than finding calm and peace again please leave. If you are to voice your anger you need to know how to do that in a harmless way, which will not harm yourself or someone else in terms of mental health, emotional issues or physically. If your therapist is not doing that – please leave.
Therapy can take a long time. Please don’t expect your therapist to have a ‘magic wand’ and do the job for you. However do expect to be facilitated to go forward in your life with your values, needs and boundaries honoured and not to be pushed around. Remember you are the one employing your therapist to assist you in your mental health and emotional issues.
It saddens me to see good therapists black listed in the public eye for the sake of the few ‘bad’ therapists that are out there. It is up to you to be responsible for your mental Health and emotional issues and not give these ‘bad’ therapists your time or money and to simply move on.
