Hey guys, I was wondering: do any of you happen to know if there's such a thing as companies that are specifically designed and created to scam people out of their money with therapy? I mean, is it particularly common?
I know that there's people who will immediately say that all of therapy is one big scam, and that the effectiveness of therapy relies largely on patients' faith that it will work. So therapy can be just as effective as anything else that people have faith on, whether it be: prayer, homeopathy, witchcraft, placebos, meditation, etc.
But are there companies in which the therapists are all fully aware that the "therapy treatment" they offer is complete and utter bullshit?
I ask because I've recently begun what is apparently referred to as "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy" and so far paid $600 for 6 sessions (it was recommended that I go to this so-called "therapy" for a total a six months, so that would be about 24 sessions in total... amounting to about $2,400)... but the whole thing just feels like bullshit to me. And I think that my therapist may also be fully aware that it's all bullshit and that I'm being scammed out of my money real good. Or maybe it's because of compassion fatigue. Maybe they just stopped giving a fuck long ago.
What do you guys think?
Oliver Perry
ever heard of religion?
Benjamin Gomez
CBT is real and 100 dollars a session is a normal rate
Logan Lee
F•P•B•P
The entire psychiatry profession.
>Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
MFW
Henry Lewis
>CBT is real and 100 dollars a session is a normal rate
I am aware that CBT is real as I've heard of it elsewhere before. But I wasn't exactly concerned about whether or not CBT is in itself is a scam. What I was concerned about, however, was that the current CBT treatment that I'm receiving could really be considered "CBT" at all. There's really nothing special to it.
So far it just kind of feels like boring, directionless talk therapy where my therapist spends a lot of the time asking me a lot of random questions, sometimes even repeating questions, and then getting annoyed at me and sighing whenever I point out that she's already asked me a particular question before. It's almost as if she's intentionally creating filler to waste my time and take as much of my money as possible.
And the way that my therapist and her boss (a psychologist who evaluated me for personality disorders last year) behave around me is also very strange. It's like they're just stringing me along until I figure out that it's all bullshit and I decide to bail on them, only to be replaced by another clueless patient.
This CBT is apparently supposed to help me cope with Social Anxiety Disorder, but I just end up feeling awkward, embarrassed, and even uncomfortable most of the time. The whole thing feels so chaotic, so aimless... I'm not exactly sure what I should be expecting here. I feel completely unfamiliar in this territory. I'm not sure how any of this is supposed to be helpful.
Is this what CBT is supposed to be like?
$100 for 50 minutes feels like a bit much, especially considering that my previous therapist charged me $55 for 60 minutes (sometimes even longer). And so far I've met with both of these therapists for 6 sessions each, and yet the one that charged me less offered more helpful advice than my current therapist.
Alexander Cox
>This CBT is apparently supposed to help me cope with Social Anxiety Disorder, but I just end up feeling awkward, embarrassed, and even uncomfortable most of the time I think that's the problem with therapy for social anxiety. I'm in the same position. How is the "talking cure" going to help if I can't talk to begin with?
What's even bigger bullshit is psychiatry. I've seen three psychiatrists in the past 2 years. Each time I see a new doctor, I get diagnosed with different (or subtly different) problems and get put on different medications that don't work. The first doctor wouldn't even diagnose me, and just said "oh, you feel sad? Here's antidepressants. Oh, you feel anxious talking to people? Here's some fucking benzos." He didn't even ask for my family history. The second doctor had me on six medications, including almost 3 times the highest FDA recommended dose of amphetamine even though I showed signs of psychosis; when this elevated my bloodpressure, his solution was to put me on a beta blocker. I'm putting up with it in the hopes that I'll get lucky and be put on a medication that happens to work. Seriously, give me access to all of these drugs and wikipedia pages on mental disorders and I could do this myself for free.
Josiah Smith
No bullshit, try psychadelics.
Ethan Ramirez
>but I just end up feeling awkward, embarrassed, and even uncomfortable most of the time Isn't it expected that if you have some anxiety disorder that you'll feel anxiety when discussing the situations that give you anxiety? IANAP but seems normal to me.
