A reader wrote in with the following:
I have a question for you related to the sociopath and the therapeutic relationship, and how to regain trust in the therapeutic process when it appears to have failed you during the relationship.
I have been in therapy with a therapist I trust and have bonded with for more than two years, as well as in group therapy, most of which was also parallel to the duration of my marriage to a sociopath. For a short period of time, the sociopath was in therapy with me in order to try work out the issues in our marriage.
I am currently struggling to regain my trust in therapy, when I view it as having eroded the very instincts that were telling me to get out of the relationship and away from the sociopath by teaching me how to work on “my issues” in the relationship, to be more understanding, less demanding, less needy, etc.
I do not blame therapy for my getting into or even staying in the relationship (as obviously no one could have known he was a sociopath if even I didn’t), but I’m having trouble continuing to recognize its value when I feel like it was a primary force in suppressing the red flags that were popping up everywhere screaming for me to leave him, because it had me focusing on “my issues” and how my past was influencing me to assume negative traits in him that were perhaps more tied to “my parents” or “family of origin” or to his natural family of origin issues.
I have tried to bring these issues and concerns up in my therapy, and am told that there is no way that anyone could have known, and that my rage needs to be directed towards the sociopath only.
But my point isn’t really rage or anger at her or the group for not seeing the truth, but really just in how to learn to value the process again, when in at least one case, it was reinforcing the same mind games he was playing with me.
I hope I’m being clear here and that this makes sense. I do honestly value and understand the necessity of therapy and would like to regain this trust, but am increasingly confused by how to do so given the doubts this situation has raised.
I would love some guidance or thoughts on this, or just to know if anyone else has experienced it and how they’ve coped.
Dr. Leedom answers
Thank you for taking the time to share your story and this important question. I have some very strong opinions about therapy and so forewarn you ahead of time.
First, I believe that anything offered by professionals, that is supposed to treat an illness, should have proven efficacy. In this regard, I hold psychotherapy to the same standard as I would medication. Psychotherapy should have proven benefits or it should not be sold. Sometimes people would opt to take a medication that does not have proven benefit because they feel good doing so. In that case, a doctor can tell the patient, “Here try this, it is not proven and may have side effects, but you might feel better.” In the same vein, if a therapist uses techniques that are unproven, he/she should be required to say, “This therapy may make you feel good but there is no scientific evidence that it works.”
Psychotherapy with proven benefit?
The above comment out of the way, there are psychotherapies with proven benefits. Therapy that works has goals and is of brief duration. If you are in therapy, work with your therapist to develop very specific goals. Wanting to feel better is NOT a specific goal. Specific goals often surround the symptoms of disorders. For depression, goals would be to improve sleep patterns, increase activities like self care and house work, and to decrease the dysfunctional thoughts that go along with the depression. Another goal for therapy could be to begin and maintain a satisfying friendship.
In regard to an intimate relationship, the goals of the therapy should also be articulated. The goal should be to increase loving behavior and to decrease negative behavior. If there is ongoing physical abuse, couples therapy is not considered acceptable. If there is psychological abuse, it has to stop before therapy can begin.
In general, therapists should not give advice. Then they are not responsible if someone stays in a relationship with a sociopath. That being said, having a vision for a functional relationship and a goal to attain function within 4 or 5 sessions should weed out sociopaths. Similarly, substance abuse has to stop before “therapy” can begin.
There are two specific therapies with proven efficacy CBT and DBT. DBT is a type of CBT.
What is CBT?
Cognitive-Behavior Therapy is devoted to the relief of human suffering using methods that have been shown to work. The latest in scientific advances are used to design personalized treatments in a culturally sensitive manner. In CBT the therapist and client work together to determine the goals for therapy, the agenda for each session, home practice between sessions, the usefulness of each intervention, and how long to continue therapy. In CBT the client does the work! The therapist is a facilitator.
What is DBT?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a comprehensive treatment specifically developed for individuals with impulsive and self-harm behaviors. These behaviors can include binge eating, destructive relationships, self-cutting, frequent suicidal thoughts, urges, or attempts, and other self-destructive tendencies. Many individuals with these behavior patterns also meet criteria for personality disorders.
DBT combines cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies with Eastern mindfulness (Zen) practices and involves both individual therapy and group skills training. Clinical research has consistently found DBT to be effective in reducing self-destructive behavior patterns and in optimizing ability to cope more effectively.
