Do therapists play mind games by relating our flaws with unresolved childhood trauma so that we don't take responsibility for our behavior?

[Azura_88]

I was so shocked after looking at IGTV.

She mentioned these traits which are due to unresolved childhood trauma.

• Fear of abandonment (Can also be due to bad experiences in friend groups or relationships).

• Validation seeking (As a result of NOT being approved in family BUT IRONICALLY people say that you were too pampered and complimented by family so you wanna seek it from everywhere).

• Tolerating abusive relationships
• Attracting narcissistic partners (You can also be dumb and hopelessly kind to attract them and it doesn't have to do anything with childhood trauma).
• Poor self care (Or maybe you're simply lazy and don't give AF)
• Fixing others

• Codependency (Varies from person to person and their reasons. Some are just spineless parasites who were pampered but still want to suck benefits from others).
• Need to prove yourself
• People pleasing
• Being cautious when living alone.

Feel free to prove me wrong, right or express your POV.
I'm open to your opinions :)

[Massageman]

Let's look at the three critical phrases in your question.

1. Do therapists play mind games? The good ones do not "play games". In some cases, some sort of "therapeutic game" might actually be part of the discovery of one's problems, or part of their healing process. Using a doll for a young kid to explain an abuse trauma, or art therapy come to mind.

2. [do therapists] - - - relating our flaws with unresolved childhood trauma - - - A competent therapist will almost always try to relate many things to many other things, and childhood trauma is no exception. In many cases, the age at which a significant trauma has occurred is the age at which a person can get mentally "stuck" in their maturation processes.
3. - - - - - so that we don't take responsibility for our behavior. A competent therapist should not be using past issues as a "get out of trouble" card for current and future events. They should tach the client/patient how to resolve the issues heretofore unresolved, straighten things out, teach coping skills, release their own (unfound) guilt about what others have done, etc.

These tendencies (I would NOT call them "traits"), certainly can be caused by these past unsolved traumas, but since most can be dealt with given the proper help, they should not be used as an escape or "explanation" for current/future poor behavior.

[The_Maphio]

Always thought that therapists were useless, still think that.
Their prognosis usually happen to be so generic that they are no better than a tarot card reader or an astrologist telling you a horoscope.

Another non-job of the contemporary era that pays better than actual jobs in medicine.

[caring__1]

Unfortunately, there are therapists who see everything through the lens they've been taught. There is no one size fits all program. If you can't relate to your therapist's limited perspective, find one you can relate to. Never assume all people or approaches in any field are identical.

Therapists are people too. They can have hangups and insecurities, just like anyone else. It's up to you to find someone you mesh with. It's like a marriage... never assume it will get better just by putting in more time. Also, understand TV and radio therapist are entertainers. Many haven't maintained their license (or have lost it) since they became entertainers. Take whatever they say with a grain of salt. No one can diagnose someone they've never met and wrap up their treatment before the next commercial.

[genericname85]

no. they try to make you see that in your childhood, you were a different person with limited ressources and experience. so judging what you did with the knowledge and ressources you have today is not appropriate. you can't possibly take accountability for what you did that, cause A: you litterally were a different person and B: you have no influence on your past anyway, cause you live in in the present.

traumatic things in the past, taught us ways to deal with those things. those coping mechanisms are often still active when we are not in those situations anymore. so they actually become harmfull to us. so we need to step back and take distance from then, cause what seemed necessary then is not appropriate now.

[Derekk]

Therapy isn't a happy process. If it was, a lot more people would be doing it, and sticking with it.

I'd have to get to know you to form an opinion about you. And even as a psychologist, I would be barred from issuing a diagnosis to somebody that I'm not clinically treating within a specific framework. Ethically, I couldn't even affirm or deny the diagnosis of another professional.

I can say unequivocally though, that mental illness and particularly traumatic events, can leave a person with a particular mindset that can manifest itself in many "flawed" behaviours. A person that has been deeply wounded or left without intimate support can often develop ideas or values that conflict with reality.

[TheSpaceGnome]

Therapists are useless, they are just there to make assumptions as to why you feel how they think you feel.

I already know how I feel, and why I feel that way.

A person stabbing guesses while barely knowing me, then being judgmental about it, isn't exactly helpful, it's just being another source of unwanted bs.

[Azura_88]

EXACTLY. Just like I said that certain things are not a result of bad childhood. I got some issues because of fake friends and relationships. It will be so illogical to blame it on my family.

[TheSpaceGnome]

yeah its honestly illogical for them to make claims of any kind about someone else's life they weren't there for, the only possible way a therapist would be useful is a means to relieve stress, ie what a friend normally does, but harping on problems while being judgmental and assuming is just being an asshole.

[Anonymous]

I agree that some therapists do find any excuse to blame bad behaviour on something.
They wouldn't get paid much to tell people "You're a slut or an asshole, get it together."
They get paid way more to talk and talk and talk.
I've even heard one person here say that her therapist told her she cheated on her boyfriend because she has retroactive jealousy because he had a girlfriend before her.
So it's not her fault.
😅😅😅

[Azura_88]

Being jealous was fine but cheating is wrong.

[Browneye57]

Actually, yes, this is where those emotional outbursts stem from. During your time of puberty, your emotional responses are formed. All of the events, especially traumatic ones, you create an emotional response to them and it is registered in your brain, your psyche.

As an adult, when things happen to you, your brain reverts back to that time when something felt similar, and emits that original response.

So as an adult, if you go back to that time and re-live through it, understand where the response came from and why, you negate it and free yourself from it. This is something that a good shrink will walk people through then they have unreasonable or unrealistic responses to current events.
Pretty amazing huh!

[Inexpensivefurniture]

No therapist should be saying that those things can ONLY be caused by childhood trauma, because as you said they can have other origins. But childhood trauma CAN cause all those things. Having one or more doesn't mean you absolutely were abused though.
I've been in therapy for years and my therapist has always cautioned me against relating or attributing everything to trauma

[GoodGuyBreakingBad]

I've told this one therapist that I might have been sexually abused as a child
and she made me look really bad and right way I got a new therapist she
said stuff to me that really upset me, so I know how they can be

[slatyb]

Good therapists don't. They look at the client's childhood to help the client understand why they may have certain negative beliefs about themselves. by the way, I agree with the therapist about the origin of these beliefs and behaviors.

[monkeynutts]

Yeah, you might as well visit a clairvoyant, they tell you just what they want you to here as well. I know people that have been seeing a shrink for decades, and he is still fucked in the head.

[ChrisMaster69]

Nope they do not do that.

there are however good counsellors and really poor to terrible ones

[Anonymous]

some of these therapists have a freudian oedipus electra complex and can't think past it

[Opinion Owner]

what some therapists fail to realize is some people are just plain scumbags!!! it's that simple no need to make bigger more complicated explanations out of things for no apparent reason. Some people are just the scum of the earth and don't give a shit it's that simple

[Iron_Man]

No they just try to help you some therapists are really bad though

[WowwGirl]

No they don't

[In_Trance]

no they don't