Justin Campbell
First, I would suggest going back to your previous therapist if you had a better opinion of him and he's significantly cheaper. If you can't for whatever reason, ask him to recommend someone.
Now, while it's always possible that your current therapists are just phonies, I will offer an alternate explanation. It's quite common in various forms of therapy to check if your thoughts are consistent or variable, or subtly causing a change (in emotional state, mode of thinking etc) to see how your answers differ now. I can virtually guarantee you that she's asking you the same questions repeatedly because it's required by the therapy manual she's following and getting annoyed because you're fucking up the procedure by resisting. Imagine if you're at clinic telling your nurse "but you already checked my blood pressure today! And do you need to change my IV drips so often? It feels like you're just making up work to take my money..." Then you catch her conspiring with the doctor on how to handle your case...
My suggestion is that you avoid resisting and stressing out over your therapist's competence and intentions for one session and candidly cooperate with her. Hell, you should actually tell her "I realize I was probably making things difficult for you before, but I'll try to work with you now" to clear up any bitterness that may have formed previously. If this still doesn't seem to have some positive result, just switch.
Personally, I stopped going to therapy because I felt it was turning into "guessing what they want to hear." For example my last therapist often made the session last for longer than expected if I wasn't making good progress throughout it, so when I started getting tired and wanted to end it I told her what she needed to hear because I had figured the general pattern of a successful session according to her technique. When you start actively (and successfully) deceiving your therapist there's little reason to keep going.
Jackson Peterson
>How is the "talking cure" going to help if I can't talk to begin with? How is "lifting weights" going to make me stronger if I'm not strong to begin with?
Gabriel Murphy
Don't you have insurance? If it's not helping you, then quit wasting your money
Andrew Ortiz
>What do you guys think? The idea is pay them to listen to YOU. You are supposed to get out stuff and move forward, but you are so fearful of getting scammed that you reject the positivity of the opportunity. If you think you're being scammed, ASK!
Jose Turner
This. Talk to the therapist.
Liam Collins
>Isn't it expected that if you have some anxiety disorder that you'll feel anxiety when discussing the situations that give you anxiety? IANAP but seems normal to me.
It's all a really long, weird, and complicated story, but I'll try my best to summarize as much as I can with these next few posts.
I paid my psychologist $700 to test me for disorders back in July of last year, and afterward he wrote me my psychological evaluation report (pic related: it's page 1 of my psychological evaluation report) and sent it over to me in .pdf format via e-mail.
Meanwhile, my psychiatrist wanted to stop prescribing Adderall to me because he believed that I was "delusional". So I printed out my psychological evaluation report (which states that I'm neither delusional nor hallucinating, and that it's perfectly safe for me to continue taking Adderall) and handed it over to my psychiatrist. At first, my psychiatrist seemed to take my psychological evaluation report seriously and agreed to continue prescribing Adderall to me. But two months later, he suddenly decided to change his mind and tell me that I was "delusional" and that he would stop prescribing Adderall to me. I told my psychologist all of this through various e-mails and begged him to speak to my psychiatrist to back up what was written on the psychological evaluation report... but my psychologist ended up writing to me:
>It is very simple: What you ask of me to do is not a service I provide.
I still had many questions that I wanted to ask my psychologist (such as why he wasn't willing to speak with my psychiatrist, when he could have just handed me a "Individual Patient Authorization" form which I know his corporation uses for communication between providers from different practices)...
Jaxson Davis
>Isn't it expected that if you have some anxiety disorder that you'll feel anxiety when discussing the situations that give you anxiety? IANAP but seems normal to me.
My psychologist recommended that I begin meeting with one of his therapists nearly eight months ago, but I felt undecided until last month. I finally gave in and I decided to begin seeing this therapist, hoping to get some answers from my psychologist who told me the following throughout various e-mails over these past few months:
>I would be happy to provide you with psychotherapy
>In order for this to work, you will have to accept some limited guidance from me
>I am repeating my offer to provide you with psychotherapy. All questions (such as the recent one) can be addressed within that appropriate time and space
Once I decided to begin therapy with this therapist he recommended, he ended up e-mailing me the following:
>I believe that it would be best to leave all these questions for the time being and dedicate to yourself instead. I suggest you concentrate on your therapy and give it some time to help you
I have neither spoken nor seen my psychologist since July of last year, yet he claimed that he would: provide me with psychotherapy, give me some "limited guidance", and answer my questions. I've already met with this therapist for a total of six sessions and paid $600, and I still don't have my answers. My therapist cannot answer any of my questions because they were intended for her boss, as only her boss can answer them because only he knows what he and I talked about months ago. And there seems to be limited communication between my therapist and my psychologist in regards to me. He has stopped responding to my e-mails.
