What are your thoughts & experiences of therapy, either as a client or therapist?

As an autistic person, I used to want to be "normal", until I realised that "normal" seems to mean blind compliance, a lack of imagination, and a level of moral flexibility that borders on sociopathic. It irritates me that so many people seem to view our man-made systems as unchangeable monoliths.

"What's depressing you?" "All the homelessness, poverty and preventable socially engineered human misery all around me." "Oh, you're just thinking negative thoughts. Here,have some pills!"

"Is Therapy Under Capitalism Just Systemised Gaslighting?" As someone who has studied social psychology: yes. For anyone interested in reading further, I recommend anything coming from the neurodiversity paradigm.

i've thought i needed therapy for a long time but the paraphrased quote "it's not healthy to be healthy in a sick world" is something that feels far more valid than just trying to be happy in a broken world which has been a major contributor to leading me to avoid going into therapy. edit: ive been thrown off by the yugopnik voice over[

As a therapist i try to never ignore the structural systems, intergenerational inheritances, poverty and economic vulnerability from housing to food banks etc as integral parts of the problems people face. One of the biggest problems with the psychodynamic models and CBT in general too is the idea of locating the source of all problems as originating within the individual rather than using a more accurate wider lens and exploring so much of what you speak about in this video. Really good video! Thank you! ✌🏿👊🏿

Needing therapy to get over the trauma of bad therapists is too relatable.

A huge issue with therapy is that nobody knows what we are doing. The field of psychology is young, about one of the most sophisticated structures we are aware of, grotesquely underfunded, much of the research is either very poor from the outset or doesnt survive replication. So anyone who proclaims themselves an expert therapist is kidding themselves. This has led to the treatment becoming something of a statistics game, what framework of treatment can cost the least and have the highest rate of success. (Which is why youll see CBT everywhere and for damn near every thing, at least in public healthcare.) Ostensibly that seems fine, and maybe it is, maybe its the best we can do without a lot more funding and a firm scientific foundation, but the reality of it is that huge percentages of people who dont fit in to the broadest categories will leave essentially untreated. I dont think this is acknowledged or admitted to by many therapists, and there is often little flexibility in the system to even attempt to tackle the problem.

Much of what brings us to therapy is actually caused by capitalism's sadistic coercion of the working class. In a society where all people are welcomed participants, it's hard to imagine a deep need for therapy such as we've had in the last 100 years. The goal of therapy in our capitalist society is to convince you that your unhappiness is caused by your inadequacies. Gaslighting is the exact correct term for therapy today. Well done!

Therapy just made me believe that there was something fundamentally wrong with my brain that I needed to fix. Like I was a car and the therapist was the mechanic. When I realized that most of my emotional reactions to the things going on around me are actually very normal and human and a sign that my brain was working correctly, I finally began to stop hating myself that much.

Therapy cost too much I tried to see someone she was charging 750 a session. I’ve seen a handful of therapist over my years. One I found last years was a low income therapist (for poor folks like me) who would cut the 60 minute session down by 30 minutes and charge my card full price. They all say the same thing, “oh just focus on something else.” “Breathe” it’s like they’re reciting a script. I feel so invalidated whenever I go to therapy like my problems aren’t a big deal. I’ve been trying to get tested for autism for almost 10 years now and I keep getting dismissed had one therapist tell me “it’s very costly.” Another therapist saying “what we would be the point in getting an autism diagnosis?” Another one said I don’t appear to be autistic, and dismissed me after talking to me only for a few minutes. The place I work talks about the mentally ill in a sarcastic tone, they’re constantly mocked behind their backs. And it’s left a very bitter taste in my mouth and left me looking at the whole “mental health care” system as nothing more than a circus. Sorry for going on a tangent, great video by the way, you’re very well spoken!

Here in Brazil we have a program called Sameca (Saude Mental Camarada), which means Comrade Mental Health. Its a program led and organized by a brazilian socialist organization called Soberana. It takes into account not only personal/individual subjects into account but also the societal/systemic questions, passing through a socialist (Marxist-Leninist) lens. Just thought of leaving this here for whoever's interested!

I've been in therapy for 13 years, the entirety of my adult life. I was diagnosed with severe depression at 17 years old and started therapy and anti-depressants. It took 12 years for me to realise what the problem was: I am an autistic trans person being forced to fit into an allistic cis world. None of my multiple therapists ever explored or asked about this, none of them realised that after continuous incidents of self **** or s******s that something deeper was happening. I had to push for my own neurodivergent diagnosis and explore my gender on my own at 28. I'm still mad. I'm still grieving. I have a queer and neurodivergent trained therapist now but i wonder if it is really helping. Is it placating me rather than healing me? How do i reconcile the harmful decisions I've made to fit in and please others, including my therapists, with the person i am and always been? I'm figuring out what it means to be me and I'm still not sure.

As an unemployed chemist and chemical engineer living at my parents house I agree. Therapists try to frame me as somebody who isn't willing to look for a job. I explain that I've spent 4 years looking for a job and recruiters simply never help me foster a relationship with the hiring manager at a chemistry or chemical engineering job that I qualify for and that career experts consider full employment. The therapist says I'm just not looking again, completely ignoring everything I just explained.

I have felt a gut feeling mistrust of therapy, and eventually i realized they are trained to get people to be a "functioning" member of a society that damaged the person in the first place. Part of that too I suppose is that the people in my life who expressed a desire to help me have ended up doing more damage than good. Good intentions aren't worth much.

