Do therapists treat you better if you're successful in life?

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Nobody is obligated to be anybody's friend, no matter what the "woke" schoolteachers say. If two or more people have nothing in common, they don't have to spend time together unless required to. All we owe to our fellow human beings is basic decency, like the manners we're taught since toddler age, like "please", "thank you", etc. There's a good reason most foreign language textbooks start out with "manners words". Even if your foreign language skills are p1ss-poor, a few basic manners will get you far.

While the others have their nice chat... Would it be fair to say your parents hired that therapist to change you?

And what is the job of your current therapist? Something along the lines of making you happier, perhaps?

If they had different goals it might not be surprising they went in different directions.

First of all I'm kind of shocked. But I am actually really glad that you seem to have found someone that is is suitable for you. With any luck maybe you can start to let go of the negative/painful experience you had previously.

As per your question: like in anything, you may find individuals that might treat you better or worse because of something like status/success. Humans are humans

Do psychotherapists specifically? No An ethically sound therapist will be unbiased to that kind of thing.(as humanly possible)

Do they treat you differently based on your age? They are not supposed to but it doesn't always work like that. Because there some that will put the parents or teachers wants/needs first. As well as there are some who will give the impression that everything is the parents fault. I've heard both stories. Then there's always the chance of running into a burnt out therapist that may end up doing things they normally wouldn't. My personal experience, from my 'youth' has not involved any of those things.

I have no idea what is going on with the secondary conversation in this thread o_O

That's exactly right: my parents' therapist's goal was to change me. Namely, get them better grades out of me, and help me make new friends after moving cross-country. In fact, she was against me feeling happier too quickly. She always dodged the question and/or berated me when I asked for "happiness pills" (my term for antidepressants at the time, since I didn't know the real term). Her excuse was: "I'm helping you feel better 'in the long run'", which was a dog whistle for "never". That's when I realized she didn't care about my happiness, and turned to alcohol instead. At age 12.

The current therapist is, well... I don't know if my "happiness" per se is his goal, but he did seem interested in ending my suffering. I liked how he started using mathematical terms after finding out I worked in IT. Perhaps the reason for his interest in prompt results is how I'm seeing him: though my employer's EAP. Most EAP's allow only a limited number of sessions (mine is 3 per every 6-month period). So it's in his best interest to make my happiness come quickly. Otherwise, my EAP's limit will run out, I won't feel better, and might give him a bad review. So it's checks and balances.

Looking at both scenarios, you can't ignore the difference in my life status. In the first scenario, I was a pathetic, ugly, friendless loser whose own family didn't respect him; that's an epitome of a weakling. Which probably triggered my parents' therapist's subconscious predatory instinct, causing her to mock me and gaslight me. In the second scenario, I'm a full-grown man working in a cushy government job, and I just happened to run into a life's setback. That's not "weak"; that's just being human. So he approached me from a position of genuine respect, rather than patronizing mockery.

Haven't you elsewhere said that you think that early therapist was using ABA on you?

It sounded horrible. But, in her defense, she might have cared about your happiness but—just as someone with a hammer sees everything as a nail—the tool she had was ABA. It's all she had, it's what she was being paid to do.

And it sounded horrible.

She was. But you're somewhat mistaken here: her goal was my parents' happiness, not mine. I was basically a means to an end, and the ABA was the tool to achieve it. As long as my parents saw good grades in my report cards and I obeyed them without question at all times, it didn't matter to her that her actual patient (rather than her money-paying customers) was struggling with depression and abusing alcohol. Remember: she blatantly refused to get me antidepressants. (I did hint to her about my alcohol habit, but she either pretended not to know what I was talking about or just plain didn't care.) And admit it: an adult working in a cushy job is far more likely to garner a therapist's respect, as opposed to sympathy/compassion, than a pathetic teenage loser.

Well, I suppose sometimes to someone with a hammer everything looks fun to bash.

Very Maslowian thing to say...or it would be if 'Maslowian' was a word.

Acronym that helps you predict who will do well in psychotherapy: Y.A.V.I.S.

Stands for young, attractive, verbal, intelligent, and successful.

Seems kinda unfair. These people will do well in everything.

It might be more correct to say "Y.A.A.V.I.S.", with two A's. That's "young adult, attractive, verbal, intelligent, and successful".

