Trauma survivors need a trauma informed therapist. My last article supplied you with your “bill of rights” as a client and everything you should expect from this type of therapy. It reads like a series of green flags for great therapy. But not all therapists who claim to be trauma informed use the principles behind it in practice. Hence, why it was so important to arm you with a checklist of authentic trauma informed therapy before talking about the red flags.
The bad news is, not all therapists are created equal. And if your first therapist is one of the bad ones, first impressions can make you leery of trying again. The good news is, not all therapists are created equal. So, don’t be afraid to shop around for one who fits your needs. A good therapist can help take your healing to new heights, while a bad therapist tends to do the reverse. We need a list of red flags so that we know the difference.
Not all therapists understand the psychological trauma of being raised by a Cluster B disordered (Trauma Glossary 1) parent. And, one terrifying statistic I read was that an estimated one in three therapists are Cluster B disorders. So, we need a list of red flags for spotting that type of therapist as well. Because this sort will do more damage to your psyche than your original trauma. As an adult child of a BPD, I can confirm this because my first therapist, incredibly, had a high functioning personality disorder. Fortunately, I’ve found great therapists since my first disaster. However, it took me twelve years to attempt therapy again, naively believing that all therapists were the same.
Red Flags That Imply “What’s Wrong With You?” Thinking
“What’s wrong with you?” thinking flies in the face of the main theme of trauma informed therapy. So, you need to understand when they are using this rhetoric. Bad therapists won’t usually be bold enough to say it, but they tend to make you feel like something is wrong with you, when it’s actually the reverse.
1-Toxic Positivity (Dismisses Your Trauma in Favor of Now)
You can’t get more opposite of trauma informed than this type of therapist. That’s because the whole point of trauma informed therapy is keeping the focus on “What happened to you?” In other words, past focus. This makes sense considering how trauma is in our past and we must process it to move forward in life.
Toxic positivity therapists, however don’t understand that. They believe that happiness is a choice and we are choosing to be unhappy because we are “holding on” to the past. So, in other words, this the type of therapist who will consistently imply “What’s wrong with you?” (Present tense thinking.)
The good news is, they are so full of themselves, they will proudly tell you early on, something along the lines of, “I don’t believe in dwelling on the past. I only care about now.” All while delivering it through a plastered smile, of course. Because nothing sells toxic positivity like using themselves as a “shining example”. Unless this therapist owns a magic wand, there’s no such thing as Presto! and you’re over it. So, if this type of therapist claims they are trauma informed, they are either lying or they got their certifications under questionable circumstances.
2-Dunning-Kruger Effect (Extreme Overconfidence in Mediocre Skills)
Two articles ago was a history lesson on 90’s therapy when the Dunning-Kruger Effect was the norm. This was when all the so-called “experts” swore by ONE treatment plan for all adult survivors of adverse homes. Their step by step instructions on how to heal are appalling by today’s standards. But the therapists of the 1990’s believed that if their methods didn’t work for us, then there must be something wrong with us, not their “cutting edge” treatment plan.
Arrogant therapists tend to be uncompromising. But collaborating with you on your treatment plan is one of the major principles of authentic trauma informed therapy. Collaboration is all about compromise and giving you the power and control of your healing. That’s because these days, there’s an understanding that what works for some won’t necessarily work for all. So, any therapist who pushes you to stick with their treatment plan while disregarding your needs is a major red flag. And quite frankly, they should read my article on 90’s quackery. It might teach them an important lesson on the art of practicing humility.
3-Rush You to Forgive Your Abuser
It was once believed that healing wasn’t possible until we forgive, but now we know better. Validating your struggle or inability to forgive is one of the newest concepts in healing. With that said, if this is the only red flag you’re identifying with, it’s entirely possible your therapist is just one resource away from better helping you.
The short fix is Pete Walker’s book: Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. If you read nothing else, at least read Chapter 14. He has an entire chapter discussing what happens to your healing when you rush to forgive. Spoiler Alert: Your progress in healing stalls out. He even addresses how certain things are impossible to forgive. My advice is to show that to your therapist and let the way they respond be your guide.
If you don’t have a copy of Pete Walker’s book, try this article because I included a small quote of his. The moment I showed that very passage to my EMDR therapist, he never brought up forgiveness to me again. And then my healing took off under his care.
4-Accuses You of Holding on to Your Trauma
The principles behind the popular IFS therapy (Internal Family Systems, also known as parts therapy), state that we all have “parts” within us that are holding different memories, emotions, and even our reactions to them. It’s up to us to discover what these parts are and get to know them so that we can release their burdens.
Notice how nowhere in IFS therapy does it imply that we are the ones consciously holding on to our trauma. So, a therapist accusing you of holding on to your trauma is using IFS principles out of context. Whether or not they specialize in IFS doesn’t matter. A trauma informed therapist should know better. Trauma Glossary 3 is proof that our trauma is holding on to us, not the other way around.
“Holding on to your trauma” is a victim-shaming phrase that’s one hundred percent false. And victim-shaming is one of the major red flags. It’s a means of rushing your healing just because you might want to slow down and explore something (which is your right). Or, even worse, hearing this phrase thrown at you because you aren’t “letting go” of the pain fast enough. As if it were that simple!
