Why do therapists make "engaging" so hard and unrewarding?

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The pro-therapy crowd, even on this site, says the the best way to benefit from therapy is to "engage". Supposedly, that means telling the whole story without holding back. OK, point taken. Well, if "engaging" is supposed to be good, why do therapists make "engaging" so hard and unrewarding? Why the hell do they do it, if they want their patients to "engage", and yet, they penalize "engaging" on the spot?

For instance, you're being emotionally abused by your family. You want to stop the abuse, so you "engage" with your therapist by telling them what happened, how it happened, and the details of the abuse. And instead of helping you, your therapist does everything but that! They mock you. They laugh in your face. They pretend not to know what you're talking about. They gaslight you into believing there is no abuse. And more. That's not how it should be! A therapist should give you an incentive to continue engaging, like provide concrete advice or teach a useful skill like assertiveness. Granted, it's a conflict of interest if their loyalty is with your abuser and not with you. But can't they at least be honest and direct about it, like a lawyer would be?

Well, if a therapist penalizes a patient for "engaging", what incentive does he/she have to "engage" in the first place? Think about it: when a patient "engages", the therapist makes him/her feel even worse than before. The patient is basically told that he/she is a pathetic, worthless loser, and not even a $100/hour pretend friend wants to help him. So why bother "engaging" in the first place?

Is this one of those things NTs know from birth and aspies don't? Namely, how to "engage" in such a way that your therapist will actually want to help you, rather than force learned helplessness on you and/or enable your abuser. Inquiring aspie minds want to know.

I’ve never had my therapist laugh in my face for expressing and engaging. Engaging is ENTIRELY on my terms and is gently encouraged. Strategies, support, and an unbiased response is delivered when necessary.

This is an exceptional skill and one I’ve only experienced with two therapists I’ve seen out of many. I’ve been seeing my current therapist for 4 years.

If you feel mocked by your therapist or your therapist has conflicted interests (seeing someone else in your family, for example), then it’s probably the right time to seek someone else who can meet your needs. But I would also wager that in order to have your needs met by a therapist, it’s a good idea to go into the therapeutic relationship asking yourself what your needs indeed are.

That kind of therapist is not a good therapist. Also, if you're a minor and disclose abuse, the therapist is required to report it to CPS.

I was put into therapy with the ruse of "just talk to the nice lady". Later, I realized I wanted to stop the emotional abuse my parents were putting me through. Like, learn verbal self-defense to use when the abuse happened. But since was THEIR therapist and not mine---even though she was doing therapy ON ME---there's no way in hell she'd fulfill my needs. So instead, she just mocked me or pretended not to know what I'm talking about when I tried reporting the emotional abuse. So why would ANYONE want to engage with a therapist when "engaging" only results in mockery and hitting a proverbial brick wall?

Like I just said: she was a "family" therapist, which meant she was there to serve my parents and not me. And my parents were the ones emotionally abusing me. But they were paying her, along with my state, since we were poor at the time. Do you REALLY think she'd report them, or teach me verbal self-defense against her own income source? Plus, emotional abuse is impossibly hard to prove, especially when the victim is a minor. So why would ANYONE want to engage with a therapist when "engaging" only results in mockery and hitting a proverbial brick wall?

Because that is not how ALL therapists are. You are describing your personal experience with one (apparently) biased individual. And having had such an experience, you developed a bias against all therapists that means that you think they are all like that (and look for ways to confirm your belief).

I am not saying you are unjustified in your distrust. Therapists are not always good or helpful, and many of them can be just as harmful to people as the abuse or trauma their clients might face. Mental health is a hard business, and there is no cookie cutter example of how to treat or handle people of X condition, even if there are so many similarities between people with that condition. I have seen therapists make bad calls and make mistakes numerous times. But there are therapists who do an exceptional job and are really meaningfully helpful in providing therapy as well.

So the answer to your question is simply: Because many people find therapy helpful, and not all therapists are bad.

If you are asking why anyone would be expected to be able to improve when suffering the abuses you are describing from a person who is supposed to help, that is different. The answer is: No, you can't improve under those conditions.

Typically there are ways to fight against such abuses, but that requires looking up legal resources to help you in your predicament. Malfeasance on the part of your therapist can be a really big deal.

The biggest problem with therapy and its expectation to "engage" is that it comes with a laundry list of unwritten rules and hidden expectations, like the NT society in general. In other words, the "engaging" has to be done very precisely, in order for your therapist to help you.

