Psychological Counseling Might Cause Another Trauma   - Getting Closer to God's Voice 1985

Melancholy often caused by the feeling of loss, coupled with the loss of hope. Chances are, many people embrace mild chronic depression without knowing it. They deny the possibility of a good life or a better life. They devalue themselves and their ability to secure the life they want for the next decades. They lose hope for the future, and their brain is rife with hostile negative thoughts toward themselves. They are physically alive, but their inside soul is dying or weathering.

 

Chances are, you harbor the bad memories with the desire to accuse or revenge those who hurt you. You are the one who is unwilling to let it go.

 

Let the past-tense even stays in the past. Stop carrying the pain.

 

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Are there possible risks of adverse effects of psychological therapies?

Demand people to retell terrifying or heartbroken traumatic events over and over again can be fatal to our brain. I would say, it is not definitely beneficial to talk over painful or traumatic experiences repeatedly during the route to self-recovery.  

Retelling negative experiences might exacerbate trauma, which strengthens the painful memories in the brain through repetitive behavior of talking and recalling.

 

As depressed people recall their former memories, they are seemingly experiencing the same disaster over again. Further, studies found that retelling a terrible experience may not release or explode bad energy, which might even build up negative energies instead.

 

More and more researchers found that survivors of horrible events feel worse after going through counseling.  

 

According to Jim Wood, professor of psychology at the University of Texas at El Paso, the most serious problem is that its norms “pathologize normal healthy people.”

 

If our faith dictates our emotion and behavior, do the patients who undergo psychological counseling are led to believe they have mental disorders?

 

Jim Wood pinpoints that studies show that 70 % of people with no psychopathology will come out as if they are seriously disturbed. In a sense, a counseling psychologist might analyze people’s worries or trauma in a pathological approach. As much as 38.4% of people found their unpleasant memories resurfaced after retelling.[1] There were people found themselves suffer from more serious problems with sleep, stress and anxiety after going through counseling. They feel more depressed, dejected and hopeless after talking therapy. 

 

It’s never easy to give comfort.

I suppose the psychiatry professor and the so-called professionals are doing harm to the survivors by victimizing their life experience by throwing improper compassion and pity or even blaming.

 

I would say, some counselors might behave as if he or she is descending to the survivors without awareness. It would be harmful to exhibit a patronizing manner toward someone’s pathetic condition by preaching cliché and big lessons with excessive compassion.

 

Q: What can be done? How to help the survivors of a traumatic event defeat their mental wounds?

 

#Rule1: Help them build connection and find hope for the future

Those who witness or experience a traumatic event might desperate to build a sense of connectedness, and they might get pessimistic or hopeless about their future. Thus, people around them should help them to build hope for the future.

 

# Rule 2: Don’t victimize their life experience by labeling them as a victim or weak. Arouse their inner strength and self-confidence.

Help them interpret their life experience with positive meanings by seeking hidden chances.

 

#Rule 3: Do not ask them to retell sad disturbing stories repeatedly which might be terribly harmful to our brain and soul.

 

 

#Rule 4: Treat them as equal or normal people rather than a patient with respect and understanding. 

Chances are, some patient sense implicit or indirect prejudice-oriented judgments or roundabout blaming from the counseling psychologist. Indeed, many counseling psychologists cannot relate to the patient’s wounded mind if they never encounter similar life experiences. 

 

#Rule 5: Do not heal a person’s mental wounds by pills.

Chronic depression can potentially make a person’s cognition degenerates.[2] The circuit begins to shrink and the growth factors that stimulate the brain decreases, even the cells shrink and lose its vitality.

 

#Suggestion

• Never share the small troubles to people around you only if you can handle it. Laugh over the little trivial stuff to develop your senses of humor.
• Do not retell the bad happenings repeatedly. It does you and your brain no good.

If a problem troubles you for two days or more, or if it too much for you to bear alone, you’d better find someone trusty who happens to be more rational than you to share your worries.

 

Do not retell the bad happenings repeatedly. By doing so, it would damage your brain by instilling too much negative energy successively. Reviewing the past bad happenings repeatedly does you no good. Learn from the past and let it go.

 

Life is too short. Trials could be the tests from God to make you a stronger, humbler and more compassionate. Self-Growth can’t be achieved without trails. If you are safe and sound, there’s no tragedy. Do not victimize yourself. Never. 

 

#Stress and Depression

Our brain responds quickly to threats for the sake of survival. Positive thinking makes our brain relax by believing that everything is under control. Conversely, when we suffer from overwhelming stress, constant worry or repetitive compulsive negative thinking, our brains are led to believe that there is an immediate threat or even life-threatening threat. That’s why our brains respond to negative thoughts more quickly than positive thoughts.

 

Studies found that long-term psychological stress causes an overuse of the safety mechanism in our brain, which weakens our immune system. Yes. Negative thinking causes more harm to us than we expect.

 

A study in the Journal of Clinical Psychology studied the effects of worrying on performing a task and they concluded that negative thinking hurts our ability to process information and think clearly. In a sense, negative thinking is bad for problem-solving.

Yang Jianming, a professor of psychology at the School of Politics who studies sleep medicine, said that the physiological functions of the human body can only cope with the stress generated in a short period of time. Over the years, the enormous pressure can easily lead to autonomic nervous disorders such as insomnia, anxiety, depression, panic, and palpitations.

 

The story of overcoming depression is also a story of reconciliation of lost. As we fall into depression, melancholy affects the way we look at life and undermines our judgment and possible happiness. It stops us from making valid and accurate decisions.

