could not be more thrilled to announce my first prose piece published by twist and twain!! one step closer to leaving this lame non-fiction work behind 😄 check it out here:
Antidepressants are literally robbing our generation of one of the few great things life has to offer. People should be more angry about that. Like out in the streets angry.
@grace_roso
/: you’d think someone with a face tattoo would have the mental toughness to ride the subway for 45 minutes with a bag of stuff on her shoulder
"The more these words are used, the more distanced and depersonalized they get — and as a result, extremely complex human experiences get pigeonholed into broad terms with vague definitions."
thanks to
@PsychGAlan
for the thoughts!! 😁
"If a therapist identifies themselves as an "ally” to a transgender patient, the patient is unconsciously bound to their transness in the dyad, unable to explore a psychic world in which they enjoy components of their birth gender or have mixed feelings about their transition."
smash that mf like button if you want to see my next debate, “don’t disclose confidential patient information on the internet as thinly veiled way to flex your self-ascribed expertise,” featuring me and this lady
This week in therapy ⬇️
Patient: I told my adult daughter I’m sorry & I did my best raising her, but that doesn’t seem to satisfy her.
Me: Maybe try, “I didn’t understand what you needed. What can I do better now?”
#thread
🧵
@LoriGottlieb1
please tell me this is a fictional dialogue and not actually what a patient said … it’s borderline exploitative to milk a patient’s struggles for an instructional twitter thread
why is it “safer” for a pt to feel they have autism or adhd than any other mental health condition? why are those two labels the most highly desired — to the point where other diagnoses become “offensive”?
i wish we could move away from the “people who need routine and predictability are on the spectrum” narrative and towards “children naturally prefer routine and predictability or else they feel misattuned to/emotionally abandoned” … we love to pathologize everything don’t we
"Many beginning therapists–especially if they have never been in therapy themselves–are unaware of the multiple meanings associated with the decision to enter therapy. These therapists are surprised to find that clients actually resist the help they are overtly seeking."/
forrrrr the record i dont wanna pick on this lady! i just want to highlight this issue - therapists performing the act of "caring" online (maybe to build their brand, maybe to get new clients) - and how that impacts the public's view of the profession
"A therapist who shares their gender identity, sex, race, and ethnicity on their Psychology Today profile page, in the hopes that a patient with the same demographic information will find them trustworthy, isn’t all altruistic. And it presents some larger hidden problems."
when do we think that people are going to stop seeing stuff like this as the mentalhealthification of society and start seeing it for what it is ...... which is deadass just codified dominance and control
"Many psychotherapists, including psychoanalysts, traumatize their patients unnecessarily by sarcastic attacks on their archaic narcissism." -- Heinz Kohut, 1972
just listened to that mcwilliams interview on some podcast - she makes a joke about how her daughters accuses her of having a “listening disability” after a stressful day of seeing pts (hard to concentrate when family/friends talk). therapy twitter, do you identify with this?
when nancy mcwilliams said that therapists say “mmm” because evokes a “nonverbally signally to clients that were as open to their hunger and aggression as a nursing mmmmmmmother”
"Over-identification with a therapist through very surface-level characteristics, like race or gender, is a ready-made formula for patients to project thoughts and feelings about themselves onto the therapist, making transferences and displacements even more difficult to see."
i just found out that a very talented male therapist i know in nyc specializes in young 20 and 30-something men who need help accessing and expressing their emotions — i feel like that’s such a necessary niche imo
maybe we’re calling it “therapy-speak” when we actually mean “words we made up that sound like they ‘came from therapy’ but actually they’re simplified derivations of complex psychological concepts that we manipulate to suit our defensive needs.” but i guess that’s kinda long
No, your feelings are not “valid.”
• Feelings are often irrational.
• Emotions don’t always reflect reality.
• If your feelings are always “valid” then why bother examining them or yourself?
• Instead of labelling them “valid” & demanding others agree: learn to manage them.
killed a spotted lanternfly today. was it justifiable homicide? will i be acquitted of this crime? please defend me
@NYCParks
i won’t do well in prison
my friend told me his therapist ate a bag of chips in session once and i immediate told him to dump them. i mean of all the foods!!!!!! the CRUNCHIEST one ??!?!!?!? the NOISIEST OF ALL FOODS ???????
i sat in on a workshop on emotion-focused therapy today. and i think one of the main problems with it is that it's .. inauthentic. "we're not analyzing!" then they do, and they call it something else. "we're not pathologizing!" then they do, and they call it something else.
