First and foremost thank you for this forum, without it and further research I would not have developed the awareness to address my history with this woman. This is an old thread but I need to share my experience, if only it helps somone else. My apologies for any typos in that this was written quickly.
I started "working" with this person in 2008/2009. I ended around 2013-2014. I was around 19-20 at the time when I started. I had some personal issues I needed help with and did not know how to address. This lead me to getting into a relationship with a volatile woman who stalked me for a bit. I blamed myself and at the time, was reading online forums/websites that Schreiber and Palmatier (shrink4men) were apart of. I was also at University and working nearly 30-40 hours while studying and contributing financially to my family, which was effected by the housing market collapse. In 2008-2009 the notion of YOUNG men getting therapeutic help for personal matters was very much foreign on campus and my university had consistent chlamydia outbreaks that were the primary focus of the health center. I should of looked closer on campus, but these things were just not in the forefront of my mind in the midst of the pain I was in and stress I was under.
I found this woman after reading her "professional" work and seeing others, I assumed had accurate perceptions, cosign her. Especially the "Dr." Palmatier. These others would eventually become what is now known as the "manosphere" and "alt-right", either directly or through association. I was in a very vulnurable position and tried many things to help myself prior, including hypnosis, "positive thinking",NLP,etc,etc. "Therapy" was a new field to me and in my withdrawn state of emotional isolation as well as a busy schedule, I was desperate.
During our first phone call, the manipulation/sales/FOMO speak was laid on thick, along with the fake warmth. She insisted that she had many clients and was treating 2-3 therapists at any given time. She mentioned my age and how she could "help a damaged young man" much easier. I had reservations, which I now know were my own survival instincts warning me, but when I brought them up to her she insisted that other healing methods were incorrect and focused on the wrong things, that she could "get me out of my head" and "into my body" as well as be "more effective than other therapists, whom are often borderlines themselves." She also mentioned the "many things I had tried" and the time wasted on them. At this point an actual professional would of told me to find a counselor on campus, but Schreiber being who she is, suggested that I re-read her work and call her back so I can feel "ready."
I bit the hook, I was initially charged $150 a session on a weekly basis. Whenever I asked questions she would become curt and impatient. Being a college student I struggled to maintain this and she new that, but insisted "if you really want to heal and not end up like my therapist clients you will find the money." Since I bit the hook, I followed the line down and began exposing the issues that I had. Things I had not even told my family at the time. She insisted that, due to the nature of the issues present, I could not trust my perceptions and that I needed "reparenting" to correct my "core trauma." This was the power move that is now so obvious but back then I did not see it that way, having believed she was who she pretended to be. She insisted that I should call her if I ever feel despondent or down and that I should limit the contact with my family due to their alleged "toxicity." She also recommended that I take L-Tyrosine and later down the line, actual anti-depressants. She also insisted that I should not look into other therapists or their writings because that would be "triangulation" and would "sabotage my emotional growth, keeping my emotional age at that of a child." I had brought up Palmatier and she insisted that Palmatier had borderline features.
This was the beginning of the abuse I experienced from her. It was done like a slow drip. Once she convinced me, using highly technical psycho-jargon mixed with "new age" claptrap, to distance myself from my family she began cutting into me. She would go back and forth from the "wise old lady" routine to the grandiose,never wrong and "you must follow and not ask." I recall asking how "rubbing my heart and deep breathing" as well as "snapping a rubberband on my wrist" and "reading a list of good attributes I have" would help me engage reality. She insisted that I did not know enough to ask those questions and to "read her work again." This was really an admittance that they were useless and she did not know, but her focus there was to get me to invalidate myself.
This occured sparingly at first, under the guise of professional knowledge, then became the norm after about 1 year. This invalidation, often brought up alongside issues that I had, was a 1-2 punch. I truly began to doubt myself and looking back, I was more unstable AFTER engaging her than I was before. While with her, any issues that I had were due to me not "trying hard enough to heal" or "not using her tools correctly" and any percieved successes I had were due to "her expert knowledge given to me." I was still in University and very busy, so I began to slowly believe that I could not help myself, which I now know was her plan all along.
I felt myself withdrawing more and more. I eventually moved across the country, in part due to her suggestions. I was emotionally reliant on her and she often told stories of her "borderline therapist" clients. Looking back, these stories were all made up and contradictory, but I had no knowledge of these things and simply believed them. Her suggestion that I move away from my immediate family was also a ploy to get me more dependent on her. Once I had moved she because even more harsh, claiming she had to "yank my chain" to "keep me on the healing path." She would become hostile, if not irate, when I made contact with a relative or a love interest. I recall a time when I was given a phone number by a beautiful waitress at a restaurant I ate at. I excitedly told her and she was absolutely adamant that I do not call this woman, that "no real woman, unless she is a borderline, would give her number to man" and that she "could not work with me if I did not follow protocol, given the long wait list of clients." She also said "my healing progress is going good, but would be derailed if I did not continue with my "core trauma" work with her."
This manipulation partially worked on me. I did not fully cut off my family and friends. My cousins and others got wind of my behavior and began asking questions. My elder cousins suggested that this "Therapist" may not be that good and a good friend of mine suggested that I may be going down a dark path as well as cutting off family was an extreme move. Both were correct and my continued contact with them, even if I brushed off their passing observations, was beneficial.
