My therapist pretended not know what I'm talking about. Why?

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Looking back on my stints with therapy, I noticed that my therapist would often pretend not to know what I'm talking about. It would happen whenever I talked about something that went against the mainstream, idealistic worldview. Now, I'm stating it as a "presumed yes", rather than a yes/no question, because anyone with a Master's degree in psychology should just know that not everything in the world is hunky-dory. That unhappy families do exist. That parents do love some kids more than others. That kids can be cruel, unless they can relate to you somehow. That society has certain preconceived notions.

So why would my therapist pretend not to know what I'm talking about, whenever I brought up situations that contained those simple facts? I do have one explanation. Her specialty was "family therapist", which means that her loyalty was with my parents, not me. After all, "family" is code word for "parents"; I was like a car getting taken to a mechanic. Also to "society", which is true for all therapists, and any client who tries to one-up society must be put back in their place. And now, without further ado...

Situation 1
Aspie1: "Whenever I read articles and such about "having fun with your family", it always confuses me. Family is supposed to be about order and discipline, not fun."
Therapist: (like I'm talking gibberish) "Really? No fun with family? At all?"
Possible motive: "This kid won't honor his parents. I'm going to gaslight him into doing so."
What created this situation: My own family was very strict, so even "fun" times had a strong undertone of order and discipline, and any violations resulted in ruthless yelling and/or punishments, effectively canceling out the "fun".
What should have been said: "That's fine. If you can't have fun with family, have fun elsewhere. Or wait it out until you can have have your own fun." Or: "Did you know that cooking wine contains alcohol and you don't have to be 21 to buy it?" (I figured this out in high school, and also took up tobacco smoking in college.)

Situation 2
Aspie1: "My parents love my older sister [by 10 years] more than they love me. Every time, they treat her better, and let her get away with more. Now, I recently read in a psychology book, that parents don't always love their children equally. How true is it?"
Therapist: (mildly confrontational) "'Don't always love equally' or 'always don't love equally'?"
Possible motive: "This kid knows more than me. And he's undermining my customers [his parents]. I gotta be on their side."
What created this situation: "My older sister knew how to sweet-talk my parents into loving her; I did not."
What should have been said: "What book did you read it in? I want to make sure it's a reputable source. But you might be right. Other than the book, what prompted you to think that way?"

Situation 3
Aspie1: "This kid in class used to be such a jerk to me. But when I read up on Michael Jordan, and talked about basketball with him, he started treating me a little better. I'm not friends with him, but it's good to see him being nicer to me."
Therapist: (laughing tone) "No, you just stopped trying to impress him, and he always liked you the way you are. The fact that he's being nicer to you proves that. Basketball doesn't mean anything."
Possible motive: "This kid is leaning the truth about how society works. I gotta keep him naive."
What created this situation: I showed that classmate that I had popular interests he could relate to, and he saw me in a slightly different light.
What should have been said: "Good job; whatever helped you get him off your back. Remember: you don't have to sincerely like Michael Jordan. But he's popular now (it was 1996), so it's a good conversation topic to have at hand. You're learning the art of putting on a social mask. That's never a bad thing."

Situation 4
Aspie1: When I was in the waiting room, all I saw are "Good Housekeeping" magazines. They're effeminate; I was kind of embarrassed to be seen reading it. (I was 13.) I had to dig through the whole pile before I found "Architectural Digest", and ended up reading that.
Therapist: (like I'm talking gibberish) So, "Good Housekeeping" is effeminate, but "Architectural Digest" is not effeminate?
Possible motive: "This kid is leaning the truth about how society works. I gotta keep him naive."
What created this situation: It's a fact that "Good Housekeeping" is geared toward women, while "Architectural Digest" is largely gender-neutral. I also hoped she could persuade the office to stock more male-friendly magazines.
What should have been said: "I'm glad you found something your were comfortable being seen reading. But also understand that most people won't care what you read. For all they know, it's for your social studies class. It's fine for a boy to read a women's magazine if his teacher told him to, right?" ("Yes.")
Side note: This topic probably wouldn't come up in 2018, since "gender" is now up in the air and all over the place.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 03 Nov 2018, 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Your interpretations seem kind of paranoid. For example:

That's not gas lighting. She's trying to get you to clarify why you define family with order and discipline when not everyone feels the same way (honestly, that's a very unusual way to think of family). She's also trying to confirm that you truly never have fun with your family. My mom would genuinely gaslight me by telling people I said things I never said, and by denying abuse toward me. But, even I had fun with her at times.

From your other examples, it seems the therapist was trying to get more detailed insight into your opinions and views so she could understand how you think.

To me, it sounds as if your therapist is living in a dream world, so there's not much pretending, just denial. I had a counsellor who was willing to see that society is a bit crazy, and she got micro-managed right out of a job. Her replacement has similarities to yours, and I consider it abusive. They can't really help it, though, being pretty classic Dunning-Kruger cases themselves.

I told her many times how strict and controlling my parents were, and how everyone bossed me around. "You're not supposed to have too much pleasure!" was a common phrase in my family. (Of course, it only applied to kids/me.) I wanted her to help me reconcile a social mantra with my reality. So when she asked me that, I "admitted" to speaking without thinking first, and changed the topic. I guess in her mind, she "succeeded" in changing my worldview.

"Living in a dream world" is spot-on. Maybe her personal life was much easier than mine, so she had an easier time buying into the "dream world" belief. It's like the old joke:
A swimsuit model is walking down 5th Avenue, and sees a homeless man begging: "Help me, I haven't eaten in three days!" "Wow!" she says, "I wish I had willpower like that."

I'm pretty convinced that therapists are trained to push the "hunky-dory dream world" illusion onto their clients. Mine was no different. Plus, my therapist's loyalty to my parents (who were paying her, after all) was working against me too. Her attempt to create an illusion of loyalty to me was unsuccessful, though.

^^

I see. I didn't understand the full context of your talks with her. But, that is extremely frustrating. I've had therapists ignore what I said about family history/struggles, too. She sounds pretty useless, then.

It's not so much about uselessness as about loyalty. My parents were the real customers; I was a proverbial car getting taken in for repairs. So it's a given that her loyalty would be to them, as well as to "society" (read: mainstream sheeple thought), not to me. Except in cases fitting the legal definition of abuse, which wasn't true for me. Plus, I quickly learned that my therapist was on my parents' side, despite the outward niceness to me, and cannot be counted on to help me.

Worst of all were "family sessions", imitated by the therapist, where my mom and/or dad were in the session with me. They'd spend most of the time talking about me like I wasn't there. My parents would shush me whenever I tried to get a word in, and the therapist did nothing to stop them. Because loyalty. The few times anyone talked to me was to shame me for something or to extract incriminating information from me. Needless to say, I didn't dare say how my parents' actions at home made me feel, save for very trite things, like not liking the French onion soup they served from time to time. Because then, therapist would take their side, and I'd get in trouble at home after. The rides home with my parents afterwards were very awkward. I tried telling the therapist how uncomfortable "family sessions" were, but she'd just look at me with that pitying, patronizing smile, and not even say anything. So I again, I knew she didn't have a clue and couldn't be trusted.

Another thing: she was trained on dealing with NT kids, who can parrot "emotion words" like the Pledge of Allegiance and put up an endearing front for adults. So when I "didn't think emotionally enough", went against her loyalty to my parents, and/or showed knowledge of how messed up our society is, she felt compelled to gaslight my logical thinking out of existence. It's the 1990's equivalent of Galileo being forced to retract his statement that the Earth orbits the Sun. Despite the Catholic Church's efforts, he said "And yet it [Earth] moves!"

