Not too surprising, in my experience, yet what OTHER businesses are so skittish about customer satisfactions?

It would help if the bad therapists identified themselves as such before a client started with them, but as it stands, each client is on their own for figuring out whether they have a good therapist or a bad one.

Actually, if she's 5 I'd get her checked for genetic disorders (particularly pernicious anemia), nutritional deficiencies, and immune disorders before putting her on Zoloft. I've lost count of the number of children and teenagers with pernicious anemia and iron-deficiency anemia who got misdiagnosed with major…

A few weeks, I had the worst shrink appointment ever. I've had a lot of shrinks over the past year and been blessed with really good ones but this one (who I randomly picked out because she's one of the very few covered by my insurance who's close to my university) was a nightmare. She kept trying to trick and upset…

I've never commented on Jezebel (even about the vile, vile person who does the "ask the shrink" or whatever column on Gawker. He's breaking all kinds of ethical codes and gives the profession a very bad name.)

Sometimes I think there is no greater example of megalomania than a psychologist/psychiatrist.

I loved this article. From 14-20 I sought help for depression and anxiety, but had a slew of bad therapists and psychiatrists. But I always thought it was me and not them, since they were the professionals. I stopped going back to her back after she said I was suicidal (I was not) to hurt other people and make them…

There was one, therapistratings.com, but last I heard it was shut down due to lawsuit threats.

After reading all these comments I have to ask: is there like a "Yelp" for shrinks? Where you can get reviews of local ones & go from there?

This a great article for me. After a sort of OCD breakdown my junior year I went to my college's counseling center. My first counselor was great, helped me really open up. Then she sent me to a psychiatrist because she thought I needed more than what she could offer. A psychiatrist is not a counselor of therapist,…

Jesus, that's horrible! I wrote a bit, below, about my awful therapist who suggested I call my rapist to give him a chance to apologize.

This, so much. Bless her heart, I have a wonderful friend who was a Psych major in college and now wants to go get her Master's in Social Work, but lord knows she is NOT cut out to be a therapist (which is what she wants to do). She's not at all empathetic and tends to think that a "tough love" approach will solve…

I'm glad to read a story about standing up to a mental health professional. It's a very hard thing to do, but one of the healthiest moves you can make.

I'm not much for baring the soul, but I'll reveal a smidge, in the hopes that it will help others.

Really glad to read this. I recently fired my shrink by default (I moved across the country). I've had 3 shrinks in my life. The first one I was forced to go to when my parents divorced. She was a social worker and she ended up telling me more about her life than I ever did tell her. And I was 14 at the time.

This was a wonderful piece and I'm so glad you shared your experiences because more people need to know they can fire their therapists when shit gets weird. It took me 20 years to talk about being raped as a teenager and the woman therapist who I told (recommended to me by my long-time gyno, at that) countered with a…

That is EXACTLY what therapists say whenever the topic of harmful therapy comes up. But scratch a little to see what evidence there is for their claim and....they've got nothing. Sorry.

I get so mad about this. I think a lot of psychology is just shit. People get these degrees and think they have some special insight, when in fact what makes a good therapist are untrainable innate qualities like empathy and emotional intelligence. I've had therapists so emotionally unintelligent as to be incapable of…

This. I got my head bitten off a few weeks ago when I said this on groupthink. Some people are very invested in their hope that therapy will fix their problems.

Seeing how psychology is mostly a racket you might have to go through a whole lot of doctors before you find one who isn't just after your money.