Some links:
Guidelines for choosing a CBT therapist.
Is DBT for you?
If you are in long term therapy and feel supported, and the therapy makes you feel good, don’t leave because of these recommendations. I have written this post for people who are questioning the therapy they are receiving. Most importantly, the joke about the light bulb is no joke. How does a psychotherapist change a light bulb? First it has to want to change.
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The “double bind” theory of RD Laing. I began reading a book by him called “The Divided Self” …….it was a long time ago so I can’t remember much but he wrote of his patients who were undergoing psychotherapy for illnesses like schizophrenia and that there was a link between the mother and child relationship where mum says and does another. I think that’s right….you could google him. I was going through a bad time and trying to find reasons for my fragility. I do remember that it kind of mind farked with my head……even more than I was. I took it back to the library. Lol.
You know Athena, I think it was hens that posted today that sometimes we arent going to get the definitive answer. I suppose I want an answer. I want someone to say strongawoman there you go. Now you can be fixed and move on. And then I don’t really want to look to closely…..it’s a kind of guilt. I feel bad…..like I’m being ungrateful to my parents who were good and did their best despite their huge dysfunctional backgrounds. Too much analysing….makes my head spin.
And the connection was mentioned in the link that truth posted. That examining your past can actually trigger you. Sorry I’m not being very clear. There’s lots of shiat going on in my head at the mo.
Oxy,
You said….
“We all have hundreds of these “core beliefs” that are wrong, things that maybe our parents may not even have intended to convey but did convey”and unless we start to examine these beliefs we don’t really even know that we are acting under their influences.”
Amen to that.
I understand. I read that book a couple years ago too. I think there is a balance between going back and digging out old shiat, learning, and then putting it away for a while to do something else. Working too hard at it sometimes doesn’t help.
Bit by bit, day by day.
Hugs.
Athena…..
That’s a very kind, reassuring thing to say.
Thank you and hugs to you too 🙂
Well, like for example, my inability to set boundaries with people “close” to me….I actually caught a friend stealing in the middle of the act, and I WAS CONCERNED THAT I HAD EMBARRASSED HER! My feelings didn’t matter, and no matter how I tried to set boundaries I couldn’t do it until I went BACK and undid those old “myths” that had been ingrained into my little girl’s mind…that my feelings didn’t matter. That it was not okay to “embarrass” someone by catching them in a bad act and confronting them. DUH?
No matter what I learned about boundaries, I couldn’t do it until I looked at, recognized and CONFRONTED my own core value of “my feelings don’t matter.” I realize now where that came from. Maybe my parents didn’t intend to give me that feeling (though I think my egg donor did, but my step father didn’t intend it) but until I confronted my own “myth” I coujldn’t fix the problem iin the NOW. So once I confronted the deep down problem, then I COULD set boundaries for ANYONE, even those I deeply loved. Even those that it hurt me deeply to confront, but I could now DO IT.
Like a couple of years ago when my son C lied to me. I confronted him…and am essentially NC with him because I can’t trust him. Sure he will not steal from me, or burn my house, but he is NOT trustworthy to the extent that I expect him to be, and that is to be TRUTHFUL to me under any and all circumstances.
I actually think he has repented of what he did, and he has joined a church and is an active member of it now…but he has NOT made any real attempt to apologize, accept responsibility for what he did, or to show any real remorse, in stead he is “pretending it never happened.”
Last summer when my husband’s grandkids came for a visit and wanted to see him, I actually called him and asked him to dinner rather than explain to them why he wasn’t here. Afterward, he seemed to think that “all was well” but I sat him down and informed him that all is NOT well, that I do NOT trust him, and that our only contact will be where it concerns the “family business” and his brother’s parole hearings.
Recently we had another family meeting that I invited him to that I did not want the family members to know there was any rift between him and me, he knew why I invited him. I actually also had him tell the family members that he was goin to come stay with me at night while son D is gone to camp for the summer because I did not want them to let anyone know I was alone over here in my hole in the woods. He understood why I wanted them to think that, and actually even offered to DO just that. However, I thanked him for the offer but declined it. I will NOT ask him a favor if I were bleeding to death. I will not extend him a favor if HE were bleeding to death. Not any more than I would have accepted money from the egg donor when she was practically trying to cram it down my throat…I will not be in the debt of anyone I cannot trust.
My eyes are now wide open when it comes to therapists.
