How do I as a future "Therapist" help ex-jws that won't move on from the WT?

by booker-t 84 Replies latest watchtower child-abuse

  • mamochan13
    mamochan13

    bookerT - congratulations on your degrees and your hard work. Like Roberta and a few others here, I also am a psychotherapist with a masters in psychology, and I am working on the requirements to register as a psychologist in my province. You are probably just reaching the practicum portion of your studies, and hopefully it will give you the opportunity to practice being the client, thus receiving helpful therapy yourself. That was the beginning of my own healing from JWs, and it is what drew me to the ex-JW community in the first place.

    My favorite form of therapy is groups. There is powerful magic that occurs when groups of people who have shared a traumatic experience undergo therapy together. The groups here not only offer mutual support and understanding, but a wealth of knowledge that we need to help us deprogram years (often a lifetime) of dysfunctional thinking.

    Each person must heal in their own way and at their own time. "Moving on" is not black and white. Some can walk away without a thought. Others move on, yet need to remain active for a whole range of reasons. Many are here because moving on for them means helping others and supporting exiting JWs by saying *gasp* the same stuff over and over.

    Becoming an effective therapist takes time, too. I come from an existential therapy perspective, and I believe that you grow and learn with every client. Every person you engage with in therapy changes you, too. I also believe that my background has taught me important things that I can use to help others, and it sounds like you are trying to translate your learning into practical ways to help the ex-JW community, too.

  • Londo111
    Londo111

    The Organization teaches a one-size-fits-all answer for everything and everyone. However, individuals are individuals. Circumstances differ. Personalities differ.

    If a person’s friends and family was being held hostage, would “Move on” be the proper advice? Well, our friends and family are captives. For many of us, the organization is using them as hostages. The threat is: “Leave and you’ll lose them.”

    And many have ended up losing their friends and family anyway and the organization keeps them from us. Mentally and emotionally they are held captive, so that the organization convinces people, “Oh, it’s their personal choice if they shun someone.” A Jedi mind trick.

    Does a person “move on” if their friends and family are hostage, but they themselves are free? Or do you do everything you can to learn about the captors and seek ways to free them?

    And what about those freshly exiting the Organization and hurting? Do we not want to be there for these people? After all, many of us have been in their situation. We can’t simply “move on” and abandon these hurting people.

  • Tater-T
    Tater-T

    when you figure it out let me Know.. because I was hoping to go to therapy for just that..

    Don't they cover that in therapy 101?

    I'm being serious too. I know I kid alot..

    My not being able to move on after 20+ years out, lead me here.... It's kinda hard when you've been brainwashed since birth that nothing in this world is worthwhile.. except waiting for god to FIX IT all in his new order..

    Please let me know if you have a cure for this

  • Roberta804
    Roberta804

    BookerT,

    The biggest thing I learned in my practice, and from my own therapy, is that I could not treat a JW patient on account of the strong transference issues that would naturally arise. I am very psychoanalytic in my approach. It would be almost the same as treating a family member. I remember a teenage girl I was treating whose parents divorced. We were well into our 3rd month of active treatment when she finally started talking about her Father, a JW elder. It was a real fight for me to keep her goals front and center and not let my instant hate of her father color treatment. She became an expensive patient for me as I needed to seek out weekly supervision to keep a healthy and proper transference.

    If I could redo my college years and young adulthood, I would stay away from anything to do with psychology and go into something concrete like law or medicine so I don't have to deal with transference issues so much.

  • frankiespeakin
    frankiespeakin

    I would also think of being psychoanalyzed yourself because you need to be together and know yourself and what your own weaknesses are if your going to be giving professional psychological advice as a therapist.

  • 144001
    144001

    How do you help them move on?

    Start with arm farts, and then, when you have their attention, lift your left ass cheek and discharge all of the intestinal gas you've stored up. That ought to help them "move on," right out of your office.

    You can charge extra for the fart gas.

  • Roberta804
    Roberta804

    144001 your funny

  • Dismissing servant
    Dismissing servant

    In a way I think Booket-T is right. The best thing is to forget and move on..and the worst thing for each person is acting the "victim role". Nevertheless the JW-organisation has been an important thing in ours lives, and most of us have relatives and friends left in the organisation.

    I was also a bit surprized when I started reading at this forum...I asked myself, why the heck are people here reading the WT and Awake magzines? I don't mind that they do, but I wouldn't do it, I find those mags very boring. But it might be a good thing exposing certain phrases to the public. But one have to be careful to not be an "Apostate Don Quijote".

    And yes, for the mental health of the partisipants of tis forum I think it would be better if we discussed more of non_JW-related topics, like nice apostafests for instance!

    But, Booker, you are free to start some cunstructive threads!

  • Xanthippe
    Xanthippe

    Wow bookerT you've stirred up a hornet's nest here haven't you? I have been out for twenty-four years and only came to look up some facts on here a few months ago and yes I think I probably have become somewhat addicted. I do keep trying to wean myself off this site and only look at it occasionally. There was no internet when I left but my husband and I did decide we weren't going to spend our lives being anti-cultists. Besides there was so much else to do, money to be earned, a house saved for after living in rented apartments for 16 years and a family to start etc.

    I have had counselling and I have benefited from it. I do understand what Tater-T is saying that feeling that nothing in this world is worthwhile as we were taught is difficult to shake. Because many of us now believe that there isn't a divine plan after all we have to devise our own plan. To me what makes my life worthwhile is being a good parent, travelling and seeing the world, creativity, art and beauty, reading good books, charity and voluntary work. Different things give life meaning to different people. If you can help people find meaning in their lives when you become a therapist bookerT then you will have done your job.

  • steve2
    steve2

    Booker-t you sound a little like me a few decades ago (1980s). The mission-like pomposity is stinking out your otherwise worthy concerns. Move on from spouting the psychobabble about 'moving on' and exhibit less of the How-can-I-help-ex-JWs? You could start by stepping down from the need to help them - unless they're lining up in your waiting room. No (registered) health practitioner does anyone else any favors by trying to get them to move on, regardless of what your 101 text spouts.

    Your best training at this stage should be broad and be guided by less focus on the 'us-and-them' divide you seem to have perfected. If my comments make sense to you, I'd say you will be on the right track in no time. If my comments upset and/or confuse you,I worry about what unfortunate messages you'll give any of your future unsuspecting clients.

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