It seems that capitalism is a very large part of the problem

as someone who is neurodivergent, ive found traditonal therapy and the cesspool of most self help advice on youtube to be useless. it wasnt until i started reading self help stuff from a neurodivergent lens where things started to change and make sense. (also there are some great neurodivergent therapists out there)

I recently had a traumatic experience in therapy and had to find a discord channel to get me out of the crisis. This lady has spent months building up my self esteem. She was doing a good job. I felt like I was about to turn a corner. I became more confident in the sessions. I noticed her demeanor change. She became less supportive and more confrontational. This change occurs over about two sessions until I'm telling her about my lack of friends and she literally says "that's shitty" and then mocks my voice while repeating what I just told her... I'm still unsure what happened and why she did this but everything we had been working towards for months went right out the window and I was severely SI for about two weeks.

When I was also abused I said similar things about being angry and frustrated with the prison industrial complex to my trauma therapist. He laughed at me and said I was funny. Thanks for speaking on this

I've had terrible experiences with spiritual healers as well as therapists. At least with therapists and mental health counselors there is a licensing board to account to. New age healers and other con artists will never face accountability for their harm and grifts.

Mental health care basically doesn't work for me. The NHS where I live only does mindfulness or cbt, both of which have been contraindicated for autistic people, but they just ignore that. Cbt is just "you are thinking wrong stop thinking wrong" which doesn't help when you know your anxiety isn't reasonable but that doesn't stop it, or when it is reasonable. Help for my eating disorder has amounted to a dietician telling me "try to eat more" .

I really enjoyed this video because my experience with therapy has been somehwat similar. No matter how well intentioned professionals are, they just can't relate to my problems. They tend to be from an upper middle class background, and mostly emphasize that I focus on things that I can control. However, when you're poor, there really isn't too much you can control and downplaying systemic factors is not helpful. Though they've been helpful in simply just listening to me vent, I always felt worse after therapy sessions and even more isolated.

I use activism as therapy because actual therapy isn’t designed to challenge social norms that badly affects people - only coping mechanisms.

I get the sense that the main value of therapy lies in having someone to talk to without obligations/risk of social cost. Therapy didn't work for me, in big part because my therapists tendencies to indirectly manoeuvre around systemic issues. Focusing on myself and breaking out of obsessive thought spirals about problems out of my control WAS an important part of getting better, but I couldn't do that without acknowledging the problems I saw in the world as real. The therapists I've worked with have actively worked against that acknowledgement, hindering my progress. What ended up working was saying to myself "yes, the world is messed up, but paralysing myself with dread over that doesn't solve any problems, so I should redirect my attention."

I appreciate that you mention patriarchy and oppression. There is so much to say about that. When you sit in a room with a therapist who is a white American male, he has no freaking idea what it's like to be a woman, an immigrant, oppressed, tired, exploited. He tells you that you have all the power in the world to change your circumstances (as soon as you become normal, of course).

Everytime I’ve gone to therapy in the past 15 years they’d either try to convince me my shitty job wasn’t effecting me, or they were trying to convince me to get a shitty job.

I once knew a woman who purposely used the system of psychology to get away with abuse and exert control. She would read up about a mental disorder and then make up stories that had the themes of those behaviors about her children or a vulnerable person and then threaten her children with arrest if they didn't corroborate her story. Any time one of her children tried to talk about the abuse, she would invalidate them by simply stating they had this or that mental disorder and therefor nothing they said was valid. As a result, nearly all the people legally responsible for reporting the abuse did not do so. In retaliation, she would then have them sent away to mental institutions as punishment for having the gal to talk about what was going on. As a result of her and the institutions "treatment" these children did develop mental disorders such as PTSD. The woman responsible for all this, however, was never diagnosed with having any mental disorder probably because she seemed very normal to those who did not know her well. This is why I favor a more scientific, neuroscience and social environment approach to mental illness.

⌚Timestamps: 00:00: Introduction 01:04: The Privatisation of Pain 06:11: Be Normal 09:34: Insanity 12:35: Prison 16:29: Mind/Body 20:41: Transformation 24:30: Psychology of the Oppressed 27:24: The Trauma Industry 31:40 - Conclusion: Beyond the Sofa

The best therapy advice I ever got was, "Stop being so hard on yourself," and surprisingly, that worked for me. I will say, disappearing too much into system blaming is a sure fire way to prevent your own happiness. It's all valid, but if you do it too much, you don't focus on anything that you are actually in control of. You won't accept that you have the power to unionize your workplace, organize your community, start/join a protest, bug the hell out of your representatives, build power so that you can scare the hell out of your representatives, etc. lol All of these things got me paid better, started improving my connection to reality and my general life conditions. Hitting 30 also helped. Everything is a nightmare in your 20s.

Healing touch is insanely powerful, when i first started dating my partner held the hand i cut a lot when i was really depressed and started rubbing loving circles on it, he didnt know that i had a history of self harm until i told him afterwards, but it released a tension i had there that i never knew i had been holding ❤️ the mind may warp and forget, but the body remembers.

I’ve had pretty good, so so and so appalling I need therapy from them. The last one was very dangerous. I got away but I’m still unpacking it. Oh and the super religious one who was nice but useless

This is so incredibly validating, thank you so much for this. I started therapy around 15, and went through about 10 horrible therapists in my short time from 15-21 years old. In that time, I was consistently told "just keep attending, just keep going, we'll find the right therapist," yet there was always a cognitive dissonance I had about that notion- how long should I have to be going before I get better? How long before my issues are actually addressed through my minority experience, not through the lens of the norm? Therapy has failed a lot of us in these systems, and I relate a lot to that sentiment, "I feel I am the sane one living in an insane world." Honestly.

