I went to this practice because of Ellery Rosenzweig who has a HAES approach to her work, which I could not find within a reasonable commuting distance for in-person appointments. While I was at MYBody, every person that worked there was a white woman. A few times the front desk workers were rude to me and took my insurance card but did not scan or save the information, which led to payment difficulties. There is also no contact information listed for specific staff so the front desk is the main line of communication -- because they would not get back to me I was not able to schedule a psychiatry appointment for over a month and went without my medication for that time, which of course was very dangerous and resulted in significant consequences on my wellbeing.
In terms of therapy, I did communicate with Ellery what had worked and not worked for me with my previous therapist, and she did not seem to put in effort to make adjustments or accommodations based on my requests (I asked for emotional validation which should be easy for a therapist to provide, as it is part of their job). She had trouble empathizing with me and instead empathized with my abusers. When I presented concerns, she tended to question my experience and even laughed once. She reminded me that I should be grateful for certain troubles in my life since others in the world have it worse. All this invalidation of my experience, which is both the opposite of what I came to therapy for and the source of many of my traumas, led me to learn it was not safe to be vulnerable with her. In fact, it was actively causing harm and adding to the trauma. If one can't find a safe space with a therapist, who is there to go to?
One example of a time she questioned my experience was when I was describing a racial microaggression that I'd been a victim of. Despite being a supposed ally of people of color, her allyship both started and ended when she ~acknowledged~ that she was white. When I told her about what happened, she suggested that what I said happened wasn't actually true. She acted as if it was laughable that any racism had occurred. The utter audacity of a white woman to act as an expert on race and deny that racism exists. I have decades of experience being a person of color and she gaslit me.
She also seemed triggered when I had trouble articulating my thoughts. I am a pretty easy patient to work with, all things considered in the mental health field, but she got visibly upset that I was having trouble bringing words to a few of my experiences. Maybe she was not aware that this kind of response creates an environment in which therapy is less accessible to those who are not "good" at it. Therapy should be a place where people can learn to become more emotionally literate and work on developing skills. Unfortunately, I did not come predisposed with those skills, as many mentally ill people are because of their trauma. So I did not feel comfortable continuing with her as she was not creating a safe space for me to be in. Therapists should know that patients are in a vulnerable position and there is a power dynamic present in every interaction, where the therapist has the power. Therapists can inflict a lot of harm and as a result of this, I have not sought therapy again since. It simply isn't worth the risk to have a therapist repeat the very same dynamic that has brought me to therapy in the first place. read more