When you therapist asks you to tell them about how your parents emotionally abuse you, it doesn't mean describe instances of the abuse. It really means: (1) talk about the results your parents wanted from you; (2) list the emotions the abuse brought on, and it has to be exactly what your therapist wants to hear; (3) curve your lips down 3 mm; (4) curve the outsides of your eyes down 1 mm; and (5) use the voice pitch of exactly 1.2 kHz. Not only that, the therapy rules and expectations can change randomly with no explanation, reason, or advance notice. It's your job as a patient to intuitively pick up on these changes and modify your responses or behavior accordingly.

If and only if you "engage" exactly as the moment's unwritten rules and hidden expectations dictate, then your therapist will help you and you will feel better after the session. If you fail to comply even slightly, like curving your lips downward only 2 mm, or using the voice pitch of 1.5 kHz, then in your therapist's eyes, you're in the wrong. Which means you don't deserve to be helped, because you can't figure out the rules, and no amount of "engaging" will bring you results. At the same time, if your therapist tells you the truth that the help is never coming no matter what you do, then you'll stop "engaging" and the therapy falls apart.

Another thing: family therapy in particular comes with an inherent conflict of interest. The person talking to the therapist is the one being abused, while the therapist's loyalty is to the people doing the abusing. So, when the patient talks about the abuse, how is the therapist supposed to react? How can they get the patient to continue "engaging" while still staying loyal to the abusers? Exactly! They do what my therapist did: make cooing noises at the patient and mimic/taunt what the patient said. It's meant to be a hint and a veiled threat: "You asked me for help with something that goes against my real loyalty; talk about something else that lets me stay loyal, or else I'll mock you even harder." At which point, it becomes my job to find a new topic to "engage" about.

I quickly got the hint, and never brought up being abused with her again. Thankfully, I got good at fabricating issues that were compliant with her loyalty and the hidden rules she had, like test anxiety.

Let me be clear: a therapist who does not report abuse is violating ethical standards and the law. It does not matter who is paying them.

To underscore what others have already said, a good therapist will not treat you with condescension or mockery, and will not subject you to further abuse and gaslighting. Many therapists may not be as effective as others (sometimes it's a matter of finding someone whose approach/style/personality matches yours better), but anyone doing actual harm or overlooking harm done by others is just WRONG.

There are better therapists out there. Any and every therapist is ethically and legally--in all 50 states--required to report known or even suspected abuse of a child. If you're a minor, this therapist is breaking the law.

Last edited by KimD on 05 Sep 2021, 9:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sounds like you just need to be responsible for your own needs and seek help from another therapist who is there to provide space for you alone. That is, of course, if you are able to do so and aren't a minor...

Is it not possible your therapist is asking you to drop your narrative of what you understand is happening (and perhaps focussing on watt is being done to you) and asking you to focus on what YOUR involvement in the situation is. In my experience the idea is to pull back from discussing what others are doing to me and into taking responsibility for what I am actually in control of.

Well, my "involvement in the abuse" (notice the quotes) was getting bad grades. Literally nothing made my parents angrier than bad grades, even a C on a homework assignment; that was the source of most abuse. Perhaps they loved me not for me being their son, but for the bragging rights my grades brought them, and bad grades meant loss of bragging rights. I did try to "mitigate the abuse" (again, notice the quotes) by getting good grades as much as possible, but sometimes I'd slip up. One thing I should have done is tell a sympathetic teacher that I'm being abused for bad grades. But since my parents always sided with my teachers and vice versa, I had no idea that teachers were mandated reporters too; I feared they'd rat me out to my parents and get me in trouble at home.

Taking control is one hell of an impossible task when you're a minor being emotionally abused by your own family. The only helpful thing I had access to was alcohol, which I (ab)used since I was 12. But what else was I supposed to do? Run away from home and get arrested? Call CPS myself and have it be my word against my parents'? Commit suicide to escape the abuse? (Which I contemplated on and off since I was 8.) Do tell. I'm waiting.

In any situation there are elements I can control (my behaviour) and others I cannot (other people's behaviour). Understanding the distinction is how I manage to not feel overwhelmed by the situation. If I expend all my energy worrying about what I cannot control I go crazy. As soon as i focus one what i actually have control over i feel i have more agency and less like im drowning.