Jacob Rodriguez
>Isn't it expected that if you have some anxiety disorder that you'll feel anxiety when discussing the situations that give you anxiety? IANAP but seems normal to me.
My psychologist had initially explained to me that this therapy was apparently intended to help me deal with my social anxiety so that I could improve my interactions with people and become a more productive member of society.
However, on my first session with this therapist she admitted to me about how subjective all of this is and explained to me that my current diagnosis—Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder—could completely change at any point during therapy.
She could also easily decide at any point that I actually do have a personality disorder (such as, like, say something like: Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which was one of the personality disorders at the top of my list that I was concerned about having and wanted to get tested for) even though I've been told by several different people of the mental health care system that for testing for personality disorders there is only the "Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory" (MMPI) which I've already taken and been told by the psychologist who tested me that I don't have a personality disorder and that it was his "expert opinion" and that it would never change.
And yet here my therapist was telling me that it could turn out that I actually do have a personality disorder. I mean, how exactly is that supposed to work? Can she just randomly decide that my self-esteem is "too high" or that something I said was intended as an insult towards her, and she ends up diagnosing me with Narcissistic Personality Disorder? And then what? They might decide that they need to adapt my therapy so as to treat this personality disorder, and that I need six more months of therapy? I even tried asking her about all of this but she was unresponsive.
Angel Stewart
>Isn't it expected that if you have some anxiety disorder that you'll feel anxiety when discussing the situations that give you anxiety? IANAP but seems normal to me.
As for my current therapist... I'm not exactly sure what to think of her. Her personality seems wildly inconsistent.
On my first session with her she seemed quirky, quick-witted, and even came off as mildly immature. She interrupted me several times by saying what she assumed I was about to say. After she interrupted me for about the fifth or sixth time, she started laughing.
During the second session she seemed like an almost completely different person. Her appearance was radically different, like she was trying to pull of a "mature" or even "wise" look. She also came off as slightly bitchy. She seemed mostly bored or even annoyed as she kept sighing a lot throughout the session. At some point I started talking about something that I felt was relevant in regards to my family, like how they seem largely anti-science because whenever I start talking to them about science-related topics (whether they be about: genetics, neurology, mental illness, astronomy, etc.) they tend to get unusually defensive and start talking about God like how I was somehow offending him.
At that point my therapist then cut me off and said something like: "Right. Science. You're really big on science. You're Mr. Science Man."
That was just so weird and random, I just responded with: "Uhhh... yeah." And I didn't bother finishing the point that I was trying to make. I remember thinking to myself: "The hell was that about? That was kind of bitchy. Did she do that on purpose? Is she testing me somehow? Or maybe she's just religious and she felt offended. This might get awkward. I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to help me overcome social anxiety."
In the third session I could swear that she must've been high as fuck on Adderall.
Austin Robinson
>However, on my first session with this therapist she admitted to me about how subjective all of this is and explained to me that my current diagnosis—Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder—could completely change at any point during therapy.
>psychologist spends several more hours working with your actual problems outside of the initial diagnostic quiz >somehow it confuses you that she might change your extremely broad initial diagnosis of "generalized anxiety" to something more specific
Chase Moore
Stop diagnosing your therapist and just work with her. If the money you pay seems inappropriate to what you expect just change therapists again. Maybe you can help yourself better than the therapist can help you. In the end you re pulling the strings to your wellbeing.
Christopher Morales
One of the main reasons that I decided to go to this psychologist in the first place was to have myself tested for personality disorders.