This is a very thoughtful video... I especially love the quote talking about how it isn't actually a good thing to be well-adjusted in a profoundly sick word. That honestly makes me feel better about a lot of the existential dread I feel a lot of the time 🤣 I honestly really feel for therapists, too. They are kind of in a no-win scenario for diagnosis. You are taught to use the science available to you, but it's hard to know when you're pathologizing who people are because the field is so young.

Me personally , don’t understand how therapy works for others in a general sense. I understand that for severe trauma , therapy can help. But, when everyone says “everyone needs therapy to become a better person” I just don’t understand. People outline “therapy helped me become better with everything by asking the right questions and digging deeper to the origins of my thoughts” and I always feel like …. I do that on my own? When I feel something and don’t like it, I reflect on why I feel it , where that feeling came from. I am concerned that there are people that need an external person to have basic self reflection. It makes me think we either are one of two things: One, our society has drained self reflection and self awareness from people to the point where even to ask the most basic rhetoricals about themselves , people need it instigated by an external person or- Two, we have successfully convinced people that they cannot self reflect, in order to make money off of their society - induced handicap with self awareness. And im not saying all this in order to belittle others. But it has made me very concerned that some of my generation (maybe many actually) have become unhealthily reliant on therapy, like they are now unable to help themselves on their own. For instance , let’s say I get mad when someone calls me a certain word or name. And it makes me frustrated and demoralized. I can work in my mind, backwards, to unravel the origin of that word triggering that feeling, all the way back to an action that occurred when I was a kid. This is just an example. But I feel as though this over reliance on therapy is emotionally handicapping others, rather than emotionally empowering them.

In capitalism, it's impossible to be a good moral person, unless you are willing to be broke or homeless. This society rewards evil and sociopathic behaviour. Only those people succeed, at least when it comes to wealth.

Hey, I am at the moment studying psychology to become a therapist myself. I enjoyed your thoughts about the subject a lot. In my environment, I also meet many people who struggle to find good therapists. Sadly it is the reality that there are not enough (good) therapists. Therefore I am always looking for answers to my (everlasting) question of becoming a good therapist. One of the answers to that question is understanding. Videos like yours where you share your experience and thoughts help tremendously in creating this understanding. Also, they inspire me too stay open about the experiences of others and to never invalidate them. Thank you so much for making this video. Also an uplifting bit of information, my university is very critical of the current mental health structure in our country (the Netherlands). A lot of things you mentioned are also talked about in our university. So rest assured that a lot of ideas you spoke of are still allowed freedom of expression at the place where every psychologist starts their career.

It’s either gaslighting or someone vetting everything you say like you’re the best person ever

Therapists are some of the most dangerous people in society I believe, similar to security guards. Ironically the most predatory people in our society are drawn to these professions.

Short answer: yes. The only way I got "better" is by fully and deeply understanding the mechanisms at play. Realizing I'm fncked and it's not my fault. Accepting reality, my reality. From a position of understanding and acceptance a person can figure out what to do, how to feel, how to be. The mental health *industry* in general, seems to be a mechanism to keep the slave class docile and deluded.

Those kinds of videos are so important. It really helps me feel less alone. As much as I recognize the benefits of psychotherapy and the push for mental health awareness, I have to admit that sometimes there is this underlying assumption that all you need to do to get better is "get therapy" and everything will be fixed. For me, it created some very heavy feeling of alienation when all the therapy I tried were pretty useless for solving my situation. But the entire time, society treats therapy as a panacea for mental illness and when you tell them it’s just not working for some people, there’s this uncomfortable sensation of just being ignored. I often feel like they are treating me like I‘m the problem for not making it work and the entire response I get is just an awkward shrug of the shoulder and tell me to try another therapist until it clicks. I know this all anyone can say in this situation but still, it hurts a lot when even the solution that’s being given is useless for you. It just makes you feel hopeless

I miss my good therapist.... I need therapy for how the others after treated me. They cut me off from care without warning. Sent me a letter i never got. No more meds for me. I'm too crazy to deserve help apparently....

You're very wise, intelligent, and perceptive. I can connect with this a lot, which helps me feel a bit less isolated in this insane world. It takes great courage to share our most intimate thoughts and experiences like this, which is why so many people opt to just suppress everything and go with the flow of the insanity.

I read the other day a point that said "therapy is an individual response to systemic problems" and that really changed my life honestly. I mean I think therapy can really help you unpack why you behave in certain ways by analyzing your history and how it might have affected you, but it can't solve, for example, growing up in a society that expects you to behave in this or that way. eta: great video man, I just sat here going "yes! this exactly yeeesss!" the whole time lmao

Therapists are not actually general practitioners of mental wellness but highly specific specialists for addressing "I wish to no longer experience [emotion] when [thing] happens." Not "I want [thing] to stop, or be different." "I want thing to keep happening on, I just want to feel differently about it." It's like we're making orthopedic surgeons treat diabetes because it affects the feet.

In response to the pinned comment, I've had a lot of success from therapy for my OCD. OCD was kicking my ass and I nearly lost my life to it. Therapy and medicine turned that around. However even though it worked for me I still understand that therapy and many other seemingly good institutions are products of and thus reinforcements for the Capitalist system. Just as with everything, Therapy cannot reach it's full potential as long as Capitalism exists.