She began to randomly say that I was "healing fine" and she could "let me go" and that my "energy would attract the right things to me." She eventually "let me go" from "treatment", which just meant that she got all the money she wanted outta me. Even though I had no more consistent contact with her, I still filtered reality through her ideas and believed that she knew what she was talking about. This was prior to the 2018 judgement and its publication in California. Needless to say, my relationship with reality became tenuous. I eventually gave up her "advice" while still looking at her as someone who was genuine and tried. I believed that I had a "core trauma" (I dont and didnt) and thought that , if she couldnt help me then I must of been entirely too damaged to be helped. I still had suspicions from the first time I spoke to her but I ignored them as I was taught to by her, repeating her psycho-babble to myself. Eventually I found my way to an actual therapist and described her behavior. Needless to say, the actual therapist was appalled.
It was explained to me that no therapist should be involved in suggesting distance from family unless that family is very hostile (mine is not) and even then, verbal hostility can be handled/opposed without disrupting your sense of self. One day, Out of the blue, Schreiber emails me asking "how I am doing" and hoping that I am "Doing ok." This was more than 4-5 years of no contact with her. I brought this up to the actual therapist and he was shocked. He said that something was not right with this woman based on everything I had said and this email. By then I still had not dug into her past and viewed her benevolently despite the abuse I recieved until there was a death in my family.
One night, after all of my responsibilities were handled and I had a moment to mourn my relative, a thought crossed my mind. "Google your old therapist." It was random, I was not thinking of her but reflecting on the relationship I had with my relative and lost time. Until I found bpdfamily, I had assumed Shcreiber meant well but was mistaken. Now I know she did not mean well and like a mosquito or vulture, was canvassing for vulnerable, naive people to use for money. I began reading all of the testimonials on this site and others. I must of read everything 5-6 times over, I was shock.
Everything you folks mentioned she did to me umpteen times. I was very young and did not have the knowledge/wisdom to get away from her and I did have actual issues that needed to be addressed. She used these issues (that she actually did not and could not help me with) to keep me around and dependent on her. The dependency she wanted was stated in the beginning, ie "reparenting", but I did not know it was a red flag. I had been used by someone I opened up too. I had tried for years to mold my life to fit into ideals that are not real and do not exist. I was constantly emotionally drained even if things went well but I could not explain why. My energy was spent using "Tools" and denying the reality of what I felt, that something was not right with what I was doing with her as well as her ideas. Once I read this information about who/what Schreiber truly is and the shock wore off, I felt a weight lift off of me. Its like I was in haze/daze and just coming out of it. It felt like I regained apart of myself back and had more energy.
I began calling my relatives, the ones I cut off per Schreibers recommendation. I had initiated contact a few years before based on my own estimations and we are all close now. I started explaining everything to them. One told me that he suspected something was up because if I was in therapy at the actual university, they would follow certain protocols that do not include cutting off relatives suddenly.
I spoke to a 3rd therapist about this woman and her behavior. It was then I realized that the only consistent thing I got from this woman was undercutting comments, sly insults and sprinkled "praise" for following her instructions. All delivered with a smile from her. I went into detail with this legit therapist and she too, was shocked.
She explained how small cults work and how some abusers take on "healing" positions to abuse vulnerable people. She explained how narcissistic abusive relationships are identical in all but name to how cults work, especially when the cult leader claims to be a professional. I also found people online, like Rick Alan Ross, et. al, who explained how cults erode your sense of self and anyone is susceptible to cultish influences if they are vulnerable. Through my contact with actual therapists and cult researchers, they showed me how I was abused and normalized it under the guise of "treatment" , all guided by a fraud who uses plausible deniability (" I never said I was a therapist" to then "I treat therapists and I am respected by them").
It was one thing for someone with good intentions to make mistakes. It's another to find out that the "therapist" who insisted that they "were adequately trained plus had therapist clients", that you had "borderline features", "lacked empathy," "had a mother who is likely a borderline", whose "Father is probably a narcissist", all while you expose your deepest pain about real issues to them at 20 years old never had good intentions in the first place. I was relieved to know that it wasnt me that had the terrible perceptions but I was also livid that this happened.
I can confidently say that this woman is a fraud, a liar, lacks empathy and uses her passing knowledge to lure in the vulnerable and naive. Even better if its a man because its easy to play on a (young or old) mans sense of his masculinity. I bit everything hook,line and sinker but was able to get back into the water ONLY because my relationships in the real world outside of this woman kept me from falling to deep in,despite the money and time loss.
These relationships kept me from falling too deep into the victim mentality she tries to inscribe (but denies) which puts her in the power position over the "client."
She now sells "do it yourself" courses, which directly contradict her initial messaging of "healing cant be done alone, to think so you would have borderline features" and "Self reliance is a sign of abuse since you couldnt rely on your parents."
But I am sure that "do it yourself" is just her new bait for the internet age.
I hope this story helps someone who is even considering "working" with her or her resources. Much energy and almost a decade of my life were wasted (4 years "Working" With her and 3-4 years of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole) and given my experience, her writings are likely autobiographical if not plagiarized from other sources on BPD/NPD that you can find on Amazon.
or maybe I just lack empathy