I had inquired to my psychiatrist about testing for personality disorders and he informed me that for testing for personality disorders there's only the "MMPI", that it wasn't "scientific", and that the MMPI isn't performed at his practice.
I tried telling my psychologist that I believed that my psychiatrist had been testing me for personality disorders with neither my knowledge nor consent, and that he may had possibly even diagnosed me as having a personality disorder without telling me. However, this psychologist was unusually adamant in trying to convince me that my psychiatrist would never do that because such a thing would apparently be "unethical" and "unscientific", and apparently my psychiatrist is infallible. I apparently need to give my written consent and be informed of the testing. When I tried to explain the reasoning behind my theory, the psychologist simply kept shaking his head and saying "no, no, no" over and over.
He would later tell me in an e-mail:
>I would be happy to provide you with psychotherapy, but there are some conditions:
>It would not be a debate about whether or not you "have or suffer" from a "narcissistic personality disorder." I already gave you my professional opinion on that and I am not willing to start this process again.
>In order for this to work, you will have to accept some limited guidance from me.
On that first session with my current therapist, I started off by handing over a copy of my psychological evaluation report and telling her that I felt conflicted about the evaluation. I told her that I was disappointed that her boss refused to answer many of my questions and refused to hear the reasoning behind my theories. He also refused to hear why I believed that I might have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which I found incredibly frustrating.
Lincoln Rivera
>First, I would suggest going back to your previous therapist if you had a better opinion of him and he's significantly cheaper.
Part of the reason that I eventually gave in and finally agreed to begin seeing my third and current therapist as the psychologist recommended to me because I was curious as to what, exactly, CBT entailed. I was curious to find out if there was anything new and interesting to CBT that I needed to pay a therapist $100 per 50 minutes for (that I couldn't just as easily do by myself at home with self-help resources on the internet.) I'd read about, for example, something called “Cognitive Behavioral Hypnotherapy” and was curious to find out if this therapist did hypnotherapy. I inquired about this and she told me that she doesn't do hypnotherapy, but that she normally assigns “homework” to her patients. Six sessions in and she still hasn't really assigned any real “homework” to me.
Although she didn't exactly call it “homework”, my previous therapist suggested that I try doing something that I enjoyed doing during childhood—in my particular case I decided to go with drawing. She told me to spend 15—60 minutes each and every morning drawing and that it might help improve my mood for the rest of the day. I felt that this sort of thing was pretty lame and its effectiveness was largely subjective, and the sort of advice that I could have easily found on the internet for free not having to pay $55 to a therapist for... but, hey, at least it was something. My current therapist hasn't suggested that I try anything like that at all.
And the only reason that I ever bothered seeing that other “cheaper” therapist last year wasn't to get advice on how to improve my mood or my sleeping habits, I was only curious about getting evaluated for personality disorders. And after six sessions she finally referred me to the psychologist who evaluated me for personality disorders last year.
Jeremiah White
>psychologist spends several more hours working with your actual problems outside of the initial diagnostic quiz
>somehow it confuses you that she might change your extremely broad initial diagnosis of "generalized anxiety" to something more specific
Also. To be clear: the psychologist and my therapist are two different people.
The psychologist has a PhD. and is the "director" of his corporation. He was the guy who I paid $700 to test me for personality disorders. After 7 hours of taking several written tests and being interviewed by him face-to-face, he told me that I didn't have a personality disorder and that that was the end of it. That my diagnosis wouldn't change to say that I suddenly do have a personality disorder. He then wrote me my psychological evaluation report and recommended that I begin therapy with one of his subordinates (my current therapist, she has a "PsyD.") He suggested that I see her once a week for six months. So far I've only seen her six times. She's also contradicting what her boss told me months earlier about my diagnosis not changing so as to suddenly say that I actually do have a personality disorder. When I tried asking her how it's supposed to work, why I spent $700 to get tested for personality disorders with the MMPI when nobody actually seems to care... she didn't really comment. She just kept talking over me.
So, yeah... the whole thing just seems like a complete and total waste of money. No one has been able to give me a book of guidelines on the right way to behave. It seems as if everything that I do and say is just plain wrong. I've taken a good look at the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and it all just seems so subjective.