I think it’s very complicated! Therapy and therapists are constantly evolving. I was trained in person-centred counselling, which btw is a modality where there is no expert!, but leaned into psychotherapy and transpersonal (inc. psychedelics!). More recently, I’ve moved into somatic processing. This profession is a process. If you get the right job you can explore your process, as opposed to being forced into E.g. doing nothing but CBT. Because we’re human beings too, we tend to be on the same journey as the client, in personal growth and development. There’s something beautiful about that - the meeting of two imperfect/flawed human beings. It is normally the client who expects perfection, in my experience, not the therapist. You also get clients who expect you to fix them. Well, as a person-centred therapist, I value client autonomy. So you get clients leaving early because you “weren’t very good at your job” or didn’t like you because you challenged them to think for themselves or the way they are. I read some of the comments on videos like this regarding bad experiences and take them with a pinch of salt. When someone reflects something back to you that’s uncomfortable, you project onto them. “They’re bad” “I need to get rid of them and get a new one”. We do this all of the time in our relationships. Relationships are mirrors! And therapy, at least person-centred, is all about the relationship. It’s a vulnerable place to be - even as the therapist! But it’s worth persevering. Sometimes you don’t get a good match - and that’s ok! No need to demonise therapy in general. The people I see moving from one therapist to the next and claiming that they were “all bad” are usually people who are afraid to face themselves. They project onto the therapist. Yes, of course there are incompetent therapists. But if it’s a theme, you need to explore why. Another point is comparing different kinds of therapies. I believe you need to figure out what the client needs and that’s not always easy. But every modality has proven to be useful for many people. The impact of some therapies are less obvious than others, and some take more time than others. Some might seem more impactful because they were received when you were more open or further along on your own journey. Also, different therapies are useful at different times of your life or points in your journey. The biggest indicators of change are the client’s willingness to open up, and the relationship between the client and the therapist (so the onus is largely on the client). Just to add, finally, that I work for a charity in the UK. We offer 20 sessions, and we work in a person-centred way, with other modalities thrown in as and when they’re required. It’s the most rewarding job! You never stop learning and you never get bored. I’m also a client, and I don’t want a therapist who says all of the right things. I want one who’s real, imperfect and authentic. What would I learn and how would it serve me in life if I can only get on with a “perfect” person, who doesn’t ever trigger me and shares all of my believes?

Like everything in healthcare, therapy is meant to treat but not cure. You need those repeat customers! This video hits that topic directly! Also VO from Thought Slime, yes!

There is a problem that I've experienced where a therapist can't, almost by definition of their profession, accept that you might not get "better".

In want to throw my own two cents into the mix, I'm an alter who's had very bad experiences with therapy. I've consistently found that I, and my fellow system-mates, have had to explain to mental health professionals about what D.I.D. actually is, and about what being an alter is really like to some rather egregious extents that have very much made me question the extent to which therapists are actually taught about those of us with rarer and/or more complex mental differences. My system-family and I would talk about alterphobia, patriarchy, LGBTQ+ struggles, and upset at the status quo with them only to be largely dismissed and ignored. We've found many a time where we'd just rant to them about struggles just to have them nod along and not say anything of any real value or to invalidate us largely on the basis of us being alters and them refusing to understand what that's like. So much of the struggles that various members of our system-family have dealt with aren't things that can be internally solved. Things that we don't have individualistic power over. But suggestions about how to deal with our struggles were always about dealing with the internal and westernized warping of mindfulness, as if one's struggles were less about the people and the societal and capitalistic structures that hurt them, and more about their unideal reactions to it. For our system-family, mental health professionals ended up causing more harm than help. Slowly, the members of our system collectively realized that traditional therapy wasn't for us. That traditional therapy was for those who were of more accepted identities and dealt with more accepted struggles than us, and that traditional therapy focused so much more on supposed harm-reduction than actual help. Finding community spaces, befriending kind people, recognizing the evils and extents of capitalism, and most importantly, relying upon one another, has helped our system-family far more than traditional therapy ever has. So many folks tout traditional therapy as a necessity for good mental health, which is frustrating, 'cause it so obviously ain't, and that viewpoint only encourages capitalism-though that's beside my main point. Traditional therapy is a method for getting help that works for some people, especially those who fit the westernized ideal and are more comfortable with the status quo, but it doesn't for everybody. For people like me and my family, there are far kinder, far less expensive methods of healing, not merely the healing of yourself, but of the world around you.

I never saw the problem of "gaslighting" in therapy as something FROM theraphy. To me, the therapists were just bad at their jobs, and I had to find a new therapist. That's because I felt like "thinking positive" was terrible, as a lot of my problems came from burying my feelings, and it was "just the same." After this video and the comments, I've never been so grateful to my therapist. I knew she was good, but now I feel like I could cry because of it, lol. She does not ignore any of it, and because of her, I've been able to realize that some of the problems I have come precisely from being raised with the pressures of being a woman. I knew that before, but in a more general way. I've been with her for about 4 months, and I'm really grateful for her work.

I never trusted the capitalist society to solve my mental problems. It "only" took me a decade or so to fix myself, while half isolated from the world. I feel so much better now having broken out of my shell of alienation and all that. My conviction is that, for me personally, this path that I took would only have been possible in one of the Scandinavian nations that I live in , thankfully.

therapy is a tool of the punitive system that serves to surveil and control the population. there are *some* therapists that do work try and help address the systemic concerns their clients face tho. for example clinical social workers are trained to address clients as wholistic individuals existing in the many systems that put them in their positions, but even clinical social workers operate under and within these punitive systems. that is why as a social worker in training i refuse to be a clinical social worker, my goal is to work at the community level and/or the macro level. i want to help work with communities to change existing systems.

My first therapist I saw as a minor was very good, she listened, respected my preferred name and pronouns, and just let me talk honestly about how badly the religion I was born into had affected my childhood.