Most, if not all, therapists have a low opinion of kids and teens. Yeah, they outwardly "nice" to them and pretend to be their friend, to trick them into relaxing. But when it comes to taking sides and helping, they always, without fail, take the parents' side and throw the kid/teen under the bus. That goes tenfold for an intelligent kid/teen; therapists despise them, for some reason.

I did recently have a positive experience with a therapist. But that's because I fit all six of the Y.A.A.V.I.S. criteria. (Well, since the therapist was male, as am I, the "attractive" part is debatable, unless we're talking about how attractive he thought I might be to women.)

Last edited by Aspie1 on 27 Dec 2021, 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was never “S,” yet therapists have treated me well.

Anybody saying "No", is full of it.

OP, you pretty much answered the question yourself. Any type county mental health help, is purely that. You get what you're paying for, and you're getting the quality for what it is. lol.

County mental health, is really a gamble, and they know you're either low income, can't afford therapists that pay more higher hourly rates for sessions, before your appointment, you see homeless and vagabonds sleeping in the lobby. The buildings of these places aren't the best etc. So you're gonna most likely get an intern or student therapist, and the connection isn't there, the both of you will not mesh, and yeah.

If you're one that wants to try psych meds, I feel a lot of county psychologists will give you a basic level of empathy and understanding with prescriptions, and give you meds.

But yeah, you're gonna have to deal with better run and regulated private mental health care, to get the Dr. Phil and Dr. Joyce Brothers level of sessions and help.

So there's that side of it. Also, the clients they deal with. If you have lower class therapy plans, and county run mental health, you're gonna be treated and have that same vibe as such. Where as opposed you're going to a higher class private session, and they know you are educated and your background is privileged, and you're doing pretty good stock wise, you have a high salary job, and are high class. etc.

So it's sad, but the truth hurts. So yeah.

I saw my therapist as a teenager through the county mental health too. While the lobby wasn't as bad as you described---it was too far from downtown to have a large homeless population---the therapist certainly was. Whenever I talked about something that went against her book training and/or her personal agenda, like my family emotionally abusing me, she either mocked me or pretended not to know what I was talking about. Which, sadly, makes sense in retrospect: I wasn't person she was there to help, despite her "family therapist" job title---my parents were. "Family" was just a cheap euphemism for "parents".

As for medications, she was VERY anti-pills. Every time I asked her for "happiness pills" (antidepressants), she dodged and deflected, or angrily berated me for "not being patient enough to wait until I feel better naturally" or "trying to block out my feelings medically instead of sharing them with her". Well, thanks to her, I found my own "happiness pills": alcohol. At age 12. One shot of whiskey was more effective than months of therapy with that woman.

This is true as well. While I'm not privileged enough to see celebrity psychologists---I'd have to be at least a mayor for that---the city government I work for probably has arrangements with top-of-the-line psych clinics. They have deep pockets, after all. I researched the clinic they sent me to, and they have 4.5- and 5-star Yelp reviews. And the therapist I spoke to seemed like a brilliant man. The only caveat was politics: most therapists are very liberal, and I'm very conservative; so I simply didn't mention anything politicized (like the Biden-19 virus), as not to antagonize him and cause him to treat me the way the county shrink did. (Then again, maybe he knew that many well-off workers, especially men, are conservative, but I didn't want to chance it.)

Counselors are people. Just like all other people, they have subconscious biases, logical fallacies, character flaws, personality disorders, and felony convictions

Two counselors are not a representative sample of counselors

Every counselor is different

There could be many reasons why your first counselor treated you differently than your second counselor

One of those reasons could be what kind of job you have

However, there could be many other reasons

You don't have enough information to determine what the reason is

"Job" is right; it's what the word "successful" in the thread title refers to.

Back then, I was a lowly student (school) whose own family didn't respect him. I remember her treating me OK at the very begining, then becoming arrogant and unkind after I told her about the emotional abuse my parents put me through. At least I could outsmart her with trivial or fake issues.

Today, I work in Tech Services for a nearby city's government. 10% of my job even includes managerial work and talking to directors. (I have yet to meet the mayor, though.) That's pretty bad-ass for a therapy patient! So no wonder this man treated me with full respect and real human decency.

Plus, someone with government connections or simply money in the bank can do career damage after an abusive session. While a pathetic schoolkid with no one on his side can only cry himself to sleep. Basically, ability to retaliate vs. lack thereof.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 28 Dec 2021, 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that sums it all up nicely.