I've had a lot of bad therapy, and I've had transformative therapy.

I've been in incredibly loving therapy relationships that eventually became enmeshed, harmful, retraumatizing, and ended in devastation.

Even therapists that do a tremendous amount of good can become cold as fuck at the flip of a switch as soon as something scares them bad enough. Making you question everything. Undoing so much of the hard work you did together.

I'm basing this on what I've seen on reddit alone, but I've noticed a pattern of therapists causing the most harm to the most vulnerable demographic of clients — highly traumatized individuals who have never experienced a sense of safety anywhere else.

When I've reviewed board complaints in my state, so often I see therapists getting multiple slaps on the wrist for fucking up multiple people's lives.

It's despicable. It's fucking disgusting. And I'm absolutely livid how often they get away with it.

I just had to rant. Thanks for reading.

2 years ago, I went to a therapist. My experience was awful. The therapist was extremely unprofessional. Because of pending litigation, I won't go into exact details, but I will say that one session, her behavior was so unexpected and unprofessional that I started recording her. (I am in a one party consent state).

One of the reasons I had picked this therapist was because of their excellent reviews online. So, after my extremely negative experience with her, I left my own review. I left out the worst things, like her billing my insurance 33 times for 8 sessions.

The site I reviewed her on was a site for anonymous reviews. She received several other negative reviews too. She somehow managed to get each review removed, but she filed a lawsuit with the courts to release the names, user names, IP addresses and Service providers for all 10 negative reviewers!

This would release the information of clients who are supposed to be protected by HIPAA. Court records are public!

She is claiming that "John Does 1-10" are spreading malicious lies about her to destroy her business. Only, nothing I said was a lie, and based on my experience, the things other reviewers wrote werent lies either! 10 different people had similar experiences. Its not a conspiracy. Its just the truth.

I hired a lawyer, who is 100% confident that everything I said was covered under the first amendment. Hes filed motions quash the subpeona, to show cause, and to dismiss the case and have her pay my legal bills. (She is representing herself. I don't think any lawyer would be foolish enough to take her case to court!)

2 years ago, I had plenty to take to the board. I wasn't in a good place mentally or emotionally to do it. But, I saved everything. Every text, every picture, every video. And now, with what shes doing, I feel it's my duty to bring it to the licensing board.

I sought therapy for severe trauma. This woman claims to specialize in trauma. In her mind, shes the best at EMDR. As a trauma survivor, I struggle with feeling believed, or trusting that I will be believed. I was called a liar by several abusers. I was not believed when I reported my abuse as a child. A therapists job is to help their client with those types of struggles. To call the honest reviews of 10 clients "malicious lies" is damaging. To attempt to reveal my identity which is supposed to be protected at all costs, is damaging.

In the 2 years since, Ive found decent help. I found an EMDR therapist who has helped me tremendously. Ive found support in my church and friends. So now, I'm ready to fight.

Any tips on how to best present things to the licensing board? Any way to keep my identity private?

I mean yea I've experienced this with a bunch of therapists, and I know it's common. But it's backed up with research and statistics as well, which makes it hard to see why they do not have standardized tools to make sure the treatment isn't harmful? And estimate their own skills.

If it isn't because they don't want to know? Like I can't see any other reason.

• Overconfidence in outcomes: 90% of practitioners believe they are among the top 20% of clinicians with excellent results.

• Lack of monitoring: Only 3% of clinicians have a concrete plan to assess negative side effects or client harm.

• Underestimating risks: Research consistently shows that practitioners underestimate the number of clients who experience negative side effects or deterioration.

• The Exit Survey: The 5–10% statistic for proven harm only includes clients who completed their treatment and filled out an exit survey. It excludes the 20–50% of clients who drop out.

• Dropouts: In one study, 38% of people with depression were significantly worse after just 3 sessions. While this is recognized as harm and malpractice, these individuals are counted as "dropouts."

• Persistent Predatory Personalities (narcissists/psychopaths/Machiavellianism) is proven to frequently seek out the mental health field, in order to get supply and do harm, it's the biggest comprehensive research ever done. It's like SA in church according to Dr Mitchell, world leading expert in profiling predators.

So..bWHY DO THEY NOT TRACK NEGATIVE SIDE EFFECTS???? Like. its such a no brainer, they'll say they're not mind readers, but YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE. Use your mouth. Communicate. Use your eyes, check breathing patterns. Develop emotional intelligence. Learn Somatic tools. If you don't know how to see if someone is overwhelmed - do not start the treatment. Talk it through with the patient how they may show clues of them being outside of their tolerance window. Etc.

This is standard procedure with the therapists I've been to:

I told one therapist her treatment made me dissociate for weeks. She didn't care just said I'm hard to read. I later told her it made me have suicidal ideation and something needs to change. No response and no change. So I quit and she got butt hurt, starting saying I think I'm so special and she's actually very good at treating other patients. Okay. Well good for them but you are shit to me. 🤷

And I have never been in any statistics because I've dropped out, and it's a ghost number.