Therapy has the potential to be very transformative, but it needs to be protected from the worst of Capitalism or even completely freed from it. My personal experience with therapy was amazing. It was a depth psychological group therapy. We all learned something from each other, the therapist was there to give us the tools but the main learning part came in getting to know each other, understanding each other and trying out our techniques together. Also it was a therapy funded by the public healthcare system which removed so much pressure from us and the therapist. I can truly be lucky to have been in this kind of therapy

My first therapist tried cbt for like 2 sessions then gave up. My second (current) therapist is the sweetest person ever and helped me through a lot of self esteem issues and self destructive behaviors.

Your videos are so unbelievably good. I'm very glad I subscribed. The quality of these latest videos is honestly unmatched in my very long KZfaq experience. Maybe I just think a lot like you, idk. I myself didn't like therapy at all and haven't gone back. My biggest problem was that I needed somebody to listen to me but more often the therapist just felt like an academic robot listening only for keywords and regurgitating statistically likely solutions which never remotely fit my circumstances. It also didn't help that I had to be very careful not to mention that I was suicidal because every time I did so I regretted it (when police were involved, when the local hospital was involved, when the helpline was involved and even when just my therapist was involved-four separate occasions). I learned painfully slowly that I should never mention that I was/am suicidal, and that realization made me feel all the more alone in my struggles. As it turns out, therapy is so volatile in quality it can actively make you *more* likely to kill yourself. Pretty ironic haha. I don't know the history so it's only my own theorycrafting, but I've always assumed pastors and shamans served the role of local therapist for villages and cities. At the very least, an emotional ear. I only got this idea in my head after my first good time on weed though when I realized the emotionally therapeutic usefulness of psychedelic drugs for some people. Then the stereotype of the shaman always high on some natural incense started making logical sense to me as a glue for a village's emotional well-being. But anyway, very good video. I'll be rewatching this one.

i gave up on therapy. i’m autistic and i’ve only ever been gaslit, misunderstood, and harmed by therapists (even neurodivergent ones). im so tired of people telling me to go to therapy because “it’s the only thing that will help”. like no, having a community of consistent and supportive people who understand and love me would help me far more than therapy. i won’t even get into how much the world we live in impacts my mental health because i would go on forever. therapy has never and will never be beneficial for me personally.

To be fair you can say that about most fields. Health is a bandaid for capitalist exploitation and erosion of the body, and therapy is a bandaid of the capitalistic erosion of the mind. It‘s a thing needed in a world where our minds are actively eroded. And I can say that coming from the field you are critisizing here. It is very true. And while therapy in my eyes is still fundamentally good if done properly ofc, but it would be willfully ignorant to blame the patient for their issues or shortcomings. But as a therapist, you are tasked to help the person live well inside the system. Not to overthrow it cause that is impossibly difficult and unrealistic. Doesn‘t mean therapists are fundamentally pro system. But it is difficult to help people when the thing hurting them is so difficult to shake up. It‘s more like damage control than actual fixing of things. And that is sad but also our reality.

My therapist told me she thought I had a demon

I only started going to my therapist because I was being pressured by my aunts. Then when I start going to my therapist my aunt (who is a stereotypical mean girl-to-doctor) starts talking to them over the phone and they start being dismissive of my issues and chuckle a bit at my problems. Then they started asking leading questions directing me away from my concerns or feelings. The title of this video honestly is a bit of relief to see being talked about , especially when you know how gaslighting works

I love hearing the voices of others who I respect deeply

I really love your content.. The part at 13:00 really resonated. I've been suicidal since I was about 9 or 10 years old, and have always been a loner with low empathy, which made me reactive, reclusive, and spiteful in a way that made me obsessed with violence, not necessarily perpetuating it, but observing, cataloguing, stomaching, surviving, treating, any manner relating to these. When I was pulled out of school at 12 or 13 after a history of poor conduct dating back to when i was a toddler, my grandma said something like " If you aren't careful, they're going to send you to the psych ward. I don't want to lose you." I still can't stomach the thought of going to therapy, and I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to release some of my deepest secrets, even thinking about them feels dangerous, like someone's going to find out who I really am. I probably wouldn't have even thought of that specific event had you not mentioned it. I'm really happy to hear about your spiritual progress too. I hope one day I can make as much progress as you have.

Such a brilliant segment 👏🏾👏🏾💐💐. So refreshing to see a multilayered analysis of the psychotherapy industrial complex.

This was so good! I feel like you elaborated on a lot of things the little voice in the back of my head said. I think I had some pretty different experiences with therapy but not many that I would describe as positive. I feel like everybody had their one thing. One guy was all meditation, one was all medication, one straight up said there's nothing I can do for you until you go 3 months without smoking weed, drinking is fine, whatever, no problem at all with alcohol. Then there's the religious nutjobs. One that suggested a bubble bath when I felt like hurting myself and strongly suggested that every bad thing that ever happened to me was actually my own fault. Woven through all of modern life is the assumption that if you're unhappy about anything, that emotion is the problem. The most progressive solution is allowing you to feel the feeling but not express it of course. Maybe in private if you can afford privacy. Most therapists just go straight to "I have a pill for that" and just immediately write you off if you don't want the drugs. Like you're refusing cancer treatment, implying that a thought or feeling is a sickness to be remedied, a mental virus that requires the scouring obliteration you can only get from american pharmaceutical conglomerates. Sorry I'm just ranting now but the thing that always killed it for me was the unshakable recognition in the back of my mind that I was paying a stranger to essentially pretend to be my friend for 45 minutes a week. What an absolute nightmare. 8 billion people on this rock and I have to pay someone who can't even pretend to care most of the time for 45 minutes once a week. The darkest, loneliest moments always come when I'm with other people, from moments like that, where you reach out for help and the world reaches out to take your credit card.

