It's Really Sad. The Psychotherapists of Today.

[Guest SirVladimir]

This shouldn't come as a surprise, though I want to pin-point it out in a short thread. 

The level of today's - not all! - psychotherapists is so freaking low you could wipe the floor with them. 

I've known this for quite some time conceptually, but it wasn't until recently that I had the chance to see a glimpse of their thinking with my own eyes. For any of you interested in the same fields as I - such as leading others to love through understanding their emotions - be not worried. Under a bunch of school papers and techniques, there is usually no independent drive that would influence their decision-making. This is a field with massive potential for an actualized person. You're literally competing with brain-dead products of a factory with big official "educated" labels on their sleeves. You're competing with cope-or-pill machines, while there is so much love to be given. If this isn't an opportunity, I don't know what. 

You would assume a psychotherapist is a pioneer of actualization, a teacher of sort, however that isn't the case most times.

Conscious therapists are sporadic; so it's even more fulfilling to see them in action. Here in Czechia, the first psychedelic clinic has made its appearance, with therapists who have undergone various retreats and psychedelics themselves. I wish we see more conscious institutions like these soon - as humanity makes its transition to even more powerful ways of treatment. 

Edited June 2, 2020 by SirVladimir

[Javfly33]

Damn! I want to go live there!

[Guest SirVladimir]

1 hour ago, Javfly33 said:

Damn! I want to go live there!

When I say psychedelic clinic, I should be more precise. They're not going to dose you with psychedelics as a form of treatment. The legislation would need a change from its current state. There are working therapists that have experience with Ayahuasca, holotropic breathing and such. (Imagine if this was a required step to be an active therapist.) On of their fields is helping people integrate a powerful experience, one above their head. I can only hope we'll see a shift in the law in the upcoming 30 years.

Edited June 2, 2020 by SirVladimir

[Leo Gura]

Group think is a hell of a constraint.

[Guest SirVladimir]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Group think is a hell of a constraint.

To be a teacher (a therapist in our case) requires a leap past your own blindness and seeing through the illusionary ground of knowledge.

Big fish are followed by little fish, I guess, and the ocean carries on. 

[Lyubov]

They always were for the most part fairly low compared to say anyone doing consciousness work. The practice barely existed before 100 years ago and much of its role was delegated to religion before that and even now in many places. Many people in the field have no clue what they are doing and are just trying to cope like their clients or living unconsciously. Many of the methods they try to achieve emotional mastery through are fairly ineffective, you aren't gonna heal trauma fully through CBT. A conscious therapist is a gift though. They are sporadic like you said but out there, usually in the real big cities there will be a handful.  

Edited June 3, 2020 by Lyubov

[Jude_]

Hey I can speak a bit to this.  I spent 6.5 years total in psychotherapy training programs, in three different schools.  These were all small "modality" schools: independent, experiential, and small class size (modalities were Transpersonal, Gestalt, and Existential-Integrative).

This is not at all the conventional training for psychotherapists, but over the years I've learned a lot about why things have become the way they've become.

Essentially "evidence based" practices have taken over the mainstream.  Most people are being trained to work for agencies, and agencies want you to follow protocol, partly for liability reasons and partly because it's easier to teach and enforce formulaic approaches.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) will help people to manage symptoms, and if an agency can say that symptoms have reduced, then on paper they can prove what they are doing is effective and continue to get funding, or lobby for more.

Real depth therapy is much harder to teach.  It's not formulaic (or at least not as simplified as CBT) and symptoms can get worse before they get better, as you're dredging up all the ugly contents of the unconscious.

It's unfortunate that such a superficial form of therapy is what's in style, but that's beginning to change.  Somatic modalities are blowing up, and while they are mostly applied for trauma, they inevitably go deeper than CBT.

There's also still a lot of schools and therapists that practice with depth.  Look into Psychodynamic, Gestalt, Jungian, Archetypal, Adler, Existential... My favourite writers on these topics are: Rollo May (Existential), Viktor Frankl (Existential), James Hillman (Archetypal/Jungian), James Hollis (Jungian), Irvin Yalom (Psychodynamic), Peter Levine (Somatic).

[Guest SirVladimir]

1 hour ago, Jude_ said:

Essentially "evidence based" practices have taken over the mainstream.  Most people are being trained to work for agencies, and agencies want you to follow protocol, partly for liability reasons and partly because it's easier to teach and enforce formulaic approaches.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) will help people to manage symptoms, and if an agency can say that symptoms have reduced, then on paper they can prove what they are doing is effective and continue to get funding, or lobby for more.

I hear you. The field is a living business entity.

