Why do family therapists condone and enable emotional abuse?

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I responded to the OP because I experienced similar trauma when I was younger. I wasn't trying to defend the therapist or blame Aspie1. My intention was to explain what helped me in the hope that it would help Aspie1. Trying to see other people's actions (such as the therapist or his parents) more positively helps reduce unwanted emotions. I'm aware it comes off as insensitive but it helps to challenge people. Listening to PC people who told me what I wanted to hear and remaining in my comfort zone helped me feel better but didn't help me overcome my problems. I needed to be challenged to get better. It hurt in the short-term but I'm much better off now over the long-term.



You feel sad in that situation because you believe the actions of someone you love are important. If you didn't care how people you love treated you then you wouldn't feel sad. That means your beliefs caused those emotions. In that situation, sadness is normal, healthy, and desirable. It can confirm you love that person, help you feel better when they aren't hurting you, and motivate you to resolve the situation that led to them hurting you. Emotions aren't really positive or negative. All kinds of emotions are beneficial when they are based on healthy, accurate beliefs and harmful when they are based on inaccurate or distorted beliefs.



It worked for me and many other people. I'm not saying every problem will go away. CBT is mostly a short-term treatment that is helpful to improve self-esteem. Exposure therapy combined with positive thinking can greatly help overcome trauma and many other problems. I'm still affected by how I was treated in the past but a few years of exposure therapy has made a big difference and I keep getting better.



I agree and am aware of it. I'm just trying to say his problems can be overcome or at least significantly alleviated using the methods I described.

It's one thing to "not be told what you want to hear". It's another thing to have someone with the power to actually help you, like your therapist, mock you to your face and tell you you're a pathetic loser who deserves to be abused. It wasn't done verbatim, but the message was just the same. The latter doesn't motivate you to improve yourself; it only tells you that you can't trust anyone but yourself and your parents' whiskey.

You know, I do wonder if my first cruise was a form of shock-exposure therapy---a brief, extremely positive experience that changed my life. It achieved in 4 days what my therapist couldn't achieve in 4 years. It required tremendous amounts of prep work: researching cruise itineraries, finding cheap flights, picking the right excursions, making sure I have a good social experience onboard, having contingency plans in place in case I encounter bullying, etc, etc, etc. Heck, I was even having nightmares for weeks before the cruise. But once I got on the ship, after having a great conversation with a middle-aged couple in the embarkation line, I knew I had 4 great days ahead of me.

I agree that message wasn't helpful. I used to be angry about how I was treated when I was younger and that anger affected my thinking and caused me to interpret people's words more negatively than I would have if I wasn't angry. You may be right about your therapist's intentions but I found out later that some of the people I thought were being mean to me had good intentions are were really trying to help. Knowing that helped me feel better so now I try to assume the best in people instead of the worst because it helps me feel better and makes my life easier. I usually don't know their intentions and most of the time it wouldn't matter anyway so I decide to think about people's intentions in whatever way helps me the most.




I think you're right about it being a form of exposure therapy. You probably had less stress on the cruise which also helped.

The problem with therapy is that nearly all therapy training requires therapists to "show empathy". Notice how it's "show" empathy, not "feel" empathy. Also, it's impossible for an NT to feel empathy for someone they don't respect, or even perceive as subhuman. It was impossible for my therapist to feel empathy for me, because she saw me as a pathetic loser who couldn't get his own family to respect him. As a result, in such situations, any display of empathy is insincere: it ends up exaggerated at best, and turns into overt mockery at worst. Furthermore, the phrase "aww, you feel sad and weak" is something bullies say when they taunt their victims. It's not empathetic or therapeutic at all. Any therapist with even a tiny shred of intelligence would know this.

"Less stress" is an understatement. That cruise was literally the best vacation of my entire life! From the creature comforts the ship provided me, to the friendly girls I danced with, who seemed to think I was really cool. Not to mention, like I said before, it was the first time in my life when I felt like I actually mattered. For most of my life, my family, and to a lesser extent my friends, generally steamrolled over my wishes, and told me my interests were unimportant.

Men and women use those phrases differently. When women say something like "aww, you feel sad and weak" they usually mean they feel bad that you felt that way and wish they could help. When men use those phrases, it's often to mock other men for being sensitive and to make them feel like they're not a real man since being sensitive and expressing emotions is considered a feminine trait in some cultures. I'm not explaining it to disagree with you. I'm just explaining it in case you meet a woman who responds the same way so you know she probably doesn't mean anything negative by it.



I think everyone has a need to be loved and accepted. Since your family didn't meet that need, I can see why you're angry that your therapist didn't help and why you felt much better after your cruise when people paid attention to you and treated you like you mattered.

This argument is flawed for two reasons. First reason, when girls bullied me, they used the same wording, although girls usually ignored me, rather than picked on me. And conversely, when people empathize with me today, both men and women, they say "oh no, I'm sorry" in a calm, concerned tone, not in a cooing tone like they're watching a 2-week old puppy struggle to walk. That said, I vary how I share my problems with people. With men or a mixed group, I use a slightly angry tone, like someone would talk about losing money on the stock market; with women, I use a calm, determined tone, like an old man would tell war stories. I'm sure my therapist was exaggerating empathy, since she never felt it toward me in the first place, and was making up for it by treating me as a cute puppy. Or maybe she was reacting to the whiny tone I used with her, and was too stupid to realize it, let alone control it.

Second reason, she could help me---she knew lots of psychological tactics (some of which she tried on me), and stronger leverage over my parents than I could ever dream of---but she chose not to. She just condoned and enabled the emotional abuse. Again, why? The cooing noises, the "aww", the repetitions, and "wishing she could help" parts are irrelevant, compared to what she could have done to help me. Or maybe she just didn't like the whiny tone I used with her, and didn't want to help a patient who whines.

Yup, you hit the nail on the head.

I posted based on my experience where I live where women said things like aww and that's cute without meaning anything negative by it but I realize it might be different where you live.

I hope you're able to find people who treat you well outside the cruises. One thing I learned is that people act differently when they're busy and stressed from work, family, etc. Your neighbors may not be much different than the people on that cruise. It's just that stress makes people less patient, less understanding, and more likely to not treat you as well due to having a bad day, misunderstandings, or being too busy to listen. Understanding that helped me realize most people aren't as bad as I thought they were and made it easier for me to be more forgiving and not get upset when people didn't treat me as well as I would have liked.