The struggles i had were very much external. Even though I had anger issues steming mostly from my ADHD. The fact is that the difficulty of attainting finacial aid for college and the difficulty of getting a job that would pay enough, let alone if I could keep it long enough, and if I even have any ability of getting another one right after being let go, were just too much for me to bare. Despite my efforts to learn and improve my abilities in resume writing and interviews, getting an enormous amounts of rejections along with the fight or flight response I got from dropping out of college because of lack of finacial assistance turned me absolutly hopeless. My standards for a job were really low too and the fact I couldn't get that speaks volumes. I'm going through therapy and medication just so I won't feel so awful but I don't think it's enough. I just wish the job search wasn't so god awfully horrid. I wish going to college didn't have a cost to it either. I wanted to be an engineer so badly but I couldn't afford to. I hate this economy and the economic power structures in society so much.

post 1950s mental healthcare: individualize, pathologize, emphasize doing "the work," which never ends. or, just a reflection of the economic conditions.

this is actually pretty well timed considering its something id been thinking about and seeing other people talk about their experiences online with the good and bad on therapy. happy you found some things that work for you. it varies for everyone yeah. and sometimes i worry about the line between whats best to work on individually and whats stifling radical thought or stifling me as an individual.

It's not a sane or even sensible world we live in. We have normalized dysfunction. Therapy just puts you back into that game. Being who you are and that coming through awareness is to me the only path to take. It's okay to be different. Peace requires norhing really materially. I reject that it is truly patriarchy though. It is very few men (and women as well) that are the real power. All those labels are thrown out to cause conflict with everyone not in that small socioeconomic group.

Im forming as a therapist but my goal is to stay conscious of all the material conditions and the environment. Is 100% real that therapy needs more social auto critique

Thank you Kathrin for another great video. In my life so far I've only had one experience with therapy, which was largely positive. One thing I did notice, though, was that my therapist made it clear that this was not the place to discuss things that are wrong with society etc, but that we were only going to talk about me as an individual who needs to keep functioning and going to work. She did help me to achieve that. I think it's important and safest to be in a state where we can function well enough to avoid being pathologized and institutionalized, so that we can use our time to organize and make the change we want to see.

A psychologist or therapist cant fix Shit Life Syndrome, its just an expensive bandaid

A common phrase I'm hearing throughout my therapy journey is you can't take on societies problems before you solve your own, I understand the rational, but also no

I always approached psychology as teaching you tools to enable you to be less acutely distressed so you can action changes to reduce the impact of external issues in your life. I've been very fortunate to have ADHD and mental health treatments that focussed on thriving within a terrible situation. My psych literally told me "my aim is to reduce your distress - in not your agony aunt, and I want you to know that your problems are real but you can't fix the whole world until you stop crying"

Seems like I've been super lucky with my current therapist. He's never invalidating, and he supports me when I complain about systemic racism and wider social issues that affect my life. He doesn't spend time trying to make me think differently. I'm planning on changing therapists because I need a more structured approach. But I'm honestly more appreciative of him after reading these comments. I'm really shocked and saddened by how many bad therapists are out there.

I appreciate the points made in this video. There's a lot of care and nuance in your words and the way you say them. I found this very comforting and the sentiments ring genuine, honest and full of concern. You're not "selling" me an idea nor are you doing a bit. I understand how hard it must be to say the things you're saying. I will surely keep coming back to this video in different times through my life, because it makes me consider and think through things in an empathetic way. Thank you, Kathrin.

Idk I feel like my therapist enables my bad behavior. So I just don’t go anymore. I can make bad choices on my own for FREE

Really great ideas here, glad it was shared on the therapyabuse subreddit. I unfortunately grew up with a narcissistic counselor as a mother and lived through the reality how playing counselor can be a huge power dynamic, as the dynamic says all the problems are in you, not me. Also there are almost no prevention mechanisms to stop narcissists or sociopaths from becoming therapists. Many famous therapists are theorized to have NPD. The drive up be famous can be part of that disorder Note that now we're in a time where individual therapy and learned helplessness is the norm. There have been counter currents, including family systems theory. A great example of what could work is Open Dialogue in Finland which morphed into Peer supported Open Dialogue in England. The focus is on no power differential and treating someone holistically. I'd also shout out to Bruce E Levine as he's a Maverick I love

Very relatable. Therapy has helped me in some ways, but has caused me a lot of personal trauma, mainly caused by the structure of society and incomplete data from studies. It always feels like they tell people to do some form of therapy or take a certain supplement, and then 2-3 years later it is debunked by other studies. It feels like mental health researchers are always chasing trends and influenced by media too much. Thank you for making this

My first therapist was my most helpful. But I think most of the help came from me being young (17) and not having much language to understand or identify the issues I have. That therapy would never solve my underlying issues but at least managed to help me build coping mechanisms. I was also very fortunate that she suggested early on that I was on the spectrum. I was in denial at the time, but remembering that further down the line helped me confidently self dx later. Understanding myself through that context alleviated a lot of the guilt and shame I had about myself. I haven't had any luck with talk therapy since. it hurts me more often than it helps by being put in a situation where I'm liable to be misunderstood in the worst setting possible. I've considered doing somatic therapy as I've become more conscious of how my body holds trauma even when I am unable to mentally recognize it. I really resonated with intellectualizing your trauma further alienating yourself from your body. I'm in the same hole. it often makes me physically ill because I can't recognize when I've gone way past burnout.

