When others insinuate you're lying, do you feel dishonest?

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Greentea: Yes, the assumptions and dismissals can be very outrageous and illogical. The thing is that you cannot disprove their hypotheses (they are untestable) and this leads to a runaway effect where nothing you say can convince them to consider alternative hypotheses, and in many cases facts.

I explained my issues very clearly (e.g., how sensory issues and exec. dysfunction results in support needs), and without even knowing or trying to understand what autism-related issues involve, she dismissed them as attention-seeking. When I mentioned certain facts or research, they were argued away using her hypothesis, which essentially focuses on some grain of truth that could be applicable to anyone (since hardly anyone has an ideal upbringing), and which is distorted and magnified.

Throughout, she would be saying "This is my hypothesis. You can choose to consider it or not." However, when I agreed and considered it logically but it didn't compute, she became clearly unsettled and refused to consider my ideas or that her hypothesis was unsound. It wasn't a proper two-way discussion. By calling it a hypothesis, they can get away with almost anything. To avoid directly accusing me of lying when she was dismissing my explanations for my behavior, she told me that I'm unaware of my own motivations and that it all works on a subconscious level.

What I don't understand is how they attain such a distinguished professional status; don't they scare most of their clients away with such overtly fallacious arguments and invalidation? Do their theories actually fit most of their clients?

This being talked over really started to annoy me recently, I'd fly into a rage and the other person woudn't think they did anything wrong. I realised I was getting nowhere so decided to simply do the same to them, as soon as someone (who's done it to me before) starts talking I start talking over the top of them in a slightly louder voice (not in an aggressive way but in a what I'd call an ignorant way, ignoring what they're saying completely and acting as though you didn't realise they were talking), doesn't matter what I say could be something about the weather or something important. I thought this strategy would make the people I did it to grimace and maybe express their disgust vocally but what actually happened was they assumed the submissive position and waited til I gave them permission to say their piece, I really couldn't believe it but it worked. I wouldn't try it on people who haven't already displayed the behaviour in the first place though and you can't do it all the time if you as there's a need for a bit of give and take or it coud become abusive. It might not work with everyone but it's certainly worth a try.

This is explained a bit in the thread I started today called "Trapped in NT game". The reason they prosper in the business is that humans help each others' denial systems. Remember when everybody helped the Emperor believe he was dressed in wonderful clothes when he was actually nude? Huge amounts of people go to therapy to lie to themselves and others that they're "working on it". They lie to themselves, others and the therapist that it's working, because they prefer a therapy that won't change anything in them. They lie to the therapist that her theories are right, and the therapist lies to them in turn that she knows what she's doing. People help each other live a lie and not face truth about themselves. You are an honest truth-seeker and want to get better, aka a "difficult patient" by therapists.

It's odd because I tend to judge people the opposite way. I don't trust overly confident smooth talkers. I find it easier to trust more socially awkward NTs. Unrealistic confidence comes across as phoniness to me.

Perhaps it's because non-AS clients are less likely to have much of an idea what their problem is when they present. And Freud used to say that his "hysterical" patients were usually easy to hypnotize. But adult Aspies are a different animal, often well-versed in how their problems fit the known traits, and lmaybe ess likely to take kindly to being shoehorned into a shrink's subjective ideas.

And it always struck me as rather weird that psychologists/psychiatrists are so widely seen as the diagnostician of choice for a brain-wiring issue. There's really no logical need for them.....people unqualified in clinical psychology or psychiatry can carry out the ADOS tests as long as they've passed their training (though they can't comment on comorbid conditions).

I think this attitude of therapists is more about following a certain dogma because they aren't confident enough to consider possibilities outside their "specialty". They don't like having their preconceived ideas challenged. Personally, I think a lot of psychology is pseudoscience.

outlier, do you have to see that woman? is there someone else who can help you?

I get tired of people who rely on so-called hypothetical thinking to force-feed BS to people they want to influence. sooner or later they ought to start looking at facts instead of fantasies. that's how science is supposed to work. their thinking isn't really hypothetical, it's actually just personal opinion. it takes more than opinions to build a good hypothesis. it takes consideration of all the facts at hand and all existing information and research. if she's not willing to consider everything, she's not speaking hypothetically.

