Marguerite
Active Member
"He actually said that mothers come in there all the time with their sons and a lot of them are single mothers, and he chuckled and continued "they always seem to have some mental incestous thing going on between them that I have to break through".
I was wondering what others make of that statement.."
He sounds like he's got a lot of his own issues that should have been dealt with in therapy before he himself was let loose on an unsuspecting clientele...
What bothers me most isn't this sick, chauvinistic Freudian, Pavlovian response of his, but that he applies ANY idea across the board. Very inappropriate, a "one size fits all" attitude when trying to measure someone for a tailored suit.
If he has such contempt for his clients (and the mothers of his clients) then it's no wonder he really stinks at this job.
I've met people like this before. One bloke, I even was beginning to think he cared and had some glimmering of humanity - he had been hired by the large group I worked for as a rehab specialist, trying to find alternative work placements. My health had deteriorated through an incident at work which triggered auto-immune issues which are still causing me big problems but have never been properly pinpointed (hence the occasional label of "we think it's MS"). And this bloke one day, while we were talking about how I felt having had my carer ripped out from under me, said, "Have you ever read the book 'Love Your Disease: It's Keeping you Well'?"
I said I didn't think I liked the sound of it, it sounded very judgemental and I didn't think it applied to something originally triggered by an accident. He said the book had that covered too. He gave me the line I've learned to dread, "Don't talk about it now. Think about it, find out a bit more about it maybe, then get back to me later with what you think."
They drop a sneaky, nasty little thought designed to send you off-balance then send you off for an unspecified period of time during which you do your thinking, begin to doubt your own sanity so by the time you meet them again you're (hopefully, from their point of view) In Their Power.
In this case, I happened to casually mention how puzzled I was by his remarks, to the department who had hired him. And for some reason, I never saw him again.
A couple of years later I picked up a magazine in a doctor's waiting room and found a condensed article on the book he'd mentioned. THEN I hit the roof - that lousy ratbag! By asking me to think about that question, he was actually asking me to consider that I had somehow deliberately chosen my specific health problems as a way of coping with my life. But my health problems had made my life MORE difficult, not less! What kind of logic was that? And what sort of insult was that, to try to say that I had not been coping with Life (or work) and had therefore 'developed' my illness as a way of coping; crikey, I could have just handed in my notice! It would have been much easier!
I noticed that this "wonderful book" seemed to disappear into oblivion; if there had been anything sound in its medical pronouncements then surely over the last 20 years it would have been incorporated into common medical practice? Funny, I've only heard anything like this once, since - difficult child 1's pediatrician, who tried to tell me something similar. In both these men - the employer's therapist and the pediatrician from purgatory - I feel they made the statement not out of any genuine concern for me, but out of a need to control and feel superior to the otherwise formidable people they had to contend with.
I told the pediatrician that his logic was flawed - living with this unnamed and undefined medical condition is making my life more difficult, not less. Life would be far LESS complicated and a lot easier, if I were well: by his logic, my preferred sexual position would be standing up in a hammock.
OK, rant over. I think there are several classes of - therapists, doctors, the whole group who have to work with the minds and bodies of more vulnerable people. Some genuinely want to help and are gifted in that regard. Others are mentally trying to backpedal into something more appropriate to their mindset, something that either doesn't need them to work with people (because their people skills are lacking) or gives them this sense of superiority so they can boost their own confidence at the expense of the patients' self-esteem.
Summary of all this - the guy is one sick puppy.
Marg
I was wondering what others make of that statement.."
He sounds like he's got a lot of his own issues that should have been dealt with in therapy before he himself was let loose on an unsuspecting clientele...
What bothers me most isn't this sick, chauvinistic Freudian, Pavlovian response of his, but that he applies ANY idea across the board. Very inappropriate, a "one size fits all" attitude when trying to measure someone for a tailored suit.
If he has such contempt for his clients (and the mothers of his clients) then it's no wonder he really stinks at this job.
I've met people like this before. One bloke, I even was beginning to think he cared and had some glimmering of humanity - he had been hired by the large group I worked for as a rehab specialist, trying to find alternative work placements. My health had deteriorated through an incident at work which triggered auto-immune issues which are still causing me big problems but have never been properly pinpointed (hence the occasional label of "we think it's MS"). And this bloke one day, while we were talking about how I felt having had my carer ripped out from under me, said, "Have you ever read the book 'Love Your Disease: It's Keeping you Well'?"
I said I didn't think I liked the sound of it, it sounded very judgemental and I didn't think it applied to something originally triggered by an accident. He said the book had that covered too. He gave me the line I've learned to dread, "Don't talk about it now. Think about it, find out a bit more about it maybe, then get back to me later with what you think."
They drop a sneaky, nasty little thought designed to send you off-balance then send you off for an unspecified period of time during which you do your thinking, begin to doubt your own sanity so by the time you meet them again you're (hopefully, from their point of view) In Their Power.
In this case, I happened to casually mention how puzzled I was by his remarks, to the department who had hired him. And for some reason, I never saw him again.
A couple of years later I picked up a magazine in a doctor's waiting room and found a condensed article on the book he'd mentioned. THEN I hit the roof - that lousy ratbag! By asking me to think about that question, he was actually asking me to consider that I had somehow deliberately chosen my specific health problems as a way of coping with my life. But my health problems had made my life MORE difficult, not less! What kind of logic was that? And what sort of insult was that, to try to say that I had not been coping with Life (or work) and had therefore 'developed' my illness as a way of coping; crikey, I could have just handed in my notice! It would have been much easier!
I noticed that this "wonderful book" seemed to disappear into oblivion; if there had been anything sound in its medical pronouncements then surely over the last 20 years it would have been incorporated into common medical practice? Funny, I've only heard anything like this once, since - difficult child 1's pediatrician, who tried to tell me something similar. In both these men - the employer's therapist and the pediatrician from purgatory - I feel they made the statement not out of any genuine concern for me, but out of a need to control and feel superior to the otherwise formidable people they had to contend with.
I told the pediatrician that his logic was flawed - living with this unnamed and undefined medical condition is making my life more difficult, not less. Life would be far LESS complicated and a lot easier, if I were well: by his logic, my preferred sexual position would be standing up in a hammock.
OK, rant over. I think there are several classes of - therapists, doctors, the whole group who have to work with the minds and bodies of more vulnerable people. Some genuinely want to help and are gifted in that regard. Others are mentally trying to backpedal into something more appropriate to their mindset, something that either doesn't need them to work with people (because their people skills are lacking) or gives them this sense of superiority so they can boost their own confidence at the expense of the patients' self-esteem.
Summary of all this - the guy is one sick puppy.
Marg