you know the feeling when someone verbalises something that is in you but has not been formed into words? watching your video made me feel that so many times, i was clapping behind the screen like a seal! thank you for sharing and speaking our your point of view

Therapy helped me tremendously. I had PTSD, a teeny tiny ED and depression. Now after 4 years of therapy with a change of therapists in the middle because the first one showed some alarming signs of acephobia... I can happily say I'm pretty much cured from PTSD 🎉 Maybe I'll be fine in 8 years or so 😅

First video i watched of this channel, didn't know what to expect because the thumbnails are kinda attention-grabbing, which is mostly a red flag, but even youtubers gotta eat so I can't really blame ya. This was surprisingly high quality, and i very much enjoyed, very reassuring to hear all this from someone else, living in a very patriarchic and nationalist country kinda means I'm the only one criticizing therapy for these exact reasons. It gets lonely being told to go to therapy, after i was in it for like a year with what amounts to negative results. And not for something big or anything, just being constantly anxious from my "economic circumstances" and a shit situation at home. Thanks for the work you're doing, wish you well.

i remember dr k saying something like you need to lie to yourself and believe things are better than they are

These are the main criticisms of the Latin American Social Psychology, the understanding of how systematic issues and the capitalist system influence mental health. Some authors like Martin Baro even say that the role of a psychologist is to raise political awareness and empowering

Nice! Erich Fromm wrote a lot of good stuff on this in the 50’s. Only more relevant now. Your insights and sources are 💯

Some are psychopaths. So they will screw up your mind even more, and you're paying them... Some of them are psychopaths.

For some reason when one of your quoted thinkers said " analgesic" I yelled back - "analgesic! What a pervert...." to no one. I think I need therapy

I haven't yet watched the video but recently in therapy really felt like gaslighting. I have terrible trauma and that woman kept saying 1- it's my fault 2- it's somebody else's fault therefore it's my fault to have literal physical symptoms of trauma because i'm not forgiving 3- i should be feeling like laying in a bed of roses even if i don't have a job and i depend solely in one person. Worrying about that person possibly dying before i get a job is stupid 🙄 i got another therapist.

I've been in therapy my whole life. I'm 42. My mother worked as a therapist for 30 years. Here are my tips: - do not trust anyone, ever - you have to fight for yourself in this life, nobody else will fight for you - avoid people who try to mess with your head, upset you, criticize you, etc. - prioritize your peace and your health - working with the disabled and the elderly will give you a huge appreciation for everything - focus on building up your resume and skills, education - If you want to be loved you have to be loving - respect yourself because other people will enjoy disrespecting you

Okay my detailed thoughts now, part by part. 1. Privitization of pain. Just like you, I find it kind of baffling how we have such high degrees of mental illness within our society and yet every person who goes into therapy is treated as an anomoly. People think that *the person* needs to fixed, not the systemic issues that caused them to develop mental illness(es) in the first place. Of course I see that some people really benefit from psychiatric medication- but I can't help but think how many people are essentially sedated with antidepressants - disidentified from their pain so that they can continue being a good little cog in the machine. So that they won't think about revolutionizing and are essentially chemically lobotomized in a way... Same with ADHD medication. Now that I no longer work and don't have so much stress exasperating my symptoms, I can take life as slowly as I need to and I noticed that I don't really struggle with ADHD anymore? Yes, I have executive dysfunction- but I recognize that is just me being low on dopamine, that I should do something to recharge. Because I now have the time and space to care for myself, to be compassionate with myself... I am really doing well, when before I was always on the verge of, if not in, a state of depression and burn-out. If anything, I feel like I am contributing more to society this way. Doing volunteerwork, engaging with the local politics, making artwork/being on stage, and being of great mental and emotional support to a wide network of people. I can see the way my now vibrant presence, inspires others to be more true to themselves - relighting the flame of passion in their heart- and that provides me with much more purpose and joy than anything ever has before. To continue on this- I feel like the nuclear family as a standard, in combination with non-walkable cities and no 'third places', has created profound damage to our social structures in ways that is invisible to most (because this is now considered normal). The social isolation that comes from that, is a profound breeding ground for emotional abuse and neglect, without hope of local support. Humans are social, communcal creatures. Children are supposed to be raised by an entire village- so that the parents can get enough time to themselves to recharge and the children can learn how to be a good person from a multitude of examples! 2. Be Normal. As a fellow AFAB neurodivergent person, I really do feel this. What was considered normal for others, was profoundly ill-fitting and unsuitable for me. I still think the 'read-between-the-lines' standard that neurotypical people seem to have for communication and all the manipulation that seems so normalized, is absolutely stupid. Just say what you mean and talk about it if you feel there is an issue. Honesty (worded respectfully and with a gentleness where possible) is a kindness and helps people set healthy boundaries for their interpersonal relationships! 3. Insanity. I don't have to add much here, other than that whilst I didn't know that about Eichmann, it doesn't surprise me one bit. Malignant Normalcy is a term I am also glad to have learnt. 3. Insanity. I don't have to add much here, other than that whilst I didn't know that about Eichmann, it doesn't surprise me one bit. Malignant Normalcy is a term I am also glad to have learnt. 4. Prison. Whilst this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the points you made during this section, I thought of how therapy essentially pathologizes and dehumanizes a lot of human behavior. Way too quickly nowadays, friends will tell you to go to therapy- or cut you off with a "save that for your therapist". I think this is because people aren't taught how to help others emotionally regulate themselves, or how to sort out their thoughts/feelings- when that should be, imo, a basic human skill. One that improves your own quality of life, as well as that of the people around you. In a way, they paywalled human connection and it's fucking weird! What I see as the solution for a lot of mental illnesses, is a deep sense of safety. Whilst that is in some ways really hard to obtain in a world like ours (especially depending on your circumstances), it can be done: This kind of safety can be obtained when one has their basic needs met and belongs to a bigger social group that will care for them, as well as allow them to express themselves authentically. Having built such a group, I witnessed first hand what profound positive transformative qualities it can have on people- for myself and everyone belonging to the group. 5. Mind/Body. Gosh yeah, I can relate a lot to your experience. Only therapies that involved my body were ever any use to me. Other ones just made me more dysfunctional- adding more overthinking and helping me dissociate from my feelings (which brought me further from home in terms of processing my trauma). I feel like this is not just a problem in therapy but in the medical field at large even. The main cause of cancer is stress. The body and mind are deeply intertwined with each other. Especially since I delved into shamanism and chi-gong for myself, I've started believing and noticing that you can usually link a physical issue back to an emotional problem that was left undealt with. This is why we get sick on the first day of vacation too- our body finally goes to processing the stress that kept us standing and our immune system weakens for a moment- allowing a flu to come through. That said, you still need to deal with an issue in a physical way once it has manifested that way- but you can do a lot to help your healing process with emotional work and energy work. I feel like there's a lot of suppression via treatment going on (side-eyes the pharmaceutical industry) instead of actual curing. 6. Transformation. Again, I fully agree with the points you make. Every emotion, every feeling is a messenger- letting you know that a need was met, or is going unmet. Being in touch with your feelings, not medicalized out of them, allows you to set healthy boundaries and recognize what brings you fulfillment. They are a compass for you to guide you through life! Ever since I started seeing emotions that way- and since I started seeing my bad experiences as lessons- as happenings from which I could derive empathy and wisdom, I have been so much happier. It's a transformative, growth mindset- leaving space for you to empathize with and process your feelings - whilst staying optimistic that in the future this misfortune will serve you in one way or another! 7. The Psychology Of The Oppressed. "...The implication being that we cannot heal without control being exercised over us." DAMN that line hit me. As someone dealing with PDA, I feel automatic resistance when someone tries to exercise control over me. I am always highly critical of my caregivers at first, because I've had so many bad experiences with people deciding what was best for me and that playing into further abuse. Those last few sentences I really do agree with as well- as someone who is doing healing work on loved ones without any formal training: "I honestly feel that traditional education and training of therapists kills those natural gifts and skills; the curiosity, free thinking, intuition, creativity in therapists. So I would argue that the hierarchical way in which the system is set up, compromises clients' agency over our own healing." 8. The Trauma Industry. Just imagine me cheering and yelling "you tell em girl!! YEAH!" through out this entire section. I don't have anything of my own to add here. 9. Conclusion: Beyond The Sofa. Same as the previous point, I am incredibly happy to hear you speak out exactly what I have been thinking all along.

