It has issues.
There are several big problems with therapy as we know it in our society today.
One is that it’s a pretend relationship that clients are encouraged to treat as real. Meanwhile, therapists need only go along with that game as much as they want to and for as long as they feel comfortable. Thus the client is set up to be in a weaker position from the start.
A second problem is that therapists control the therapeutic narrative, and there’s no outside objective governing body to oversee that clients aren’t mistreated. Clearly, that is only in the best interests of therapists, because when a client is abused or mistreated by a therapist and the client then files a complaint, the outcome is determined by other therapists. The blatant bias of that alone should make the process illegal.
Why are we so desperate for therapy as a society that we’ll literally give therapists (who are just as emotionally fucked up as clients are, if not more so) this incredible amount of power over people’s emotional health and the narrative about their mental health?
Therapists can literally say and write blatant lies about clients and face zero consequences. I don’t know if Aaron Gleaves has false or derogatory things about me in his notes. Stacey said he didn’t say bad things about me, but I don’t see how I can trust either of them now.
One thing I have going for me is that I’ve had many therapists and most have seemed to like me. That feels safer than if Aaron was my only therapist and he didn’t like me. I’m not saying he’s untrustworthy, only that he could be and I wouldn’t know. There seemed to be a lot going on about my therapy that I didn’t get to know about.
Whether or not Aaron was in the habit of stabbing me in the back, this system is horrible and predatory and needs to be fixed.