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The Relationship Coaching Institute

Therapist - Client Abuse Part 1

Advanced Systemic Solutions with Martyn Carruthers

Research the relationship consequences of a therapy, counseling or coaching or therapist before you begin - especially if hypnosis, belief and value change are advertised. Good intentions are not enough.

Client Abuse in Therapy, Coaching & Counseling

  • Do you feel that you depend on a therapist, coach or counselor?
  • Have you been abused by a therapist, coach or counselor?
  • Are you an abusive therapist, coach or counselor?

Therapy, coaching and counseling are part of many helping professions, including education, medicine, human resources, mental health and spiritual guidance. People who provide paid or unpaid counselling, social work, coaching, therapy, hypnosis, NLP, psychotherapy or spiritual guidance can abuse their clients - perhaps with good intentions.

Many helping professionals are not trained to recognize mentor damage or resolve client abuse - in clients or in other health workers. Soulwork systemic coaching helps people resolve this damage.

Therapist abuse may result from immaturity, sadism, incompetence, inexperience or inappropriate interventions. These can worsen distress and/or create dependence. Some therapists can make problems worse - and they can sabotage a person's perception of all health professionals. Abused clients may not trust another counselor, coach or mentor.

Feedback

My wife and I are clinical psychologists and our son has muscular dystrophy. We attended a workshop by a popular German family therapist. He told us, in front of an audience, after no meaningful questions, that we were "sucking the life from our son's body". We felt devastated. Now we better understand how some therapists abuse clients. Soulwork dissolved the schema, and we can love our son again.

As with other people who have been conned, abused clients may experience strong emotions (such as shame, anger & self-hatred) that inhibit appropriate reaction. Few clients report abusive therapists - it is strangely difficult to identify the relevant professional body and to follow their complaint procedures. Many abused clients blame themselves.

[ Therapy & Coaching Contracts . Spiritual Abuse & Mentor Damage ]

Therapist ... The Rapist ... Client Abuse

The consequences of client abuse often resemble the consequences of trauma or rape. If you were abused by a counsellor, therapist or other helping professional, you may show symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). You may experience anxiety, depression, panic attacks, substance abuse or eating disorders. You may consider self-harm or suicide. And you may distrust any other mentor ... you may avoid anyone who might advise, coach, teach or mentor you.

  • Many types of abuse occur in counseling, coaching and therapy settings
  • Some helping professionals prefer codependent clients
  • Some helping professionals specialize in their own unresolved issues
  • Some helping professionals avoid resolving their own problems

Abusive behavior and inappropriate conduct is not uncommon during counseling, coaching and therapy. Lonely, dissatisfied, codependent or immature practitioners damage their own lives as well as the lives of their clients - most often with good intentions. You may suffer from their good intentions.

Feedback

My wife and I visited a (female) therapist. The therapist said that my wife was causing most of our problems and advised my wife to become more independent. The therapist privately told me that she thought that she and I could be very compatible ... and we had an affair. MA London, Ontario

If you suffer from therapist damage you may feel betrayed, lost self-esteem, identity loss, lost hope, lost spirituality and lost independence. You may suffer sleep and eating disturbances, anxiety and depression. Worst of all, you may lose your ability to make sense of your life.

[ Mentor Abuse . Emotional Incest . Entanglements ]

Qualifications vs. Competence

People seeking help to cope with life challenges may assume that the best helpers have the most education. Educated authorities may be trusted, regardless of their experience. The longer a practitioner's time in university - the more reason to check their life experience.

Many people do not want to grow up. Students who feel lost often stay at school and take advanced degrees. When they do leave school, they may have formidable credentials and little life experience.

What Price is "Free"?

I saw a "free" psychiatrist for an eating disorder for 7 months. She worked for __ Mental Health where she treats eating disorders. She was destructive. Had I known what good therapy was, I would have left her after the first visit. My hope is that other people can identify poor therapy in the first session!

  • She talked theory, not practice - she weighed at least 500 lbs (200 kg)
  • She spent at least half of our time talking about herself
  • She wanted me to help build her public image
  • She talked about the theory of eating disorders like a social documentary
  • She expressed her fear of other approaches to eating disorders
  • She was terribly insecure and would often talk about her own obsessions
  • She forced me to do things without explanation

Colleen G; Canada, 2004

Professional Codependence

Trust, respect and commitment are fundamental to healing relationships, yet a codependent practitioner cannot provide these basic life skills. Codependent people forget who they are.

Codependence is the expression of unworthiness through denial and sacrifice. Codependent people cannot support your healthy independence, and may sabotage it! Codependent practitioners may delay your recovery to prolong their need to help you ... and to be respected and paid by you.