I'm currently in therapy, my first time, and the beginning sessions so far have been a lot about diving deep into what my core issues or hangups are (my therapist never used those words btw, i lack more fitting ones atm). While i find it interesting to take that all apart, i'm unsure whether there will ever come a 'fixing the issue' or 'healing my wounds' phase with actual betterment of my situation- Because, as i've learned, what people call being lazy is a wall i've built around myself out of a sense of self-protection. The world is unjust and messed up and i'm incapacitated by my awareness of it. I hate being part of a system that puts the wealth of a minority over the well-being of the majority. I hate that i can't change any of it meaningfully and that living in a relatively safe and peaceful environment means that i'm doing so at the cost of someone else's health, time and peace. The question i asked myself was "what can therapy change, then?" Only myself and my reaction to everyday life and its cruel realities, but never the world that makes me feel this way in the first place. It's a sobering realization, because the approach seems so backwards. 'Let's fix the people who take issue with the system instead of the system at large which hurts them to exist in.' I greatly appreciate your efforts to open the discussion in this video and sharing your perspective!

Omg Kathrin, you're a beacon of pure light. You are so wise, intelligent and loving. And you said everything I've always thought in a perfect way. I wish this video got viral. I'm so sorry you had to endure all that darkness, not only in childhood, but later on in therapy. I had a nightmare of a childhood, too. I hope you are always surrounded by love, health and blessings. 💜🙏🏼💜

Great video! Traditional therapy is just crap. It adresses symptoms more than underlying causes. Its not effective at all. The probability to heal simple depression is so low. It mostly just stabilizes the patient so he can go back to work. Until it comes back, because the symptoms only got soothed. I recently got into IFS (internal family systems) which doesnt surpress bad parts of us, rather integrates them into the therapy. Its VERY good so far. I can highly recommend.

It's nothing to brag about "being sane in an insane world" as they say. I have had the same conversation with close friends often.

I’m so glad KZfaq has been listening to my therapy sessions, because I’ve been thinking about this topic a lot and wanting to explore it more.

The only therapist I had was very helpful. When I expressed a similar idea to yours, i.e. I had had a realization that the particular issues I was dealing with were rooted in capitalism, and if I lived in another system then the issues would present themselves differently, he essentially said that he didn't necessarily agree with the vernacular, but it was important that I had realized that a lot of things I had implicitly blamed myself for were actually not coming from within me.

thansk Kathrin. its a meaningful video. loved all the guest readers

Brilliant and loving message. Love it.

So awesome to recognize the voices of Thought Slime and Yugopnik in this video!

I look at it from the perspective of extreme individualism. I believe I understand/know myself better than anyone else. After all, I would know that as I spend more time with myself than anyone else on earth. Why would I trust someone who spends minimal time with me and is a cog in the machine at the end of the day to tell me anything insightful?