7 Signs Revealing That Your Psychologist is Toxic or Potentially a Fraud; A Guide for People Willing to Consult

CW; suicide, abuse, threats

I promised I would make a tutorial to help people check whether or not their psychologist is legit or a fraud. My first article on Psychology was about convincing you to go to a psychologist. This one is about my story with a fake psychologist, how I realized what was going on, how it ended and what lessons I learnt from it.

In such scenarios, abuser-victim relationships, trying to understand the point of view of the abuser is good for general knowledge and how to prevent them. However, understanding the point of view of the victim is more crucial, because such testimonies will help other victims to cope with their own experience and prevent potential victims to suffer.

I have always ignored the need to go to a psychologist. Until I was 20, the only people who ever talked to me about the possibility to even go to a one were my parents, but they phrased it as a threat. When I had emotional breakdowns, for whatever the reason, the use of “you want to go see the psychologist?” was a way for them to make me shut up or it would mean I am crazy and I would need professional help. As a result, I always associated going to a psychologist with being crazy. After all, what I had “was no big deal”.

The other person who talked to me about such possibility was my girlfriend. It happened after I mentioned the period of my life where I was a far right extremist. Even if I thought it was no big deal at that time, I kept crying when talking about it. This is when she realized that it might be wiser to consult a psychologist. Unfortunately for me (and her), I thought it was not worth the effort, because after all “I wasn’t crazy and whatever happened with me and extremism was just a weird phase”.

The reason I finally decided to see a psychologist was when I had to run away from my parents because they couldn’t accept my relationship with my girlfriend and used everything they had (threats regarding money, manipulation, emotional blackmailing, lies, intimidation…) to force me to breakup with her. It ended up with me fleeing my country with nothing but my clothes, phone, and wallet.

I was so mentally broken down that I couldn’t wait for my doctor to refer me to a psychologist and thus decided to contact a private one. We knew her thanks to her reputation as a former study adviser and considered she would be good for me.

It is not what happened. A background check may have warned me about who she really was (she did not fulfill the requirements to be able to legally exercise psychology in the country I was in), but the red flags were so numerous that I should have stopped seeing her as soon as I noticed them. However, I was so desperate to see a psychologist to talk about my problems and she was so eager to have me as her client that she did everything to make me stay. Here are the warning signs that I had from her and that you should look for when you are seeing a psychologist:

1. Encouraging You to Blame Everyone for Your Issues

Except for very obvious situations where she had to put the blame on me, she kept encouraging me to put it on other people (my girlfriend, my parents, my friends,…).

1. Shaming Mental Illness

She kept telling me that a diagnosis is not real, and made many inappropriate remarks regarding mental illness. The most striking one was when I asked her if I could have a personality disorder, and she just replied with “don’t make yourself crazier than you already are”. I think it is quite self-explanatory, whether regarding the insult toward people with a personality disorder, or the complete lack of tact and professionalism regarding my fears and my own mental health.

1. Talking Too Much About Him or Herself

At some point, I was feeling so anxious and worthless that I became suicidal. I spent around a week thinking about such option and the different possible way to achieve it. I finally decided during this episode that I wanted to throw myself from the top of the ruins from an old factory that was in my town. I quickly texted my therapist about it and went to hers. There, though she still managed to make me calm down a bit, she spent most of the session talking about how she had to kick out a customer to let me in and how she herself wanted to commit suicide when she came here and got left by her ex-boyfriend (which was my biggest fear at that time). She kept explaining the details about how it happened to her, how miserable she felt and why she decided to stay in this country because she knew euthanasia (in her case, suicide) was legal, and how it would be more honorable for her to go through a medical procedure to do that instead of doing it herself.

1. Rushing a Diagnosis or Over-diagnosing

After one or two sessions, she already knew what I had, or least pretended to. She told me that I was suffering from trauma and that that was the only reason ever why people had mental problems and needed to see a psychologist. It took several months before she finally gave me a “diagnosis” and she straight up told me that I had PTSD. Psychologists are supposed to take time and effort before assessing you a diagnosis and engaging in therapy. Moreover, there are very specific requirements to have PTSD (check this website to have more information regarding PTSD: https://www.brainline.org/article/dsm-5-criteria-ptsd ). Finally, telling me that I was suffering from PTSD because of my personal experience and without any argument to support this claim, is extremely insulting toward people actually suffering from PTSD, because this disorder affects them for the rest of their life.

1. Becoming Overly Defensive About Feedback or Criticism

It regularly happened when I was questioning her methods and statements or when my girlfriend did so.

1. Imposing Religious, Spiritual, Political or Social Beliefs

After a couple of sessions (and therefore months) where it was basically me talking about my problems (and not achieving any real progress), we started “therapy”. Here is how it happened. I was supposed to write on a board a sentence representing something I desired (e.g. I want freedom), breaking in down by words, and sticking them on different patches of color. The squares represented men and circles women. I had then to scatter them through the room and choose one of them to stand on it. I was supposed to then connect with my deeper self to make this part of my psyche talk. At some point, she started to stand herself on one of the patches and started to talk in the name of one of my psyche part, the latter incarnating itself in her.
As you can see, it is a very spiritual process and as you can guess, completely not what real psychology is about. But according to my therapist, “that was the truth”.
It is also for this reason that she did not appreciate at all the presence of my girlfriend during these “sessions”. After 3 of them (my girlfriend only saw the third one), I decided to stop as it became really unsettling for me and for my girlfriend. My girlfriend, who has experience in psychology, advised me to see another psychologist.

1. Being overly present.

I had her contact and we were regularly texting each other, maybe once a week between the sessions and for on average one hour. A psychologist is not supposed to become present like this in your life, to be your friend or to act like one.

Finally there was a final point that completely overrules all the others. She tried to frame me. During of first session, which happened as soon as I could contact her, we “agreed” on a certain arrangement regarding the payment. Since she was a private “psychologist” (which she wasn’t but she never deemed necessary to state it), I should have pay her by session, but she told me that since my financial situation was very unstable at the time (I literally arrived in town the previous day with nothing but my clothes, ID and phone), I would be free to pay when I want in the future. I agreed to that. She sent me a contract months later, which was completely different from what we agreed. I didn’t sign the contract; the conditions where completely preposterous regarding the payment and deadlines. She told me soon after this that I would have to pay her soon and that if I didn’t, she would make me pay way more, according to the contract conditions (which again, I did not agree upon and which I didn’t sign). She also threatened me that if I didn’t comply, she would have to send someone to my house to collect the money.

At this point, I decided to contact a lawyer, and wrote her upon the lawyer’s advice a letter regarding why I refused her demands. Her demands were against the law and were just worsening my mental state which was already pretty bad. It has been months and I didn’t hear from her again and I hope it will stay the same.

As you can imagine with this story, I became quite paranoid regarding psychologists, but it did not prevent me to continue seeing one (one recognized by the state and advised by my doctor). It taught me however a very good lesson, whether it comes to legal agreement or psychologists and how to be careful with what I want exactly and to make myself heard.

I do hope that this article or similar bad experiences you had or heard someone else have will not prevent you to see a psychologist. These people are as necessary for us and our well-beings as doctors are for our bodies. As a result, here is what you should remember: do not be afraid but be careful.