em_tsuj wrote:
To Aspie1, where is your proof that most therapists harm their patients? re-traumatize their patients? or that therapists are bullies? You don't know every therapist. You also don't know what "tactics" the therapist is using unless you've read some graduate-level textbooks on how to conduct therapy or went through the training yourself.
Proof? <raises hand> Over here! Over here!
Tactics are fairly easy to figure out. You don't need graduate-level textbook. A psychology textbook from a
good high school will do just fine. (I kind of wish I kept my high school psychology textbook, and just paid the fine; it was a damn nice book.) Every methodology has its own unique phrases and word usage, which is easy as hell to figure out once you know what to look for. Let me show a few examples:
Rogerian therapy is the one aspies almost universally hate. Its signature phrase is "how did that make you feel?". It's asked in response to all kinds of experiences: from witnessing 9/11 (sorry) with your own eyes, to having a root canal, to losing a job. If the patient can't answer or answers incorrectly (e.g. "that's a thought, not a feeling"), he's grilled about his feeling over and over, until he gives in and spews out an emotional-sounding platitude just to get the therapist off his back.
Client-centered therapy is also aspie-hostile. The therapist does very little talking, asking only minimal questions, saying only brief comments, and
never answering questions directly, to allow the patient to discover a solution through rambling. In the most extreme cases, the therapist sits and stares silently at the patient for the entire hour. The best way to fight back against this is to ramble about your special interests. That's a piece of cake for most aspies.
Psychoanalytic therapy was originally developed by Freud, and can be kind of cool at times. You're asked to talk about your early memories. However, if there aren't any to speak of, you will be accused of repressing them, and psychological manipulation will be used to get those memories out of you. Many a time, kids were brainwashed into believing things that never happened to them. What's
really ironic is that it resembles past life analysis in Scientology; and Scientologists rabidly hate all forms of psychology.
Cognitive-Behavioral therapy is more aspie-friendly. It's focus are thoughts, not feelings, which helps many aspies. Its underlying principle is that thought are connected to emotions, emotions are connected to actions, actions are connected to one's life. It's designed to change your way of thinking, to give you a better life in the end. Its downside, however, is that your may be told that your emotions are "wrong", because they're triggered by wrong thoughts.
Rogerian therapy was done on me when I was a teenager. I was constantly accused of lying or hiding things when I gave the therapist true answers about my feelings. It was SO FRUSTRATING! She made me cry many times by doing this. It wasn't until I started
actually lying about how things made me feel, when she started praising me for being open with her and being in touch with my feelings. I checked out a psych book from a public library, read it cover to cover, memorized a bunch of mushy emotion words, and spewed them right out.
I also tried Cognitive-Behavioral therapy two years ago, as an adult. It was somewhat helpful, but the suggestions the guy gave me just sounded way out in the left field: meditation and starting a long-term relationship are the most notable examples. Last time I tried meditating, I felt intense anger afterwards. And the relationship one, hello! I didn't go on my first date until I was 18, with a girl I could barely stand to look at! However, being an adult, I could easily say "hey listen, I appreciate your work, but it ain't helping", which I did.
I believe what you are saying about having bad experiences with therapy. I would probably have the same attitude as you if I had the same experiences that you have had with therapy. My area of disagreement is that your experience is what the typical person is likely to encounter if they go to psychotherapy.
Your personal experience is just that--personal. I can find another person who will tell me they had the exact opposite experience. One person's experience is not an indictment of the whole field. All your story proves to me is that one therapist doesn't know how to conduct Rogerian Therapy and that you don't like CBT. That's like me saying I have proof that most cats are vicious and then presenting as proof the fact that I got scratched by one cat and another cat hissed at me. That's two cats versus hundreds of millions of cats worldwide. That's enough evidence for me (the person getting attacked) to form the opinion that most cats are vicious, but my experience isn't enough to prove that most cats are actually vicious, just the ones that attacked me.
Also, there are hundreds of different types of therapy, not just the one's you mentioned, and you are overgeneralizing when describing different types of therapy, stating your opinion as if it were fact. You don't know how most people with AS are going to react to a specific type of therapy, so you can't say whether something is aspie-friendly or not.
Here's a link to a website that gives advice about practical issues surrounding therapy, like how to pick a therapist, what to expect out of therapy, signs of bad therapy, etc. It also explains a lot of specific approaches to therapy. The site might have more information than you are looking for. Then again, the info. on the site might save you some trouble.
17 Feb 2014, 10:35 pm