I've been on the therapy merry-go-round for decades now. I used to do whatever they told me, but I was sick for about 3 out of the last 5 years from drug side effects and I've become a lot more pushy over things if they don't sound right. I insisted I won't try any more anti-depressants, and I insisted I needed to be assessed for AS. otherwise they would have just kept treating my problems as PTSD forever.

Me too......I can spot a fake at 1000 paces. Give me the socially inept any day.

No, absolutely not. I get angry.

Greentea: That's an interesting idea; people supporting one another's denial mechanisms. I think many have good intentions, but perhaps they are doing it subconsciously and are unaware of their motivations. I'm going to return just to tell her why I cannot continue and to present some research. It will be interesting to see the reaction to this information.

ToughDiamond: Yes. In my case I began the therapy with a good idea of the nature of my problems. I wanted help to figure out how to better manage them, not to explore a purely psychological root cause. My AS diagnosis already informs me that my lifelong sensory and exec. dysfunction issues are most likely neurological. My doctor thinks I have a remarkable insight into my issues, and another psych said most people she sees don't have this.

marshall: Dogma is especially prevalent among old-school psychotherapists. I've seen 3 psychodynamic therapists (as they were the only ones available to me) and all absolutely refused to acknowledge the role of neurology or genetics in the etiology of psych-related issues/conditions.

bhetti: I don't have to see her, but she was the only one I could afford. I really need an AS/autism specialist, but it would cost about £100 a session. The NHS won't provide anything. I've experienced this kind of treatment by almost all previous therapists, so I had no illusions going into this. I think I must have been getting desperate to attempt it.

Have you tried looking into perhaps seeing a student therapist? Usually they don't know what they're doing, but are willing to learn. It's better to have a therapist who doesn't know, but then goes and does research and finds out, than one who thinks they know what they're doing even though they don't. The most helpful one I saw was a graduate intern back at school. Partially because of that, and partially because I'd already been in so much treatment, I KNEW all the old stuff.. but she had newer stuff!

I was thinking about this thread today. Do you think it is possible what you are experiencing is anxiety? I sometimes have trouble differentiating between anxiety and guilt. They feel very much the same to me.

I'm another one who gets a little upset when someone tells me that I'm lying about telling the truth, but a feeling of dishonesty on my part never comes to mind.

Hmmm.......good point - most of the feelings I identify in myself are little more than a best guess. I suppose the hallmark of a guilt feeling is self-loathing, and I can't say I've particularly noticed much of that. It's more a weird conviction that I am guilty just as the other person insinuates I am. Is there a difference between guilt feelings and a feeling that I'm guilty? Or are emotions just too woolly and illogical to lend themselves to such precise, rational splitting like that?

Anxiety? Yes that could be in the mix. It's maybe a loss of confidence, that I'm not going to be able to convince whoever it is that I'm innocent, and will suffer the consequences. Naturally that makes me apprehensive, though I'm not sure it's the primary feeling here - more the natural effect of the conviction that I've lost the battle to assert my notion.

The key issue here is that I somehow allow myself to feel that they're correct, as if my very identity and opinion on the disputed matter dissolves for a while into nothing. In some strange way, their opinion becomes mine for a while, as if I've been hypnotised. It's never complete, my identity is still in there somewhere, but it's engulfed.

I once heard that Hitler had such a hypnotic interpersonal style that he could make his generals think that black was white. One such general travelled from the front to Berlin, to explain to him that the strategic situation was hopeless and that they had to retreat or face annihilation by the Allies. The general had seen with his own eyes the truth of his message, and his troops were depending on him to get them out of what had become a suicidal remit. But the Fuhrer galvanised him into believing the impossible - that he simply had to return and rally his troops into redoubling their efforts, and that victory was within their grasp. It was only when he had got halfway back to the front that he came to his senses and realised that he had been brainwashed. Perhaps something of a similar nature goes on in our smaller examples?

Exactly the same here.

Even if it's someone I love.

I sometimes alarm myself with the height of my rage.

I know what you mean.. and one that I had recently I think was almost a hope... I was accused of not actually having attention problems and told that "I may as well be getting my adderall on the street" and maybe in a way I wished that that were true, so that then I could stop being dependent on psychiatrists and be OK without meds. Of course, anyone who talks to me for five minutes (or 30 seconds, for that matter) knows what utter crap that is.



Makes me thing of the guy who proved God into nonexistance by the rationalization of the babelfish being proof of His existence, and therefore denying faith.. Then proving black to be white and getting killed at the next crosswalk. Slightly random, but maybe not.