Disadvantages of Therapy

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Therapy has been many good things for me, but there was a lot that therapy was not.

• Therapy was not easy. I had to work.
• Therapy was not a fix. No … therapy did not fix my problems. I had to fix my problems. All the therapist did was listen to me and offer suggestions for change.
• Therapy was not fun. Although I enjoyed having a verbal outlet, I did not find therapy to be fun. I did look forward to my appointments, but the sessions were not fun even when I had something to laugh about. There is nothing fun about drudging up emotional baggage, and there was no fun in unpacking the emotional baggage either.
• Therapy was not cheap even with health insurance coverage, and I had frequent visits because of all the issues I needed to work through.
• Therapy did not save me, but it did help me … A LOT.
• Therapy was not my happy ending. My life is still a work in progress.
• Therapy was not meant to last.

Disadvantages of Therapy

I am not trying to sell anyone on therapy. This post is only intended to tell you about my personal experiences. Therapy was good for me, but there were some disadvantages that I experienced too.

• There were times when conflict occurred between the therapist and me to the point of transference within the therapist-client relationship. Transference is when I redirected my feelings towards someone else onto the therapist. Although this did not happen very often, I recall the two or three times that it did happen to where I distanced myself from the therapist because I felt triggered by behavior from her that reminded me of something from my experiences with narcissistic relationships. I found myself rescheduling appointments to avoid having to deal with the therapist because of my own feelings. I had to take time to work through those feelings on my own.
• There were times of countertransference that annoyed me. Countertransference is when the therapist would transfer her emotions to me. This happened when the therapist would disclose information about her own personal experiences as a way to help me to see that she could relate with me through some commonality. Yet, her self-disclosure would often derail the process of therapy because she would become side-tracked and take us off topic to the point that the thought I desired to express would never be explored in its entirety.
• Those times that my therapist self-disclosed about her personal experiences often felt like the tables were turned to where she was the client and I was the therapist. Not only would I feel compelled to grab tissues for her to wipe away her tears, but I would feel compelled to console her. Those times were always awkward for me. Prior to going back to school to get a master’s in mental health, I did not realize that what my therapist was doing was actually unethical in practice. When I began to learn about the terms and aspects of therapy, I was surprised by how unhealthy the client-therapist relationship could become if I allowed this behavior of countertransference to continue. Because of this behavior, I often rescheduled appointments and even canceled some appointments. I did not want to waste my money giving my therapist a counseling session.
• My therapist gave great suggestions that helped me tremendously, but there were times when I felt she was a bit too intrusive and even judgmental when it came to my personal and professional life. Some of the suggestions she gave turned out be nothing more than manipulations to get me to do things for her benefit or things that she believed was right for me to do even if I did not agree. Oftentimes I was stubborn and did what I knew that I wanted to do, but then there were those times when I was clueless. Those would be the times that I would not necessarily heed the silent pull within me as a caution because I simply did not want to hurt the therapist’s feelings. Yet, after following some of my therapist’s suggestions, I realized that those suggestions were more about her than me. I lived to regret two of her suggestions because they cost me more trouble than they were worth. At the time, she actually made me feel guilty for not listening to her. Is that even supposed to happen with a therapist? Of course not!
• My therapist could not always connect with me on things that really mattered to me. In the beginning, this was not as important to me. Pain is pain, and therapists are known for helping clients find effective ways to deal with pain. Yet, as time went on, and I began to confide more in the therapist, I found that she did not always understand where I was coming in terms of my heart. She also did not necessarily make the attempts to understand either and would often become offended when I explained why certain issues were important to me.
• The one thing that was also my greatest pet peeve dealt with time. I have a problem when others do not seem to respect my time. Like most people, time is a valuable commodity, and I value it to the point that I do not like it being wasted, and this was always a problem for my therapist. It was actually rare for her to be on time for appointments. There were times when I was afforded the common courtesy of being called by the receptionist when my therapist was running late, but those times that I received no call, I would automatically assume that my time in the waiting room would not span into an hour or more. Unfortunately, however, I have waited for as long as two hours in the waiting room for my therapist to finish up with a client. There was even a mix up where she had scheduled six different people at the same time on the same day. Guess who did not get her scheduled appointment?

Overall, though, the biggest disadvantage of therapy for me was having to decide when I needed it to come to an end. Find out in my next post why I ultimately decided to end my time in therapy when it would appear by all accounts that I still need it.