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[quote=Anonymous]I’m gonna be the fly in the ointment here and say maybe the therapist is not so terrible.

You describe your kid as being prone to high emotions and empathetic and “dramatic”. While you are more black and white and “let’s just fix it.”

When people, especially artists, feel things very deeply, and those feelings are dismissed or not treated seriously by other people (their family), it can be very wounding.

My parents also hate a “victim mentality.” But it means they downplayed and did not take seriously actual bad things that happened to me. “Oh you are so dramatic”  
They would try to talk me out of my emotions, and get frustrated if I would not quickly be returned to even Keel.

The result is that I stopped talking to them about what was really going on with me. They really were not parents for me other than providing me with things and experiences. I was kind of emotionally on my own. They sent me to camps and supported my hobbies. It’s easy to do that, you just write a check. But in terms of being able to sit with me and listen to what I had to say and be truly empathetic… That just did not exist. I was constantly being told that I was feeling too much, I was feeling the wrong things, or that they were something sort of wrong with me for the way I was. I think that’s what your kid means if she says she feels like she was born into the “wrong family.”

Honestly I would just stop thinking about your kids career path and having thoughts about it (You can set boundaries like you know you have to move out of my house, I won’t financially support you, whatever without being judge mental about your kids choices) and focus on supporting your kid emotionally, Which would  mean acting in different ways than you have up until now. Rather than just blaming the therapist, maybe consider the possibility that someone outside of your relationship see something true about your interactions. Your kid is expressing anger and disappointment and rather than being annoyed at this, you should be grateful that she’s trying to have a relationship with you. Because I can tell you at this point I would not even attempt this with my parents, because I know they would not take anything I said seriously and not seriously consider the possibility that they really hurt me when I was young because that is just too painful for them. A lot of times artists are willing to face pain in ways that other people are not. They use it to make beautiful things.
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