Red Flag Warnings Your Therapist is a Cluster B Disorder
My first therapist was a byproduct of what passed for “therapy” in the 1990’s. If that one treatment plan wasn’t invalidating enough, I was also receiving therapy from a narcissist. Though it would take me several years and comparing my experiences with others who also had a re-traumatizing therapist for it to finally click. We all had cluster B disordered therapists and in every case, they were our first therapist. Believe me when I tell you that no matter how many years experiencing cluster B abuse, we tend to be most vulnerable to the cluster B therapist. The cluster B therapist will usually check every box of the following red flags. But please don’t wait and see how many red flags the therapist is showing. Because in truth, if they meet even one of the following, find a new therapist immediately.
1-Has More Compassion for Your Abuser Than for You
Talk about a red flag that your therapist has a personality disorder! Repeat after me: “There is no excuse for abuse.” Any therapist who disregards an abusive person’s accountability is one who has issues of their own.
I told my first therapist about the most severe trauma of my life, which involved intense operant conditioning abuse (Trauma Glossary 1). All summer, at age twelve, I was isolated and beaten every day for exactly the same reason. I described the state of our house in filth while my BPD mother spent her days watching soap operas. She interrupted with, “Your mother sounds like she was depressed. Do you think she was depressed?” It was a painful memory before but from that day onward it was like having a thought worm permanently fixed into my psyche.
I know another who confided to her therapist how her BPD mother would shame her by saying “You will never measure up to me because I’m raising a child without any help.” Her therapist’s response: “Strong mama!”
2-Doesn’t Like You and Keeps Asking the Same Questions You’ve Already Answered
Yes, these red flags are synonymous. Make no mistake. Cluster B therapists despise the victims of other cluster B abusers. For one thing, the abuses we describe are a little too reminiscent of the abuses they have been guilty of committing. Add to it their lack of empathy and a refusal to accept responsibility for their actions and what do you get? A therapist who would rather not dwell on you too much. They may tune you out during session or fail to take accurate notes on what you’ve already said. Or they could be asking the same questions in an attempt to trigger you.
My first therapist kept a plastered smile on her face with a gentle tone to match. The perfect vehicle for delivering shaming words like poisoned honey. Sure, I knew at the time her smile and tone were fake. I just figured it was due to myself being so faulty, she didn’t like me but was determined to do her job anyway. Every few sessions – over a span of two and a half years – she would interrupt to ask where I was from “because you don’t talk like you’re from around here.” To which I’d explain, like a broken record all the places I had lived in while I was growing up.
Another person I know who had a bad therapist told me: “She would sometimes ask why I didn’t say or do something when I told her I had. At the time, I assumed it was on purpose, to have me retell so that she could look for incongruities.”
3-Leave Session Feeling Worse or More Confused
You can’t be on a more opposite path towards a breakthrough than this. This therapist will keep you stuck in your pain and self-doubt programming.
Once after realizing my closest friends were men, I asked my first therapist if she thought this might be because my mother was so abusive, that I feel safer with men? She curled her lip in disgust and replied, “I think it’s more about putting another notch on your belt.” I was beyond confused. She had taken my reference to platonic relationships and turned it into a perversion.
One person described her experience: “I was getting triggered in session and shame spiraling on the way home. I blamed myself, not my therapist.” It’s important to note that children of Cluster B disorders have unique programming. See also the acronym FOG: Fear, Obligation, Guilt which, if left unchecked, will lead to shame spirals (both underline terms in Trauma Glossary 2). Any therapist who heaps even more guilt – which is already vulnerable to internalization – is particularly vicious and cruel.
4-Personas Change Per Visit
Sometimes they are warm and validating and then other times it’s the reverse. If it gets to the point where you’re not sure which side you’ll see per visit, this is yet another indication your therapist has a personality disorder.
As one adult child of a BPD described her bad therapist, “It wasn’t all bitter. There were times I felt relief. It made it harder to identify what kind of therapist I was getting, though.” The last thing a child of a cluster B disorder needs from a therapist is a reenactment of their parents’ moods and shifts in behavior. A handful of decent sessions do NOT outweigh all the bad.
5-Normalizes Cluster B Abuse and Doesn’t Fully Believe You
This type of therapist behavior-levels abusers and victims. They will throw out phrases like, “We are all a little narcissistic,” if you’re trying to process the lightbulb moment of finally learning there’s a name for the type of abuser you had. Or they will tell you that narcissistic abuse isn’t real. While narcissistic abuse doesn’t exist in DSMV, nor does complex-PTSD, both are very much real. This therapist tries to imply that things weren’t as bad as you remember them. That’s because you’re being gaslit (Trauma Glossary 1) by your own therapist. So, you get hooked in a cycle of trying to prove yourself because it seems your therapist is having a hard time believing your story.
If this is the only one of the red flags you’re noticing in your therapist, and especially if you’re experiencing some of what I described, but not all of it, then this may not be a cluster B therapist. But it is a definite sign that you have a therapist who is under the veil of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Remember number two under the red flags that imply “What’s wrong with you?” This therapist has forgotten how little education on personality disorders was required for them to earn their degree. So, this therapist is taking their limited understanding and following the mainstream narrative of the so-called “experts” today. Exactly in the same way it happened in the days of 90’s quackery. Hence, why this type of therapist will debunk your claims that you experienced cluster B abuse. And they will use laughably naïve language while doing so.
That’s why next week, we will talk about what’s going on with today’s mainstream narrative. And who is the so-called “expert” influencing our modern day Dunning-Kruger Effect? The answers will surprise you!