Ok.......now I'm really really REALLLLLYYYYYY done.......
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200909/why-shrinks-have-problems
Sure, Freud was peculiar, and, yes, I'd heard that Jung had had a nervous breakdown. But I'd always assumed that—rumors to the contrary notwithstanding;—mental health professionals were probably fairly healthy.
Turns out I was wrong.
Doctor, Are You Feeling Okay?
Mental health professionals are, in general, a fairly crazy lot—at least as troubled as the general population. This may sound depressing, but, as you'll see, having crazy shrinks around is not in itself a serious problem. In fact, some experts believe that therapists who have suffered in certain ways may be the very best therapists we have.
The problem is that mental health professionals—particularly psychologists—do a poor job of monitoring their own mental health problems and those of their colleagues. In fact, the main responsibility for spotting an impaired therapist seems to fall on the patient, who presumably has his or her own problems to deal with. That's just nuts.
Therapists struggling with marital problems, alcoholism, substance abuse, depression, and so on don't function very well as therapists, so we can't just ignore their distress. And ironically, with just a few exceptions, mental health professionals have access to relatively few resources when they most need assistance. The questions, then, are these: How can clients be protected—and how can troubled therapists be helped?
The Odd Treating the Id
Here's a theory that's not so crazy: Maybe people enter the mental health field because they have a history of psychological difficulties. Perhaps they're trying to understand or overcome their own problems, which would give us a pool of therapists who are a hit unusual to begin with. That alone could account for the image of the Crazy Shrink.
Of the many prominent psychotherapists I've interviewed in recent months, only one admitted that he had entered the profession because of personal problems. But most felt this was a common occurrence. In fact, the idea that therapy is a haven for the psychologically wounded is as old as the profession itself. Freud himself asserted that childhood loss was the underlying cause of an adult's desire to help others. And Freud's daughter, Anna, herself a prominent psychoanalyst, once said, "The most sophisticated defense mechanism I ever encountered was becoming a psychotherapist." So it's only appropriate that John Fromson, M.D., director of a Massachusetts program for impaired physicians, describes the mental health field as one in which "the odd care for the id." He chuckled as he said this, but, as Freud claimed, humor is often a mask for disturbing truths.
