NOTE: A VARIATION OF THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN JEWISH ECHO MAGAZINE'S MONTLY COLUMN ASK-THE-THERAPIST
I am so glad a reader sent me an email telling me I should write an article warning people about therapists. I am sure if a parent would send an email to the principal of her child's school informing him that he should broadcast the dangers of allowing children to attend school, or persuade her dentist to warn customers about the dangers of allowing a dentist into one's mouth, I am sure they all have the same death wish as I do and will immediately write a column explaining why it is a huge mistake to send your child to school, to schedule with your dentist regularly, to see a therapist.
But joking aside, I think this reader is a hundred percent right.
People have some misconceptions about therapy and therapists; they hear stories that truly trouble them; and they get scared off from therapy. Others watch therapists breaking the ethics and boundaries of their profession and are totally unaware of its ramifications; sometimes even confusing the therapist's actions as exemplary.
So this article is to set the records straight so you can safely see a therapist, and educate yourself in the same manner you would if you would see any professional, be it speech therapist, pediatrician, or endocrinologist into whose hands you are entrusting your, or a loved one's health.
Let's take some common misconceptions and fears about therapy.
Therapists break up families. They cause divorce, involve child protection services who take the children away, or convince teenagers to move out of their parents' homes.
Whoa! If therapists would be this powerful, don't you think one would have become president by now?
Here's the real story.
When a person comes to therapy, something really awful is happening in their life. And if therapy does its job of empowering a person to make positive change, then yes, the person makes those changes that needs to be done to improve the awfulness of their life. So to an outsider, it may look like therapy caused the divorce; but actually, it was the desperate woman or man who finally comes to therapy that develops the strength to either repair the relationship; or if that is impossible, to leave it.
That holds true for the teen that finally leaves her dysfunctional home so that she can learn normal patterns of behavior, that will enable her to marry and not perpetuate the dysfunction of her parents' home, despite the image of normalcy that is projected to greater community.
And here's the problem therapists have about child protective services: If they have reason to believe a child is in danger, they must call ACS; or risk losing their professional license, risk living with the terrible knowledge that they were too cowardly to stand up to a powerful but naive community to save a child or family, or be witness to the damage of continuous abuse they felt powerless to stop.
A responsible and frum therapist has her own rav with whom she consults; and often a family member who is taking such bold steps, also enlists the involvement of a rav in conjunction with therapy. It is very sad when therapy begins at such a late stage of the dysfunction that there is tremendous client distrust or negative experiences with prior involvement of community askanim or rabbanim whose naiivete and lack of understanding now has closed the door to a client's consent to their involvement.
However, it is not therapy that has broken up these families, it is the actions of family members who are dysfunctional, abusive, or who lack basic middos, which has done that!
Ask any therapist, and he or she will sadly tell you how the most chusheveh families, the most prestigious, frummest, most upstanding, most seemingly Torah'dik or chessed-oriented homes, sometimes hold the most terrible secrets beneath their golden veneer.
[And if you are afraid to send your teenage daughter to therapy, because you know your child's problems are rooted in your home, and are afraid a therapist will find out, too; then you go to therapy! Give your child the gift of a secure and loving home, or be brave and strong by sending her to therapy, enabling her to obtain the tools to either change her environment or break away from your home to survive intact.]
But there are times for a potential client to be wary of a therapist.
It is not when you hear stories second-hand that you need to worry hypothetically whether or not therapy can be dangerous; it's l'maaseh, when you are seeking a therapist for yourself or for your child and need to choose the right one.
Get references on the therapist. From your rav. From community referral services. Interview the therapist. Feel comfortable asking questions, and feel comfortable with the answers. Ask the therapist if she consults with a rav, under what conditions she reports to ACS, how she deals with confidentiality if you want her to treat your teenage daughter. Ask her any questions that trouble you. You may not like all her answers, but you should like her straightforwardness, her honesty, and her lack of defensiveness when answering your questions.
Once you commit to a therapist, continue to monitor her behavior. Is she able to identify treatment goals and objectives or give your a time frame in which treatment should be complete? Does she self-disclose indiscriminately? Does she lack boundaries with time evident by coming late to sessions or forgetting session appointments. Does she overstep her boundaries and spend too much time with your teen? On the phone? Taking her out of the bounds of the therapy room? Does she break confidentiality about other clients to you? (Even without names?) Do you feel you can't trust her to keep your confidences or those of your family members, like when she reveals to you things your daughter has confided in therapy and deep down you know that wasn't fair of her? Those would be red flags of inappropriate behavior.
Hey, one more thing. Listen up! If you spouse or child is going to a therapist, please don't believe everything he or she tells you the therapist said. They may lie outright for reasons known only to themselves; or may have misunderstood or misconstrued the therapist. If your spouse's or child's behavior is improving, take that as evidence therapy is effective and don't worry about what the therapist may or may not have said.
Having said all this, you know, I beginning to wonder if maybe I should be running for president?
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Browse through my previously published articles on my former blog Therapy Thinks and Thoughts at frumtherapist.com/profile/MindyBlumenfeldLCSW
Read current articles in my bi-weekly column THERAPY: A SNEAK PEEK INSIDE in Binah Magazine, available on newsstands every Monday.