Mental Health
Welcome
This is a safe place to discuss, vent, support, and share information about mental health, illness, and wellness.
Thank you for being here. We appreciate who you are today. Please show respect and empathy when making or replying to posts.
If you need someone to talk to, @therapygary@lemmy.blahaj.zcan be reached on Signal at TherapyGary13.12.
Rules
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
- No promoting paid services/products.
- Be kind and civil. No bigotry/prejudice either.
- No victim blaming. Nor giving incredibly simplistic solutions (i.e. You have ADHD? Just focus easier.)
- No encouraging suicide, no matter what. This includes telling someone to commit homicide as "dragging them down with you".
- Suicide note posts will be removed, and you will be reached out to in private.
- If you would like advice, mention the country you are in. (We will not assume the US as the default.)
If BRIEF mention of these topics is an important part of your post, please flag your post as NSFW and include a (trigger warning: suicide, self-harm, death, etc.)in the title so that other readers who may feel triggered can avoid it. Please also include a trigger warning on all comments mentioning these topics in a post that was not already tagged as such.
Partner Communities
To partner with our community and be included here, you are free to message the current moderators or comment on our pinned post.
view the rest of the comments
I don't really think you want a pedagogical take on things. It would be counterproductive. Plus, that would also require citations, which would be difficult to present.
I'm not saying it couldn't be worked up, I'm just saying that the difficulties involved for what I'm confident would be an undesirable outcome make me unwilling to put the time into it.
That being said, when you present your objection to it, you'll want to focus on outcomes.
The primary reason trauma comparison shouldn't be done in therapy is that it goes against best practices. No therapist should be doing it in the first place, much less to the degree a patient feels the need to object. Even a medical doctor shouldn't do it, though they might not be aware of best practices in other fields (though they also shouldn't be trying to practice out of scope either)
But, the reason it's ill advised is that it damages what is already a difficult rapport to build. It breaks trust, it breaks the patient's comfort in opening up, and it turns even a single session adversarial, where the therapist is now someone the patient has to justify things to. That's not conducive to desired outcomes.
See, talk therapy needs to happen in a way that the patient is fully comfortable sharing everything. At any point a therapist blocks that flow of sharing by comparing the patient's experiences to an unrelated situation, at the least it slows down that session. The more that happens, the less trust there is in being heard, in knowing that you can express yourself without judgement.
Frankly, nobody should ever trauma compare, not even us filthy casuals out here trying to get by with our untrained friends and family. It's just a shitty way to treat someone that's opening up to you. You offer comfort, you express that you appreciate them sharing, that they're seen and heard. You don't say shit about the horrors someone else has unless it very directly relates so that the friend in question can know they aren't the only one going through it. You'd think that would be understood by people in general, but it needs saying.
Thanks! It was great reading these angles. And to learn how to express the matter: trauma comparison.
I wouldn't even mind some challanges being put forth during a session, if they are properly motivated and prepared for, but, as you said, this was just a shitty thing to say and to do. I feel that this was the last straw and I will change clinic and doctor.
Thanks again!