A psychologist recently felt scandalized by my post: “Psychiatry ignores trauma with Bessel van der Kolk” — she felt my comments in the text of that post were completely irresponsible. I essentially talked about the traumatizing nature of psychiatry and the mental health system. Go read the post to see.
She told me she is a trauma therapist — which is a bit frightening — given how horrified she is by my comments in the post. All of us who’ve been gravely traumatized by psychiatry have met with such psychologists before. Those who don’t believe what has happened to us.
These sorts of reactions from professionals are always disturbing to me. They hurt me really. Physically. That is one way that trauma marks us.
Anyway — any mental health professional that doesn’t recognize that the mental health system is rife with potential abuse and harm is dangerous to those who’ve already been harmed and to many who may yet be harmed. There are many folks in the system at this point that actually do understand the reality. Times are, indeed, changing. I see lots of reason to hope. I have many friends who are working in and out of the system as knowledgable and competent professionals.
Still, if you encounter someone in the field that denies the reality of harm in the system as this woman does, if you have such a history of harm and trauma from the system, do not continue your relationship with them because they will gaslight you. If she cannot believe it’s happening then she won’t hear it from you either. You will be blamed for whatever trauma befell you and that is what has happened to so many of us who’ve become disabled from the over-use of psych drugs and other disabling and traumatizing “care” that is routinely given.
God it can really be a nasty catch 22…with folks like this not even aware that they are retraumatizing folks by their very disbelief! Yes.
One of my readers on Facebook who is also a therapist, Nicola Simmersbach, says it in a nutshell, “Professional denial is a form of retraumatization.”
I know many professionals now that understand these realities, but there are still many who do not. Mad in America has lots of professionals writing for it if you want an example of some who write critiques of the system. I too was a professional for many years.
See also: the mental health professionals who perpetrate against us
More on professionals and the system:
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Mental health-related stigma in health care and mental health-care settings: response to journal article
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The divide between client/patient/consumer and professionals (with list of links)
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The Mental (Illness) system and thoughts on alternatives: a collection
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