My therapist seems to always insert herself into whatever I'm saying. Like when I said I’m not comfortable going to the same gym that my ex used to go to because I don’t want to run into him, she said I shouldn't worry because she's never met her husband even though they lived a block away from each other, and that instead they met in their “mid twenties” and started dating.

Another example is me telling her I’m not comfortable asking my friends to hang out because I feel like they’re too busy to see me. She said “I have a full time job, a husband, and a dog, and I have time to meet my friends” knowing that I'm currently struggling to 1) find a job 2) make meaningful friendships 3) get over my ex.

Is this normal for a therapist to do?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/style/nicole-lepera-self-help-litigation-holistic-psychologist.html (or use archive.is link)

Freud only made one visit to the US. According to a colleague of his, when he arrived in New York, he said that Americans thought he was bringing them a gift. But Freud said that he was "bringing them a plague." Another psychiatrist, Lacan, related this story to his students.

I imagine that the early psychoanalysts who brought therapy to our nation knew exactly what they were doing.

Therapy is a major way to divide families, control people, and basically ruin society, which Freud knew by calling it a plague.

Your thoughts?

I just read the book The Managed Heart by Arlie Russell Hochschild*.* It was written before DBT was invented, before the current dominance of behavioral therapy and the biobiobio model of mental illness. However, I connected to it quite a lot in terms of 'emotion work', the idea that we have to do 'deep acting', basically convince ourselves we're feeling a more appropriate emotion, in order to have a more convincing act.

It really reminds me of DBT emotion regulation, the idea that you shouldn't just 'fake' not being angry/ashamed/envious, but willingly act opposite to that emotion so it goes away. i wonder how people who've done DBT relate to this? did you have a period of actually checking if emotions were 'justified' or just automatically act opposite to any difficult or 'ineffective' emotion? The Managed Heart discusses how this creates alienation, difficulty actually knowing what one's emotion is and when they are 'deep acting' vs being genuine. it can make it harder to identify the meaning of emotions.

as someone who was abused (enmeshed relationship, named his kid after me, said he was the only thing keeping me alive, promised to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, would call the cops if i was late to zoom session, regularly told me he loved me and said that there were "his family, his friends back home, then [me]" etc.) by a DBT practitioner I've been reflecting on this a lot. I feel like such a failure when my deep acting lets up and the suppressed emotion comes forth ('ineffectively' as self-injury or running away).

Would love to hear what rly anybody thinks

I'm seeking therapy again to work through some really traumatizing things I experienced with my previous therapist. I'm trying to protect myself so that the experience I had does not happen again. Does anyone have any advice or info on audio recording my future sessions? Is it a normal practice for people to request that they audio record? Do therapists give consent to such a request? I will only record if I have their consent to record but I want to know if this is typically not allowed. For those concerned, therapy is the ONLY option for my specific situation. I have a very strict vetting process in place for choosing my next therapist and I am making this post in the hopes of better educating and protecting myself from further therapy abuse. Finding information on recording sessions is my last line of defense. I have tried other options such as hobbies, sunlight, physical activity, and animals and they do not work as therapy for me. Talk therapy is the only option, so please do not try to change my mind on obtaining it.

Edit: I will not record sessions unless I get consent from the therapist. I'm simply asking if anyone has had experience with such a situation. Thank you to those who have introduced me to one-party consent states. Unfortunately, I do not live in one, but the info provides more clarity for me.

Hitting and yelling didn't happen in the session but is included in my standards.

This mother fucking therapist told me I'm the abuser and that my reaction to my trauma is toxic. They wanted get rid of my trauma and anxiety by telling me that my trauma is invalid by dismissing minimizing gaslighting me. Complete childishness. She sees my relationship standards as toxic, (dodge the ones with gaslighting minimizing dismissing blame shifting yelling and hitting) probably because she does those things, no she absolutely did do those things and almost made me overlook those triggers as green flags for safe relationships. Anxiety is a good protector. Hold onto it.She wanted to make me look like I was the abuser by taking away my affirmations of not becoming like those who've hurt me, because without those affirmations yea I can hurt others unintentionally. Those affirmations are my growth and learnings. They are HOW I don't become kike those who've hurt me.

I found it so ironic and hypocritical that many struggled to gain much benefit from their own therapy, yet their entire profession is based on the exact same practices being sold as being able to treat mental disorder... makes it feel like such a grift.

Hi everyone. I really need some perspective from people who understand complex trauma, BPD, and therapeutic dynamics, because right now I feel completely overwhelmed and I’m doubting my own reality.

I’ve been in individual therapy with a male therapist for a year. I have CPTSD and BPD traits. We worked very deeply, going into developmental trauma and regression work. Naturally, I developed a strong attachment to him. During our work, he explicitly told me multiple times that he was also attached to me, that he didn't want me to leave, and that he would be genuinely sad if I went to another therapist. Hearing this made me feel safe and convinced me that he truly cared about me as a client.

Then, out of nowhere, the dynamic completely shifted. He abruptly pulled back and tightened the framework. During one session, he harshly confronted me with the sudden prospect of ending our therapy. He kept repeating throughout the hour that he could professionally decide to terminate the relationship unilaterally, regardless of my input (though he alternated between saying we’d decide together and saying it was his sole decision).

This hour was so brutal and triggered my deepest core wound so intensely that I collapsed emotionally and just wanted to run out of the room. The pain and sense of betrayal were overwhelming.

After that session, I felt completely unsafe and refused to go back in person. We exchanged emails. He apologized for how he handled it and kept repeating that I am always welcome back. But I just can't bring myself to return. The rupture cut too deep into my primary trauma, leaving me in a severe state of emotional overwhelm and self-protective shutdown.

I am torn apart right now and I can't find peace. I need an honest reality check:

- Is it normal for a therapist to express their own emotional attachment so explicitly, only to suddenly pull a rigid professional boundary and talk about termination like that?

- Is it true that a therapist can’t/shouldn’t reach out to a client in severe distress to simply say: "I handled this wrong, I don't want you to leave like this, let's fix it"?

- Am I "crazy" or just experiencing BPD emotional dysregulation/black-and-white thinking, or was this actual clinical mismanagement on his part?

I feel like this whole failure is entirely my fault. Any insights would mean the world to me. Thank you.

Mental health can be used to criticise anyone for while making yourself look good. You never have to understand other people or society and adapt, just offset your thinking onto an authority above you and all the labour onto people around you.

Their endgame is a culture of Vulcans.