You know, during the same time period, I remember writing an essay about "my hero" for English class. I wrote about Thomas Edison "because he was smart" (like me). Most boys in class wrote about Michael Jordan, because it was 1996, the peak of his career. In reality, Thomas Edison was a conman who screwed over Nikola Tesla. I should have written about Galileo. He was smart and stood his ground.

Situation 1 = Poor articulation on your part.
Situation 2 = Therapist playing games.
Situation 3 = Correct assessment.
Situation 4 = Somewhat irrelevant.

In Situation 1, perhaps you should have clarified and personalized it. "In my experience, my family seems to be about order and discipline. Is this not the norm? Is there any truth to these articles?


The motive is probably mind games. "Maybe if I convince him he misunderstood, and that the article was implying the amount of love for an individual child may vary and fluctuate at any given time, he'll feel less unloved."


I agree with this one.


Translation from therapist: "I don't give a damn about the magazines in the waiting room. The secretary picks most of them out, I just pay the subscription. Life is filled with crappy magazines in waiting rooms. How can I make this more psychologically-sounding for the kid?"

For years before I learned about AS, I went to meetings for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, now just Adult Children Anonymous. I think you'd find a lot of understanding at one of your local meetings. They may still know nothing about your AS-related reactions, but they sure understand abuse and rejection.
I was probably lucky - when I got taken to a shrink by my parents, he probably sensed mom's AS, so she got us both out of there. Back then, a dangerous misdiagnosis was the only "help" available for us. Having a professional team up with your folks sounds awful - I'm very glad you are keeping yourself true.

What's interesting and kind of sad, is that I saw the therapist taking my parents' side as perfectly normal. After all, they're both adults, so it's a given that they'd team up against a child (me).

Come to think of it, I really think that adults have no business practicing therapy on kids or even teens. I mean, adults have almost limitless freedom of choice in their lives. Not to mention easy access to tobacco, alcohol, and prescription antidepressants. (And in five states, marijuana as well.) The luxuries are something kids can only dream of, and teens have to obtain by dangerous and illegal means. So when a child starts talking in a teary voice about how his parents won't let him watch TV, what will most adults do? They'll think it's nothing to cry about, or worse, they'll think it's "cute" .

A child's problems are something only another child can truly understand---not just smile and nod like someone who doesn't speak English---and therefore feel genuine compassion toward the patient. Ditto for teens: only another teenager can truly understand a teenager's problems. Anything from power-crazy parents, to bullying, to missing favorite TV shows, to having to eat French onion soup. These are the problems adults don't understand, and by and large, don't care to understand.

Perhaps the best solution is to have a child or teenager practicing therapy on a patient the same age. This way, the patient can be 100% assured that he/she is being understood, by someone who experiences the same problems on a regular basis. As opposed to a fake, patronizing quack, who pretends to be their friend while siding with their parents. For safety and security reasons, an adult administrator can supervise the child or teenage therapist through a hidden camera and microphone. But the actual therapy will be done by a therapist the same age as the patient.

I also wish liquor could be available by prescription to therapy patients age 10 or older. I myself started (ab)using it at age 12, all thanks to the botch job therapy I got. It actually lifted me out of depression, while therapy did nothing.

The therapist is doing what she was trained to do, but perhaps she could be more clever about it.

She's not trying to gaslight you. She's playing dumb and open ended to induce you to give more details without being asked any leading questions, and also to not immediately project her own impression of the issue onto what you were thinking.

There's plenty of manipulation in therapy. Apparently your therapist doesn't quite have the knack of coming across as a helper more than a manipulator.

Yes. This is what I was going to say.

Aspie1 you're having a theory of mind issue here. She really didn't know what you were thinking. She didn't know your family. She needed you to tell her about it. People don't know what we know unless we tell them.

My Mum is like this. She always concocts stories about what other people are thinking about what she is thinking and I'm like, "Mum they have no idea what you're thinking" she upsets herself being paranoid about things that were harmless questions.