First of all, it isn’t PTSD because as long as my Ps are still living, nothing is POST. They can come at me at any time for any absurd reason they can conjure up. Absolutely nothing that they do is based on “normal” behavior, thinking, or reasoning.
One therapist told me that I haven’t gotten over the abuse because the abuse hasn’t stopped. You can’t get over what is still going on.
Facts? What do facts have to do with anything? My S mother told me once, when I protested that she was making sound like an idiot, that I make too big a deal about things. She changes stories about me because she thinks they sound more interesting in her version.
“My part in this?” That has a place up to a point, but where are the therapists stepping forward to explain that you can’t mend all fences, that there are relationships that will never be healed no matter what, and in some cases, there is no hope?
Where is that sheet of paper explaining how and when therapy won’t work?
As long as they get paid, I believe therapists can con themselves that they are doing some good.
Some good? They have kept me in situations that I should have never been in because I didn’t know I was being abused. Who are they to decide it is OK that I stay in an abusive situation because I am “working through” something? Why didn’t they ever tell me that I had a choice to get out or leave? No, they encouraged me to “keep working at it,” meaning keep trying because things might turn out peachy keen eventually. They can stuff their peachy keen down the garbage disposal.
I can still hear the therapists telling me that “Well, it might not necessarily be abuse. People have different ways of doing and thinking about things.”
Some good? My last therapist eventually told me that her spirit guides indicated to her that my son’s therapist and I were meant to co-parent my son, and she told that therapist that is what I wanted. I didn’t even know what co-parent meant.
When I erupted and pointed out that I have been saying all along that I wanted to keep as far away from that man as possible because there were issues there, her answer was, “I don’t know why I didn’t hear that. I’ve had other clients who have fired me because they said I wasn’t hearing them either.” Who do you think my son’s therapist believed? Me or her? What a mess!
She told me she said that because she thought he and I made a nice couple. I won’t even start with what was going on with him regarding me.
Where are the information sheets explaining why people become therapists in the first place? Such as they want to rescue people, fix the world, or deal with their own personal stuff vicariously through their clients? How ethical is that?
Nobody ever told me that therapy should have stated goals and be short term. I thought it was something to my credit that I could maintain a long-term relationship with a therapist. I thought I was making progress.
And God forbid that I would ever have to leave to start with somebody else to tell my story all over again.
They do judge you. Most of them think that you’ve made no progress whatsoever and know nothing when you start with them.
I was such a lamb. I was told you can trust a therapist.
They are no different than anyone else and because of their motives and underlying issues, in some instances, they are much worse.
Grace,
You had a very unfortunate relationship with a therapist (Peter) for your son, and the other therapist and her “spirit guides” telling her what to tell you. DUH!? That one actually blew me away! Wonder if she went to Hogwort for her degree?
There are and have been therapists Ii have been to that HAVE gotten it…that have helped me, that I think without their interventions Ii would have floundered longer and deeper. The “abuse” continues in my case too, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have PTSD because there is PAST /Post abuse and your traumatic stress is to that, the fact that there is continuing attempts at abuse, like in my case with him coming up for parole every few years, and me knowing that at some time he WILL get out Sure that is continuing trauma to a degree, but I am determined to not let it ruin my life….I’m gonna cope with it. Maybe with some triggering, but still I’m gonna cope with it. Do what has to be done to minimize the dangers and contacts.
I think part of it is HOW WE LOOK AT THE CURRENT EVENTS…if we don’t RE-ACT to them, but rather ACT as necessary then we diminish the effects on us, the stress on us…the damage to us.
I won’t say I’m 100% there yet, but I’m sure working toward it. As my braiin clears from the FOG of the pneumonia and just feeling bad, Things are starting to clear up. Keep the faith!
Grace,
I’m sorry you got a hogwort’s graduate for a therapist!
🙂
I know it’s not funny but you did crack me up when you said, “as long as my Ps are still living, nothing is POST.”
so true.
The only thing we can do is stop feeding them. The strange part is that they feed on our facial expressions. Mine plotted for 25 years just to see my face when life was so horrible that I killed myself. You would never imagine that anyone would do that. It makes no sense to us, but to them, well sense has nothing to do with it.
It really is like a game to them. For them, your emotions add up to nothing more than the expression on your face. Without empathy, they can’t feel what you feel, they only know that THEY WIN!
I know that you can’t possibly relate to that mentality, but do try to keep it in mind if they ever try to mess with you again.