Janet Saugstad

Games Therapists Play: How Punitive Diagnoses Allow the Fracture of Patient, Civil, and Human Rights -- with Impunity Janet Saugstad

Games Therapists Play is about one person's nightmare with psychotherapy and medication. It is based on her experiences after being raped by her neighbor, and includes comments by experts on rape and abuse by therapists. She focuses on medication side effects, the fracture of patient rights and the use of punitive mental health diagnoses. Her account makes the case that changes need to be made in the way professional psychotherapy licensing boards function. For the past thirty-five years, the self-help industry has asserted that therapists of all backgrounds can work miracles for people suffering from all kinds of mental illnesses and stresses from difficult situations. Their claims are often fantastic: an acrophobic, who after treatment, could work on the forty-fifth floor of a skyscraper: out of control children who develop responsible attitudes, marriages that are saved and depressions that are cured. The truth can be much different. Interestingly, The World Health Organization reports that the suicide of rate of therapists is among the highest of all professionals.