And that's why adults shouldn't be practicing therapy on kids and teens. They have neither compassion nor understanding of problems those age groups face. For example, an adult can drown out any and all problems with alcohol. A kid or teen cannot, at least not by legal means. If she wanted to actually help, she could have told me that cooking wine isn't subject to age restrictions, because "it's not meant for direct consumption". (I'm being idealistic here, but still.) Lucky for me, I figured it out myself.

She did know what I was thinking. I told her many times how my parents were too strict and controlling. So she pretended not to know what I'm talking about, to avoid going against them. After all, they were her real customers. I was just some broken kid that needed fixing. To this day, I don't trust any therapists, unless they can prescribe medications.

There are a lot of incompetent parents and adults in general, but I think they must average at least slightly above passing grade, or humanity would never have gotten this far.
The adults in your life were never teens like you are now, but some among us were about as close as we could be without growing up on your games and shows of the day. We also have muddled through to some resolution of it, and seen some of our friends do better or worse than we have. Overall, I'd say that good food, exercise, and meditation are pretty safe, even as obsessions, whereas alcohol is notable for transferring one's internal problems onto everyone else, and being hard to quit. There are as many people at Al-Anon meetings for people trying to cope with alcoholics in their lives an there are at AA meetings themselves. There's less history with anti-depressants, but I've been physically attacked twice by people "working out their dosage" on those, and never by a drunk.
Being a teenager is never easy. There are a lot of imperative changes and new situations to deal with. Ma Nature encourages us in becoming independent by making children and parents mutually irritating for a while.
"And then they expect you to pick a career / when you can't really function you're so full of fear." - Working Class Hero, John Lennon
Before I left home at 17, I'd only met a few adults I admired, and none were in a position to help me. I hope you'll have better luck finding kindred spirits here and in meatspace.

Tbh I think you sound a little paranoid and defensive, don't mean this In a nasty way just an observational theory.

I don't think she was pretending not to know what you're talking about, I think with 1 2 4 she was trying to get you to explain your thoughts more. "Families aren't for fun"- "really? Never?" Is a pretty good response. How you expand in that would tell her a lot. They don't like to assume you mean the same as they think, they'd rather you explain it in your own words. Otherwise she could mistake " my family don't do any activities together and my parents are strict and uncompassionate" to mean "I don't enjoy the activities my family do and I don't think they should be trying to have fun, I think they should be more strict and controlled" by your statement in scenario 1.

I also think family therapist are on the kids side, she's trying to learn how you feel, then sends you out the room and says "your son feels like you never have fun with him and you favour your daughter. He also has some enforced gender stereotype issues that gets in magazines are for girls and others for boys.... here's what you need to do to help him"
Kids are very rarely the problem, you're a product of your environment, if the kids got issues, the environment has issues .

You're basically saying that the therapist will be my parents' spy! That is, pretend to be my friend, work me for information, then spill everything to my parents. Lucky for me, I already knew she was my parents' "friend", not mine. So the whole time I was seeing her, I never told her anything my parents didn't already know. That, all I talked about was stuff like struggling with math, my parents fighting all the time, and having to eat French onion soup that I hated. I never shared my deep secrets, because I was afraid she'd tell my parents "to help bring the family together". (When in reality, I might get in trouble for "whining" or "talking nonsense".) The few times I told her anything that bothered me, all she did was tilt her head to the side and say "aww".

The last straw was her saying that the kid in class who was picking on me liked me the way I was. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, could be that naive. That kid hated me! But when I told him about Michael Jordan's short stint as a baseball player, he was surprised I knew that. So maybe he saw me in a slightly different light after that conversation, and treated me a little better as a result.

The best therapy I ever got as a pre-teen was the Jack Daniels therapy. (I snuck sips from my parents' bottle, and replaced them with water.) It was founded around 1875, and lifted millions of sad men out of depression, myself including. By contrast, Sigmund Freud's theory isn't even 100 years old, and is as crazy as the patients it was practiced on.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 05 Nov 2018, 11:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ask your therapist.