That's actually the therapists job. If they aren't engaging you, then sack them and find another one. I've wasted thousands of dollars on therapists OTs, psychologists and speech therapists who did not engage with my daughter.

I eventually found a speech therapist who is like my daughter's friend and I've stuck with her.

A child typically has less agency than a parent. That does not mean they do not have any agency. You asked if you should have called CPS and have it be your word against theirs?

Yes. That is EXACTLY the reason for CPS services. At the very least an investigation would have been opened, and they would have noticed your alcohol abuse, gotten you support for it, made sure that the supports for ASD were being managed correctly, and your parents would have gotten a wake up call on the fact that people are paying attention to what THEY are doing wrong.

If the abuse continued, they would have taken you into custody, away from the abuse, gotten your parents treatment for THEIR issues, and gotten you wrap around services until either your parents figured out their issues and fixed them, or terminated their parental rights if not (This is actually pretty rare, parents usually get their act together, albeit not perfectly, after the first go round, unless there is severe abuse or neglect, which is not what you are describing. I know, I have been working in and around Protective Services for over a decade).

This supposes that what was being done qualifies as abuse. That is a rather flexible term, but it does have it's limits, and you haven't described in detail what the abuse entailed enough for me to know one way or the other.

However, all of this is actually fruitless discussion if it is past tense. If it is not and you are still a minor...call CPS ASAP if the situation is ongoing. If you are an adult still in your parents' custody, call them anyway. Adult Protective Services or Protective Services for the Handicapped/Disabled should be managed out of the same department, and if not, they can refer you to the correct one.

What can be done now besides that? Well, you can ask your therapist for a referral to another therapist. If asked, you can be blunt or you can say you feel that you feel you would be more comfortable with a different therapist.

Then explain to the new therapist your concerns that your previous therapist had a bias towards your parents, whom you have suffered abuse from, and that you have sensitivity to that issue because you felt that the previous therapist was asking you to validate the abuse directed towards you and she seemed to be asking you to hold yourself accountable for being abused.

Those words should clearly explain the concerns to your therapist. They may still ask you to "engage," but I am not seeing the issue being about engaging, because your concerns seem to be about the therapist being a bad fit. In an ideal scenario, the therapist would invite you to work around your feelings about the abuse so you can grow out of the issues you are experiencing that revolve around it.

This might mean you get to a point where you "let it go," but that is a bad descriptor. It is more about moving on into a place where the abuse no longer impacts you as an adult, and you can live your life more productively because it is done, resolved, and in the past.

That might be the intention of your current therapist, but they are doing it in a way that isn't helpful to you. It happens. Some therapists are just bad for certain clients.

To use one example, when I got a D on a math homework assignment, my mom spent the whole evening crying, and my dad spent the whole evening slamming doors and objects. They also screamed at me for at least 45 minutes about how I'm disgrace to the entire family. For weeks afterwards, my extended family treated me like garbage, "for upsetting my parents".

I knew whole thing was staged, planned, or acted out, in order to destabilize me as part of the abuse. Whether or not it passes for actual abuse, it'd be up to my state's CPS workers and their lawyers. So, how do I prove to the therapist and/or the CPS, that the whole thing was an act to destabilize me? Obviously, I never told my therapist about any of it. I knew she'd laugh in my face, mock me, or berate me "for upsetting your parents who love you and want what's best for you".

I, for once, would have sold my soul to be taken away and put into a foster home with no possibility of returning. But since she was on my parents' side, she'd never contact CPS to protect me. But if I got successfully taken away and my parents called my foster parents and asked for me, I'd have said "No, thanks. My new family is so much better!"

Your teachers may or may not have been "mandated reporters" depending on how long ago this was and which state you lived in at the time of the abuse. The whole idea of "mandatory reporters" was new as of the 1970's, if I'm not mistaken, and was limited at first just to severe physical abuse ("battering"), then gradually expanded to include various other kinds of abuse. I remember hearing about expansions of mandatory reporting requirements in the 1980's and 1990's with regard to sexual abuse.

That was in 1994--2000. My state was left-leaning moderate back then. (Today, it's very liberal, although not as liberal as New York or California.) So it's anybody's guess if my teachers would have helped me. My semi-educated guess says "no". They'd probably rat me out to my parents; I'd be in huge trouble at home, and my therapist would laugh at me when I'd tell her about how I was punished for telling teachers about being abused.