Wow! A lot's happened here since I was last on. I won't be able to address everyone, so sorry for anybody who misses out.
@Jacques, I must say I was appalled at what your father was told, though not really surprised. So much for college education being an environment for the expression and exploration of free thought. As I've often suspected, it's really all about brainwashing.
With a system based on an education regime like the one you describe, it's no wonder it's in such a crummy state. And where are the impartial overseers who are checking and insuring that this age-old wisdom the professors at the front of the lecture hall are spouting is both sound and ethical?
Lest we forget that once upon a time, to be gay was to officially be mentally ill. Obviously some faction within the therapy industry had enough presence of mind to notice the failings of this conclusion by their "wiser" forebears and push for a change in the official policy. Where would so many gay people be today if this prejudice was aloud to continue unchecked? If the footsoldiers of the therapy industry simply marched mindlessly in formation as their commanders ordered?
Tragically, we actually have an answer to this question in some degree. I've read testimony from actual therapists who state that there is a loophole within the rules of mental health care that allow homosexuality or bisexuality to be classified as something like a "miscelaneous sexual disorder" (or words to similar effect). Essentially, if you are gay and your therapist is homophobic, he/she has tools at his/her disposal to turn his/her problem in to your problem! The therapist who wrote this statement personally attested that she had had several homosexual patients who had been "wrecked" because a previous therapist's homophobia was able to intrude upon the therapy process and attack the patient's perfectly legitimate, respectable orientation and identity!
And all this has taken place decades after the official stance on homosexuality was corrected!
@Jacques, I believe every word you've said, but at the same time I can hardly believe that such arrogance and self-righteousness can be maintained so sturdilly with a system that is demonstratably flawed. It boggles the mind that this is the world we live in!
@NikNik, In addition to @Appleblossom's very valid points about self-doubt about our own assesments of the quality of our therapy, for some people (including myself) there's also an "Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind"-element to lashing out at the therapist.
When my therapy finally finished, I utterly despised the worst & longest-lasting of my therapists - I still do. And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't, on numerous occasions, thought long and hard about causing her some professional grief through a complaints process.
But then, I realize that I sat through 7 years of awful, soul-crushing misery with this woman, and if I do say so myself, I think I bore it all with admirable grace and dignity. All that's been done - it's beyond correction. As I said before, I don't have a time machine with which to correct the horrors of the past. So now, I am faced with a choice of whether that pain and suffering will end where it is, or whether it will beget pain and suffering for someone else - namely, the therapist, in the form of a troublesome/stressful inquiry, a tarnished name, a fine, or perhaps even a ruined career. Will hurting my enemy help me? Or has there been enough pain dealt in this ordeal? If the product of all that pain and suffering is simply that I was able to get out of that office without regurgitating any of that pain back on to someone else, then maybe that's the happiest ending that the story can possibly have.
I know a lot of people mightn't understand this, but my ambition in life has always been to be something good. I want the product of my life to be to make the world a better place; I want my effect on the lives of the people around me to make them better & more enjoyable. And maybe this is a bit presumptuous, but I'd imagine that a lot of "mentally ill" and "depressed" people have similar ambitions, because these people know more intimately then anyone just how dark and ugly the world currantly is and how desperately it needs the best of humanity to make it a place worth living.
That's why I don't want what may well be my biggest effect on the world around me to be to negatively effect the life of another human being, no matter how much I might hate her. Regardless of whether I would be an irritating mosquito bite, a thorn in her side, or an anvil that crushed her like a bug, there's enough pain and suffering in this world and I have no desire to add to it. Maybe some other damaged patients feel the same way?