 

At bottom, the danger of depression is that it leads to further loss in life.

The greatest thing about life is we are always given another 24 hours to secure what we want out of life.

 

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Many people experience betrayals through interpersonal relationships. Hence, they are more likely to have trust issues. And those who suffer from self-denial and self-loathing are mentally vulnerable indeed. 

 

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Q: What are the potential dangers of psychological counseling and therapy?[3]

 

The patients might be forced to retell and reveal their troublesome past, shameful secrets or old wounds to the psychologist or the therapist.

 

Without full trust, the patient might suffer from high sense of anxiety and insecurity by afraid of having another betrayal or biased judgments.[4]

 

The psychologist or the therapist might be judgmental to the patient’s wounds consciously or not. The therapist and psychologist are not saints and they are not God. They can’t read people’s mind. They could never feel what their patients feel if they never experience something alike. If the psychologist doesn’t have similar experiences, they might find it hard to relate the pain, suffering and disappointments of the patients. And it would definitely hard for them to build connections with the patients.

 

Depressed people are mentally vulnerable to an extreme, any implicit unfriendly comments or blaming might not hurt average people but would do harm to the serious depressed ones. Those who seek help from the psychological therapy can be emotionally helpless, many of them are probably emotionally and physically drained. They are the ones who desperate to end pain and suffering. They might desperate to earn recognition and love and self-confidence but constantly failed. They are the ones who need to feel the warmth of being loved, which might make them rush into an intimate relationship. 

 

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Here are the thought-provoking questions: Can therapists keep the privacy of therapy for a lifetime without telling anyone for the sake of the patient’s wellbeing? What about the morality of all the psychotherapists? If psychological counseling works, why the patients have to rely on the pills to deal wither their mental wounds? [5]How does it feel to tell your troubles or big secrets to a stranger who happens to be a doctor? Are people able to trust your doctor after betrayed by many loved ones? Would the patients be blamed for being pessimistic or depressed? Should the psychologist and patient keep in touch in daily lives to deepen their relationship and connection? Would it proper for the psychologists to share their personal similar experiences or secrets to their patients so as to win the trust from the patients? Will the patients become more vulnerable by revealing their greatest weakness and their unspoken trauma to the psychologists?

 

Q: What are the possible solutions to replace psychological counseling? 

1) pet therapy[6]: Pet can potentially offer an unconditional nonjudgmental relationship with human beings. Maintaining a social network isn’t always easy. And pets are a great way for adults to feel connected. In a nutshell, pet therapy would be a better option than anti-depression Drugs. More and more studies found that pets do make a contribution to the owner’s health, such as lower blood pressure, lower stress level, less incidence of heart disease, and lower overall health care costs.

2) painting therapy: It helps visualize your fear, sorrow and depression to help you know your subconsciousness more. 

I love the idea that someone visualizes our fear and depression into a painting, which might help us to get more clarity of our inner thoughts or hidden fears. Most of us are probably not keenly aware of the multi-layered emotional ebb flow of ourselves because we do not take much time to figure out our feelings inside. 

Pet’s company proved to release endorphins in which produce a calming effect. This can help alleviate pain and improve people’s overall psychological health.

3)food therapy: Seek the advice from the nutritional therapist to see if your body is insufficient of some vitamins and minerals which might lead to depression. Also, binge eating or emotional eating is a bad idea.

4) physical therapy: Exercise with acupuncture session and daily sweating routine

5) To be a volunteer and help others in need will make your mind stronger by playing the role of caregiver. Do not ask for love but try to be a caregiver. Embrace the role of caregiver would give you more strength than ever. 

 

※Cognitive behavior therapy is recommended in preference to pills for people who suffer from mild to moderate depression and anxiety. Nevertheless, a major new study into psychological therapies and counseling reveals incorrect or poor-quality care can do more harm than good. More and more notice the adverse effects of psychological therapies (AdEPT).

Prof Glenys Parry[7], being the chief investigator of the government-funded AvEPT study, she asserts.” Most people are helped by therapy …has also got the ability to make things worse if it is misapplied or it’s the wrong treatment or it’s not done correctly.”

 

Prof Glenys Parry pinpoints that there has always been the risk of a “therapist misbehaving.” She adds “If airline pilots said we get some people who crash, we’d all be worried about it. We have got to learn from when things go wrong.”

 

The conclusion: Talking therapy might not work for everyone and if it does not practice properly, there might be consequence or any trauma.

A website quotes words from different clients who feel more terrible after undergoing a talking therapy.

“I was starting to feel like I was at fault for not making it work.” “The therapist verbally attacked my character and told me I was being over the top. The next week she said she was sorry for what she had said while also blaming me for provoking the outburst.”

[1]After learning new things, short-term memory and long-term memory are simultaneously formed, but they are controlled by different neural circuits in the brain.

[2] Depression cause “neurological diseases” with a high proportion of insomnia.

[3] The number of major depressive disorder (MDD) is on the rise. There’s an argument that if some patients hadn’t had the therapy, they could not survive either. Indisputably, counseling treatments might be effective or helpful for those who have strong desire to commit suicide.

[4] As to psychotherapy profession, there are studies found that some clients’ state of mind deteriorated after courses of treatment. One of the reasons is that some clients might feel betrayed or hurt by the comment of their psychologist or therapist.

[5] Anti-depressants can be life-saving in many cases but it’s definitely not a good option in the long term.

[6] Pet therapy is a guided interaction between a person and a trained animal.

[7] She is a chartered clinical psychologist and fellow of the British Psychological Society, accredited psychotherapist and NHS Consultant.