My therapist is dismissive and ineffective
I got referred to a sexual violence charity in London because I got raped twice (once as a child and again by a different person as an adult). The therapist they’ve given me only wants to talk about feelings and nothing else. No tools to manage or heal trauma. She also says that because I’m not answering things how she expects, she claims to not understand me even though I detail the events of the trauma and how they’ve impacted me. I asked to change modalities and do something more active, like CBT and she made it all about her. She kept pushing the agenda to talk about feelings and refused to listen when I said I need something more solution/goal-oriented. I said this a week ago and when I went today, she didn’t even bother to ask for help so she try a different approach, I had to do my own research. This was after she admitted to being inexperienced in treating sexual violence victims.
I looked up her website and she doesn’t specialise in sexual violence and her focus is actually on giving mums space to vent as they parent. She said she’s only worked at the charity for 6 months and claims to have lots of experience with sexual violence, but her website doesn’t mention any of this, and I struggle to believe that she does given that she’s been so inept at helping me. When I asked about her experience, she began projecting again and saying how she’s not sure that how this is helpful and that she doesn’t feel comfortable talking about her approach. I said that she claims to make her patients feel seen, but this response is making the focus on her and I asked this because it’s good to know if a therapist’s approach is something I’ve found helpful before or is what I want to try. I’ve never had to tell a therapist to stop making a session about them and this is the second time I’ve had to say this to her in as many weeks.
Posted Aug 12, 2026, 8:25 PM UTC