i bet you’ve been wondering where i went for the past few months. i took some time off twitter to work on my mrs degree, which i officially earned on saturday 💪🏻
you can think of your therapist any way you want.. because you can think whatever you want in general! it's if you therapist starts TREATING you like a friend then you have a problem
today i’m mad about how psychoanalytic people see themselves as a dying altruistic breed destined to bear the cross of a cbt/dbt world. the more we indulge this cringey fantasy the more we’ll self-isolate and create the reality we’re dreading
if we're talking about hate in the countertransference ill just say this - that paper taught me that there is no love without hate. it's not a bad thing, not a good thing, just is. i think we'd all be a lot more at peace if we accepted that
one of the most interesting responses to this are the therapists who are like “ok you’re valid but boundaries! 😫😫” y’all can be so concrete. we can be free to play with love in the psychic space without this crippling fear of becoming ethically unhinged !!
therapists are supposed to metabolize emotions. literally in the job description. and feeling ‘unsafe’ based on demographic information is a psychotic way to conceptualize humanity. and if you feel ‘unsafe’ in the therapy room bc of that.. you shouldn’t be a therapist! how’s that
i love how surprised everyone is that academic institutions are corrupt with amoral, ideology-fueled, out-of-touch platitudes. y’all went to college, right? you were there too?
an interesting profile/think piece that reminds me of discourse i’ve seen floating around on my feed .. what do we think? how is the social justice movement impacting how therapists are trained/how they practice? 💭
for the love of god therapy twitter is fracturing like i’ve never seen. even the psychodynamic people are jumping down each others throats. can we stop for a second and just take a breath? like have everyone tag one actual friend they’ve made off this hellsite? please?
“Anxiety, it is said, is an affect without object but we have to know where this lack of object is: it is on my side. The affect of anxiety is in effect connoted by a want of object, but not by a want of reality.”
Jacques Lacan, Seminar IX, Identification
ironically i think this is one of the reasons i don’t like IFS. to me, i hear ‘what if my anxiety/fear isn’t an integrated feature of my whole self, but a part of me that i can in some ways “anthropomorphize” to feel like i have more control over it?’’
One reason I like internal family systems is that it’s not about trying to ‘change’ yourself, but giving the various parts of yourself the space to be. What if my anxiety or fear isn’t a symptom of a disordered mind, but a part of my being that demands to be heard?
things that would make me a bad therapist 😞 i drink alcohol 😖 i have very little savings bc i keep going on insane month-long trips to europe 😨 i eat processed sugar. like literally at this moment 😵💫 i go to analysis four times a week 💀 and also im not a licensed therapist
i wish people who call themselves empathic therapists would open their minds a little to how difficult it is to be a young person now. like yea we have a/c and running water but loneliness and existential pain don’t get washed away with modern luxuries
I'VE HIT 400 FOLLOWERS !!!!!!!!! i'd like to thank everyone who made this possible (the people who follow me). hi i'm sara i'm a psychoanalytic personality (something i made up bc im a writer not a therapist) and right now i have an ear infection 🥰
Let go of the fear.
Let go of the lies.
Let go of the control issues.
Let go of the manipulation.
Let go of the selfishness.
Let go of that which has been stolen.
Let go of the denial.
Let go of the tendency to dehumanize.
Let go of the greed.
Decolonize.
this is a great example of how to politicize and twist something positive into a way to make others feel guilt about sustaining mental health through hardship
'Resilience' is a sneaky neoliberal trope. It frames, as a psychological virtue, painful endurance of circumstances from which others benefit at your expense.
♥️♥️♥️1000 FOLLOWER GIVEAWAY ALERT!!!!! ♥️♥️♥️
i’m so grateful for hitting 1000 followers that i wanna give back! want an inscribed copy of my book, along with a sticker and a magnet? then LIKE & RETWEET THIS POST to enter — contest closes on September 14th, so don’t delay!! ☺️
i went out with a group of girlfriends last night who unanimously agreed they could NEVER have or trust or open up to a straight male therapist. what exactly is up with this trend
i just edited the wikipedia page for "female hysteria" where some idiot said that freud thought "femininity was a weakness" and "probably had hysteria himself." it's the little things! :)
i feel like the most popular book topic for psychotherapists is the "how to be a therapist" subgenre. in some ways it makes me wonder if therapists feel more lost or insecure than other professions ...
i just saw on twitter the profile of a therapist in training who also has an onlyfans. i would ask your thoughts, hivemind, but …i feel like i already know what you’re gonna say 🤔
i know everyone’s talking about
@JonathanShedler
’s solid hot takes about the therapy industry on the superhumanize podcast. but i feel like the discourse is really missing something. namely his sweet gentle voice
i don’t usually play into fearmongering hysterics but this might be the scariest thread i’ve ever seen … and NOT because there’s a secret hidden wave of teenagers injecting testosterone 1/
Signs your daughter may be shooting up testosterone behind your back 🧵
This is by no means an authoritative or exhaustive list & does not constitute medical advice. I'd like to crowdsource this thread with help from any detransitioners & ROGD parents willing to contribute.
i wish that people in the dating world would stop full-stop labeling others as “red flags.” if you write off an entire person based upon arbitrary standards of behavior, you’ll never see them for the nuanced and complicated individual they may be .. and you’ll still be alone
there’s so many tropes of “a steady paycheck keeps the wife and kids happy!” or “gotta just make it through this next quarter!” for dudes and i think it’s understated how guys can get caught in the “did i really want this life” trap just like women can with childbearing
My toughest DEPRESSION cases are often older men who were very successful in their careers & thought the good life = become financially wealthy & retire on a beach w alcoholic beverage in hand.
