20 Therapists Get Real About The Things They’ve Always Secretly Wanted To Tell Their Patients

Answers found on Ask Reddit

1. “During couples sessions: She/he is a toxic ass and you need to gtfo of this relationship. I don’t do couples anymore. I’ve found it exceedingly difficult for me to not take a side.”

2. “[During couple’s therapy] He’s cheating on you, you’re not insane, get the fuck out.”

3. “Therapy is for increasing functioning and decreasing distress. There may be circumstances in your life that you still dislike and want to work on, but those are not clinical concerns; if I begin treating the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune like a mental health disorder, you really will start to feel like you’re fucked.”

4. “I see how hard you’re trying, even when it’s just emotional effort with no changes in behaviour. I want to see you do well. I will hope you’re doing well long after we lose touch. Seeing you get better, even a little bit, is the best part of my job.”

5. “You’re doing all the right things, but your parents are vile and incompetent, and having you in therapy with me is not going to change that.”

6. “If you want to have some of the things your peers have (partners, jobs, in-person friends, educational attainments, outdoor hobbies, etc.), there is good chance your 8-12 hour daily marathon of gaming is holding you back.”

7. “If you want different outcomes than the ones you’re getting, you have to do different things. If you want things to change a little bit, you have to change the way you think and behave a little bit. If you want things to change a lot, you have to change the way you think and behave a lot.”

8. “It’s not the size of the change you make, it’s the consistency. If you’ve identified something as good for you, keep doing it. If you’ve identified something as bad for you, stop doing it. If it’s hard to start and stop things, take it slow but don’t do nothing.”

9. “It doesn’t hurt my feelings if you tell me I got something wrong, don’t understand, or aren’t helping you the way you’d like. This might be the single most important thing you can tell me for us to develop a treatment plan that really works for you.”

10. “Thank you for talking to me, having to care about you makes me forget my own shit for a moment.”

11. “You need to break up with him for the sake of your sanity.”

12. “I’ve had a couple of thoughts I’ve hid in my treasure trove of thou shall not say to patients if you don’t want to get sued-type of list:

13. “Oh this should be good.”

14. “To a lot of parents of my patients: You are the problem not your kids stop trying to live their lives for them.”

15. “Shut up.”

16. “Wow, you’re a sociopath. You know you’re a sociopath, right?”

17. “No, it wasn’t your reiki sessions that helped you dear, it was coming here once a week for months, but yeah, let me just smile and say how good is that reiki for you.”

18. “Omg girl, me too!”

19. “Today I’m in no mood of your evasions and resistances to what we’re trying to work with so stop talking about your damn cats!”

20. “No one is forced to love you for what you are, we’re just exhorted to respect you and recognize your dignity as a human being, so stop bugging that woman for not loving you for your fatness, your intellect and your medieval hygiene habits, so settle for the type of woman that likes your type or change and be the type of man that attracts the type of woman that you have idealized.”

And a bonus one, just because we all probably need to hear it…

21. “You’re creating the vast majority of your own problems.”