Nowadays everybody and their mothers are spitting out training programmes and certificates. All but look inside.

[Leo Gura]

Materialism keeps it from going deep.

[Raphael]

My phychotherapist told me that some people don't even believe in god.

She was mostly at stage blue / orange, I stop seeing her.

[docs20]

Yeah but in the in the end the integration of all these practices is key. 

Do not underestimate the conventional because some of the benefits are hard to question: I speak from direct experience. 

CBT and conventional drugs have their essential place in some instances, even just for the mere fact that put your head in an headspace that is suitable to do all the more in depth work, which is what most therapists are missing, because maybe they stop with CBT and the drugs which are just part of the work

Also every person is wired differently and some people are seen not to benefit much from non-conventional kind of psychotherapies, there are a lot of variables at play, so I wouldn't be so harsh on conventional psychotherapy and psychiatry, which has a huge potential of growth with some of the integration with tools that love to go even deeper.

Edited June 3, 2020 by docs20

[Leo Gura]

44 minutes ago, Raphael said:

My phychotherapist told me that some people don't even believe in god.

She was mostly at stage blue / orange, I stop seeing her.

Lol

That's when you tell her you are God

[Guest SirVladimir]

Now this is a problem I would like to approach in practice: the relationship between SD and psychotherapy. Because in the end, even depression is just dealing with a massive ego. How helpful could it be to meet a person at their language. 

[Scholar]

This is utterly wonderful. We know exactly what to do, we know exactly how to contribute. We live in a time in which being Loving is the easiest and most needed thing to do.

 

The dysfunction of todays system is the most wonderful opportuninity for making your contribution to change the fate of this planet. It has never been easier before, it has never been this obvious. That which you criticize is that which you must do better. When there is more darkness, there is more room to be filled with light.

 

 

The pioneers are already at work while others are sitting back and criticizing. All that is required is getting our ass up and helping those who are already helping. If there is noone helping yet, good. This is your opportunity to shape the first path.

[Guest Bazooka Jesus]

48 minutes ago, Scholar said:

This is utterly wonderful. We know exactly what to do, we know exactly how to contribute. We live in a time in which being Loving is the easiest and most needed thing to do.

 

The dysfunction of todays system is the most wonderful opportuninity for making your contribution to change the fate of this planet. It has never been easier before, it has never been this obvious. That which you criticize is that which you must do better. When there is more darkness, there is more room to be filled with light.

 

 

The pioneers are already at work while others are sitting back and criticizing. All that is required is getting our ass up and helping those who are already helping. If there is noone helping yet, good. This is your opportunity to shape the first path.

Lmao, this is absolutely amazing.

So this morning I got out of bed and, practically out of the blue, got hit by the realization that becoming a Psychedelic Therapist might actually be my long sought-for life purpose. Sat down to meditate, did my breathing exercize, opened my laptop --- and BOOM, this is the first thing that shows up on the screen. HAH!

Holy Schnitzel, if this isn't a sign from the big old Chief in the sky himself...

[Guest SirVladimir]

@Bazooka Jesus It's gonna be a while until the world catches up on psychedelic treatment again. Stan Grof did test LSD in the 50s here in Czechia, but that was 70 years ago. I see 10-20 years as the most optimistic horizon for any sort of testing to spring again. My plan for the upcoming years would be to reinforce understanding of psychological models and finish high school. Then I could slowly dive into college, practice itself and study more narrowed fields. Your situation will probably sound different.

[WaveInTheOcean]

nice

[Jude_]

@SirVladimir MDMA and psilocybin are very close to FDA approval, and I imagine in a few years it will dramatically change the rest of the world's view on psychedelics.  In 5 years it will be common, in 10 years it will be the norm.

@docs20 I completely agree that the more conventional/popular treatments have their place.  I've had clients who weren't ready for the depth approach, you need a certain stability of being to go in and do that work.  For some people working on the cognitive level is what is more available and effective.

It is unfortunate though that psychodynamic has fallen out of fashion.  Psychodynamic is basically the understanding that our behaviour and feelings are influenced by unconscious forces, and work to make the unconscious conscious.

There is no transpersonal view required for good psychodynamic therapy.  Irvin Yalom is a materialist and he's a fantastic therapist.  A lot can still be accomplished, a lot of grown and integration can occur without needing to go beyond material logic.

That being said, so much more is possible if you can go beyond materialism, of course.  I've had a number of clients that I've done guided visualizations for in sessions that turned into psychedelic journeys.  It's amazing what can happen.

Many are still too stuck or close minded to let go and open in that depth though... I look forward to the day that psychedelics are a normal part of therapy.