Our marriage counselor in Detroit advised us to take some very expensive workshops. We did this although neither of us liked them. We later found that many other participants were also her clients, and that the workshop organizer paid 50% of our seminar fees to our counselor ... This should be illegal.  WA, Detroit

Sympathy encourages adults to act in immature and codependent ways. If you want to be responsible for your life, you are likely to benefit from compassion, provocation and adult communication.

[ Codependence . Soulwork Code of Conduct ]

Imbalance of Power

Therapeutic relationships often include an imbalance of power, in which subtle verbal and emotional abuse is possible. Some practitioners try to become a substitute for your parent. Others may want to be seen as a close friend. Your feelings about them may become distorted. Strong feelings (transferences) are a feature of such relationships. Abusive practitioners can use transference to ...

  • Manipulate or seduce you
  • Intimidate or frighten you
  • Invalidate your perceptions
  • Demand more paid sessions (that are not needed)

Feedback

My therapist was wonderful - charming, witty and good looking. And married ... but his couch was good for many things. When I found out that he had sex with many clients, I ended our sessions ... I really miss him. SB, San Diego

Transference puts a therapist in a powerful position and a client in a vulnerable position. If a therapist uses parental transference to exploit or abuse a client, this might be called professional incest.

Common Client Abuse

If you seek help, you may be in crisis or shock. You may think childishly. You are vulnerable to criticism and emotional abuse. The following problems are often reported in coaching, counseling and therapeutic relationships. An abusive therapist, counsellor or coach may:

  1. Forget or be late for your appointments
  2. Repeatedly re-schedule your appointments
  3. Exaggerate or misdiagnose your problems
  4. Be preoccupied or daydream during your sessions
  5. Undervalue, criticize or mock you
  6. Refuse to answer your reasonable questions
  7. Refuse to consider your perceptions or point of view
  8. Express mood changes and / or emotional outbursts
  9. Label your communication as bad or wrong
  10. Refuse to discuss topics which you want to discuss
  11. Claim that you cause the therapist to act inappropriately
  12. Unreasonably withhold information from you
  13. Claim that you are overreacting
  14. Talk endlessly about the therapist's beliefs and opinions
  15. Threaten to end your sessions unless you comply with a demand
  16. Extend your sessions without benefit to you
  17. Tell you that you do not deserve love, care or support
  18. Use your sessions to help the therapist or coach
  19. Arrange to meet you for a non-therapeutic purpose
  20. Invite you to participate in emotional or physical intimacy
  21. Later deny or justify emotional or sexual intimacy with you
  22. Increase your dependence on him or her
  23. Writes emails or cell-phone text messages as you talk
  24. Be pompous, condescending or officious
  25. Talk about his or her own problems
  26. Advise you to change your sexual orientation
  27. Ask you for advice about his or her own problems
  28. Ask you for help with promotion and advertising
  29. Continually defer solutions to "the next session"
  30. Give you harmful post-hypnotic suggestions
  31. Cause you to distrust all potential mentors

Soulwork coaching and coach training offers unique and effective solutions for therapist abuse.

Part 2 of Therapist-Client Abuse - Codependence

Do you want relationship coaching or systemic coach training? We can train you to coach individuals, partners and teams to resolve emotional, educational and relationship challenges.

Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 2003, 2005 All rights reserved.


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Workshop

Systemic Coach Training  (Calendar)

Systems 1 How to evaluate relationship dynamics and recognize common entanglements
Systems 2 How to define life goals, identify blocks, resolve objections & plan for success
Systems 3 How to provide or continue goalwork using interactive metaphors and Dreamwork
Systems 4 How to dissolve the consequences of abuse and trauma, and rebuild motivation
Systems 5 How to change limiting beliefs and codependence for emotional freedom
Systems 6 How to recognize and resolve identity loss: recover lost qualities and lost skills
Systems 7 How to resolve therapist or spiritual damage and provide inspirational mentorship
Systems 8 How to coach partners to build lasting happiness and avoid partnership breakdown
Systems 9 How to coach parents to resolve family problems and to set and enjoy family goals
Systems 10 How to coach team leaders to develop teams while solving team problems
Specialty Advanced workshops and specialty training tailored to fulfill your goals and needs

Copyright © Martyn Carruthers 1996-2009 All rights reserved. These Systemic Solutions were primarily developed by Martyn Carruthers. We coach and train people to succeed by solving emotional and relationship problems. This information is for your general knowledge only. Please consult a physician about medical conditions and before changing any medical treatment. Link to our pages, but get Martyn's written permission to post or publish his work.

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