Seems like a dream come true, but often it turns out to be a hellish nightmare.
i’m seeing my analyst in person today for the first time since pre-covid and to say i’m freaking out about it is an understatement. it’s been 3+ years!!!!!!!
3/ "Das Is und Das Es," I and It. The words were unfortunately mistranslated as Ego and Id, by a translator who thought he needed to make it sound more scince-y. Unfortunate, because the original words were experience-near & intuitive to anyone. The simple starting observation of
i got grabbed today by this mentally ill woman outside the bus station today. it’s not her i’m mad at — it’s the 911 operator who hung up on me when i requested an ambulance for her and the cop who called her a “crackhead”/joked that he’d “beat her up for me” who i hate
“coaching” that’s really just weird guru-led pseudo-therapy from some jerk-off who thinks their way of life is superior may in fact be one of my 2023 pet peeves
today i had a mélange at the cafe landtmann in vienna … hoping that i was sitting in the same seat that freud did so our butts could be touching through space and time ❤️
do you guys have any super basic 101 articles on teaching a therapist how to listen? i know a supervisor leading a didactic tomorrow w some v beginner therapists and could def use some literature!! 😚
i just learned that peter fonagy has a twitter but i’m literally scared to follow him because i idolized him in grad school & what if he sees one of my many racy and inappropriate jokes …
i have this theory that people these days have more difficulty with verbal communication because they never get challenged to verbalize their feelings — making it even harder to connect with people — and companies are capitalizing on that weakened muscle
I find the concept of ‘typed therapy’ very depressing especially when this is the example dialogue, barriers to accessing mental health support such as living in rural locations can not be addressed by poor quality interventions FYI
@JonathanShedler
idk if i get the whole “therapist voice” thing … i assume therapists have calmer tones for more serious times or expressive ones for more jovial times just like anyone does! i think if you put on a Grounding and Soft Therapist Voice constantly .. who are you trying to convince!
i finally got around to watching stutz and tbh it was fascinating. almost less about the “tools” etc and more about an intense relationship btwn a therapist and pt, two lonely souls gratifying their need for connection thru enactments ): now i’m sad
my book came out today. i was planning on doing a whole social media thing for it, but i just hung out with people close to me irl who i care about instead bc it’s also my birthday. lots of exciting business things happening tomorrow, but for today, i’ll just enjoy my success 💪🏻
if your child wont tell you something as important as the fact that they’re transitioning to a different gender, what makes you think a twitter thread gaslighting you into being an amateur doctor detective is going to help your relationship??????
ohhh boy i wasn’t going to rant about anything today but the “you can cure chronic pain with cbt/somatic therapy bc It’s Just Trauma Stored in Body” vent i just feel bubbling up inside me
@Sblahov
"Have you tried Cognitive Behavioural Therapy/mindfulness?" CBT is shown to be ineffective for anyone with more than mild anxiety/depression. But yeah, teach me how to gaslight myself at home, like I didn't get enough of it in doctors offices for years.
The entire field of psychology was built by pedophiles and perverts.
That Sigmund Freud is viewed as anything more than a manipulative, sexual pervert who created theories to cover the crimes of his pedophile friends is quite frankly, stunning to me.
ok but what about this .... what if there was a listserv of all the psychodynamic twitter pals who are looking to grow their practices !! i know not everyone is in the same location but i also know people are licensed in multiple states etc. ... just a thought
@JonathanShedler
dude’s fucking RIPPING into the modern definition of “evidence-based therapy” in literally the lightest and kindliest tone… the range! the versatility!
i suppose the only thing i have against philosophers is that they want to be treated like real intellectuals, like they have a properly realistic grasp of this thing called “critical thinking,” when all they’re doing is toying about with false equivocation and logical fallacies
id like to see more positivity on therapist twitter. i feel like a lot of therapists are hopeless - AI, companies that pedal watered down CBT, horribly run mh programs. but therapy is beautiful and im glad laypeople are curious abt it! bc where there's curiosity.. there's hope!
i’m not getting into the israel/palestine stuff but i had a friend post this weird pro-hamas “they’re freeing themselves from apartheid” post and i dmed her like honey please read the room!!!!! “rape and murder is cool now cause power dynamics” is so asininely american
therapy should be a place you can talk about what it feels like to be any identity - the good things, the bad things, the complicated things, the mixed feelings. a therapist who ONLY "yes-qweens" a pt gives them no room to have mixed feelings.. which are normal and human